Scientists Prove Politically Polarized Brains Share an Intolerance of Uncertainty

From the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2021

...scientists at Brown University measured and compared the brain activity of committed partisans (both liberals and conservatives) as they watched real political debates and news broadcasts. In a recent study, they found that polarization was indeed exacerbated by intolerance of uncertainty: liberals with this trait tended to be more liberal in how they viewed political events, conservatives with this trait tended to be more conservative....'

'to examine whether and how intolerance for uncertainty shapes how political information is processed in the brain, the researchers recruited 22 committed liberals and 22 conservatives. They used fMRI technology to measure brain activity while participants watched three types of videos: a neutrally worded news segment on a politically charged topic, an inflammatory debate segment and a non-political nature documentary. '

When the researchers analyzed participants' brain activity while processing the videos, they found that neural responses diverged between liberals and conservatives, reflecting differences in the subjective interpretation of the footage. People who identified strongly as liberal processed political content much in the same way and at the same time—which the researchers refer to as neural synchrony. Likewise, the brains of those who identified as conservative were also in sync when processing political content.

"f you are a politically polarized person, your brain syncs up with like-minded individuals in your party to perceive political information in the same way," FeldmanHall said.

This polarized perception was exacerbated by the personality trait of intolerance of uncertainty. Those participants—of any ideology—who were less tolerant to uncertainty in daily life (as reported on their survey responses) had more ideologically polarized brain responses than those who are better able to tolerate uncertainty.'

The researchers did not observe the polarized perception effect during a non-political video or even during a video about abortion presented in a neutral, non-partisan tone.

"This is key because it implies that 'liberal and conservative brains' are not just different in some stable way, like brain structure or basic functioning, as other researchers have claimed, but instead that ideological differences in brain processes arise from exposure to very particular polarizing material," van Baar said. "This suggests that political partisans may be able to see eye to eye - provided we find the right way to communicate."

Also and on a side note; scientists have also apparently proven that mammals can breath through their anuses in emergency situations. Which might explain why filibusterers can go on so long.

 

That's why we have smarties bar and grill here to help cool tensions down.