Liberal vs Conservative Brains


White men tend more toward conservatism in white dominated societies, but I wonder if men in all cultures aren't more “conservative” than women, if by conservative we mean dominance-oriented, sexist, physically competitive, status conscious and in-group oriented. I think these things are based on fear and anger, and highly related to the male tendency to glory in warfare. Nearly all little boys love toy soldiers.

I believe men have a greater tendency to accept the dominance situation than women do, and this is one of the keys to being a liberal, I believe. Liberals don't want to dominate, but they don't want to be dominated, either. They want to cooperate and be respected. Liberals are much more likely to think for themselves and form their own philosophy from the evidence of their eyes. They also are more likely to champion the “underdog” in a fight, and feel greater empathy toward people as individuals than do Conservatives do.

It would be interesting to see some studies on women and men who are at variance with their gender stereotypes on amygdala and ACC size. Are they also conservative or liberal in relation to the size of those structures? Does their gender identity (not necessarily sexual preference) match their respective amygdala/ACC size? Is that an inborn trait or perhaps occurring in early childhood development, or do lifetime stressors such as abusive treatment during an individual's life actually cause an increase in the size of the amygdala. Do all fearful people follow the leader because that seems safer?




Liberal vs. conservative: Who has better brain?
By DAVID W FREEMAN CBS NEWS April 7, 2011, 12:24 PM

(CBS) Are political leanings hard-wired into the brain? That's the suggestion of a new study that reveals striking anatomical differences between the brains of liberals and those of conservatives.

The brains of people who call themselves liberals tend to have larger anterior cingulate cortexes than the brains of people on the opposite side of the political spectrum, the study showed. The anterior cingulate cortex is a collar-shaped region around the corpus collosum, a structure that relays signals between the right and left hemispheres of the brain.

What about conservatives? Their brains tend to have larger amygdalas. The amygdala is an almond-shaped structure located deep within the brain.

Based upon what brain scientists know about the function of the two brain regions, researchers believe the structural differences support the notion that liberals are better equipped to make sense of conflicting information while conservatives are better able to recognize a threat.

"Previously, some psychological traits were known to be predictive of an individual's political orientation," study author Dr. Ryota Kanai of University College London Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, said in a written statement. "Our study now links such personality traits with specific brain structure."

For the study, published in the April 7 issue of the journal Current Biology, 90 healthy young people underwent MRI scans and completed questionnaires designed to determine their political leanings on a five-point scale - from very liberal to very conservative.

The study was undertaken following several previous reports showing that conservatives are more sensitive to feel threatened or anxious in the face of uncertainty, while liberals tend to be more open to new experiences - which is just what Kanai's study seemed to confirm.

The study didn't show what causes the structural differences in the first place. Are they set at birth? Do they arise over time as a result of experiences? And what explains people whose political views change over time?

Kanai had a diplomatic answer. "It's very unlikely that actual political orientation is directly encoded in these brain regions," he said. "More work is needed to determine how these brain structures mediate the formation of political attitude."





ANTERIOR CINGULATE CORTEX



http://ccpweb.wustl.edu/pdfs/1998Science747-749.pdf

Anterior Cingulate Cortex, Error Detection, and the Online Monitoring of Performance
Cameron S. Carter,* Todd S. Braver, Deanna M. Barch,
Matthew M. Botvinick, Douglas Noll, Jonathan D. Cohen
SCIENCE z VOL. 280 z 1 MAY 1998

An unresolved question in neuroscience and psychology is how the brain monitors performance to regulate behavior. It has been proposed that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), on the medial surface of the frontal lobe, contributes to performance monitoring by detecting errors. In this study, event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to examine ACC function. Results confirm that this region shows activity during erroneous responses. However, activity was also observed in the same region during correct responses under conditions of increased response competition. This suggests that the ACC detects conditions under which errors are likely to occur rather than errors themselves.



http://www.cel.huji.ac.il/courses/structureandprocesses/Bibliography/Bush_2000_TICS.pdf

Trends in Cognitive Sciences – Vol. 4, No. 6, June 2000
Cognitive and emotional influences in anterior cingulate cortex
George Bush, Phan Luu and Michael I. Posner

Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is a part of the brain’s limbic system. Classically, this region has been related to affect, on the basis of lesion studies in humans and in animals. In the late 1980s, neuroimaging research indicated that ACC was active in many studies of cognition. The findings from EEG studies of a focal area of negativity in scalp electrodes following an error response led to the idea that ACC might be the brain’s error detection and correction device. In this article, these various findings are reviewed in relation to the idea that ACC is a part of a circuit involved in a form of attention that serves to regulate both cognitive and emotional processing. Neuroimaging studies showing that separate areas of ACC are involved in cognition and emotion are discussed and related to results showing that the error negativity is influenced by affect and motivation. In addition, the development of the emotional and cognitive roles of ACC are discussed, and how the success of this regulation in controlling responses might be correlated with cingulate size. Finally, some theories are considered about how the different subdivisions of ACC might interact with other cortical structures as a part of the circuits involved in the regulation of mental and emotional activity.



http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16982430

Neuron. 2006 Sep 21;51(6):871-82.
Resolving emotional conflict: a role for the rostral anterior cingulate cortex in modulating activity in the amygdala.
Etkin A1, Egner T, Peraza DM, Kandel ER, Hirsch J.

Abstract
Effective mental functioning requires that cognition be protected from emotional conflict due to interference by task-irrelevant emotionally salient stimuli. The neural mechanisms by which the brain detects and resolves emotional conflict are still largely unknown, however. Drawing on the classic Stroop conflict task, we developed a protocol that allowed us to dissociate the generation and monitoring of emotional conflict from its resolution. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we find that activity in the amygdala and dorsomedial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices reflects the amount of emotional conflict. By contrast, the resolution of emotional conflict is associated with activation of the rostral anterior cingulate cortex. Activation of the rostral cingulate is predicted by the amount of previous-trial conflict-related neural activity and is accompanied by a simultaneous and correlated reduction of amygdalar activity. These data suggest that emotional conflict is resolved through top-down inhibition of amygdalar activity by the rostral cingulate cortex.



https://hbr.org/2010/09/when-emotional-reasoning-trumps-iq

Harvard Business Review
When Emotional Reasoning Trumps IQ
Roderick Gilkey, Ricardo Caceda, Clinton Kilts
FROM THE SEPTEMBER 2010 ISSUE

Many companies and B schools still treat strategy and execution as separate beasts, despite increasing evidence that the divide does much more damage than good. A large part of the problem may be that people view strategic reasoning as a high-level executive function of the brain and tactical thought as a discrete, lower-level activity. But the two kinds of thinking are linked in an important way: They both draw considerably on social-emotional reasoning, particularly in the brains of the most adept strategic thinkers. Indeed, strategic thought entails at least as much emotional intelligence as it does IQ.

In a recent study we conducted with Diana Robertson and Andrew Bate of the Wharton School, we asked managers in an executive MBA program to react to fictional strategic and tactical management dilemmas and measured their brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. Instead of simply identifying which parts of the brain “lit up” in response to particular tasks, we looked at how the brain regions were interacting.

The area of the brain people tend to associate with strategic thought is the prefrontal cortex, known for its role in executive function. It allows humans to engage in anticipation, pattern recognition, probability assessment, risk appraisal, and abstract thinking. Those abilities do help managers solve problems. However, when we examined the best strategic performers in our sample, we found significantly less neural activity in the prefrontal cortex than in the areas associated with “gut” responses, empathy, and emotional intelligence (that is, the insula, the anterior cingulate cortex, and the superior temporal sulcus). In other words, the conscious executive function was downplayed—while regions associated with unconscious emotion processing operated more freely.

What’s more, the strongest performers’ tactical reasoning relied not only on the insula (associated with emotional processing) and the anterior cingulate cortex (crucial for making new choices based on the assessment of past outcomes). It also engaged the part of the brain (the superior temporal sulcus) associated with parsing sensory stimuli and anticipating other people’s thoughts and emotions—for instance, understanding how action plans would be received by the workers charged with implementing them.

Of course, IQ-based reasoning is valuable in both strategic and tactical thinking—but it’s clear that managers integrate their brain processes as they become better strategists. When companies realize that, they may approach strategy and execution more holistically.




AMYGDALA



http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-human-beast/201104/conservatives-big-fear-brain-study-finds

Psychology Today
Conservatives Big on Fear, Brain Study Finds
Are people born conservative?
Published on April 19, 2011 by Nigel Barber, Ph.D. in The Human Beast

Peering inside the brain with MRI scans, researchers at University College London found that self-described conservative students had a larger amygdala than liberals. The amygdala is an almond-shaped structure deep in the brain that is active during states of fear and anxiety. Liberals had more gray matter at least in the anterior cingulate cortex, a region of the brain that helps people cope with complexity.

The results are not that surprising as they fit in with conclusions from other studies. Just a year ago, researchers from Harvard and UCLA San Diego reported finding a "liberal" gene. This gene had a tiny effect, however, and worked only for adolescents having many friends. The results also mesh with psychological studies on conflict monitoring.

What It Means 

There is a big unknown underlying these findings. Supposing that the size of one's amygdala really does increase the likelihood of being a conservative. Is the size of the amygdala determined at birth, or does it perhaps increase with frightening childhood experiences, such as authoritarian parenting and corporal punishment?

Similarly, one might ask whether the gray matter difference is affected by exposure to educational challenge, social diversity, or childhood cognitive enrichment.

The born versus acquired perspective on political attitudes is important to psychologists. After all, if political proclivities are fixed at birth in terms of brain anatomy, there is little hope of change. Most of us would probably like to see a world in which political attitudes were less polarized, and more changeable, but that may be a pipe dream.

Meanwhile, the neuro-scientific fact of two very different political creatures helps clarify much of the political antics of modern democracies.

Most societies are divided into a party that wants change (the more liberal party) and one that is afraid of change (the conservatives). The liberal party is generally more intellectual and the conservative party is more anti-intellectual.

The conservative party is big on national defense and magnifies our perception of threat, whether of foreign aggressors, immigrants, terrorists, or invading ideologies like Communism. To a conservative, the world really is a frightening place.

Given that their brains are so different, it is hardly surprising that liberals and conservatives should spend so much time talking across each other and never achieving real dialog or consensus.

As scientists we hope that these results are replicated because they shed so much light on political behavior. As citizens, we would prefer if politicians were not divided into such different categories of political animal.

If everyone was born with the same brain potential to acquire either conservative, or liberal, views, then we could be more optimistic about prospects for political communication and consensus-building. If voters were of like brain, perhaps they could be of like mind.




http://www.columbiaconsult.com/pubs/v52_fall07.html

The Columbia Consultancy
Understanding Ourselves: Gender Differences in the Brain
Volume #52, Fall 2007

Differences in Brain Structures 

The amygdala is an ancient part of the brain, influenced by hormones, that processes fear, triggers aggression and action, and stimulates competitiveness. It alerts us to danger and switches on the rest of the body. The amygdala in men's brains is larger than in women's. Moreover the male amygdala has testosterone receptors that heighten responses, providing a biological reason for why men compete with each other more aggressively than females and why men can quickly escalate situations and enjoy the fight.

Men and women respond differently to fear signals coming from the amygdala. When the amygdala fires a fear signal, a "fight or flight" reaction is triggered. We have now learned, however, that women's response can be different from men's: women's hormones, based on the evolution of their brains, tell them the way to safety is to gather in a group. So their response can be "tend and befriend." Women can reduce stress and promote a feeling of safety by connecting. When I wrote Success on Our Own Terms in the late '90s, one senior executive female told me that when she is stressed she needs to get out of her office and talk to others, while she noticed that the men at her level who were stressed tended to withdraw into themselves. What's important, as I mentioned in the last newsletter, is that if we are more conscious of the signals coming from our amygdala, we can change the way we respond to fear and adapt our behaviors to serve us better in today's world.

The prefrontal cortex is the decision-making executive center of the brain. It oversees emotional information and puts a check on the amygdala. The prefrontal cortex is larger in women and matures faster in women than in men. This difference, combined with the fact that women have less testosterone and more estrogen flowing through their brains, enables women to look for solutions to conflict, even if it means they might give up more themselves to resolve the situation. For me, this helps to explain the difference I've seen in my coaching practice in the way men and women approach negotiations or handle customers. Women tend to look for ways to compromise and serve the needs of others, even at their own expense. Men tend to look for ways to come out on top, even with their own customers.

The anterior cingulate cortex, which is another part of the rational decision making center of the brain that weighs options, is also larger in women, and has been labeled as the "worrywart" center of a woman's brain. Research demonstrates that anxiety is four times more common in women than men. So while evolution prompted women to be extremely cautious and collaborative so that they could protect their young, this cautiousness in today's business world can be interpreted, particularly by men influenced by risk-taking testosterone, as not being confident enough to step-up and take risks.

The brain is divided into two hemispheres: the left hemisphere deals with language and verbal abilities as well as the ability to process information in an orderly, logical way. The right deals with visual and spatial information, as well as abstract thinking and emotional responses. The corpus callosum, which is the part of the brain that connects both hemispheres, is thicker in women enabling them to use both the right and left sides of the brain in a more connected way than men do. Women use both sides of their brains for visual and verbal processing, and use both sides to respond to emotional experiences, while men use the right side of their brain for spatial skills and the left for verbal skills. Even within the language-centered, left-hand side of the brain, there are differences between men and women's brains. Anne Moir and David Jessel, authors of Brain Sex, claim that "the difference in the layout of the average male or female brain is found to have a direct effect on the way men and women differ in their ways of thinking -- differences in brain organization in men and women will lead to differences in the efficiency with which they perform certain tasks."

The hippocampus is the center for learning, memory and emotion and is larger and more active in the female brain. It is also estrogen sensitive and is a relay station for processing memories into words. Women have 11% more neurons than men in the brain centers for language and hearing. The connections between the two sides of women's brains enable them, on average, to be better at expressing emotions and remembering details of emotional events and communicating them. They use language to talk about feelings and develop consensus more efficiently than men do. Men's brains, more specifically organized and with fewer connections, enable men, on average, to focus more intensely and not be as distracted by superfluous information. Men using only the right side of their brains are able to zone in more quickly than women on certain kinds of tasks, for example, activities requiring spatial skills. Using both sides of their brains for processing spatial information takes women longer, while men take longer to process emotional information and to use certain language skills because of the location of these functions in the male brain. Several years ago, I conducted a 360-feedback process for one of my female clients. When I interviewed her male boss, he told me one of the characteristics he most admired about my client was her ability to read the emotions of people. He often took her with him to meetings because he recognized she could read people's emotions better than he could. Afterwards, she would debrief him, helping him interpret what he might not have been able to figure out as quickly by himself.

Both men and women experience advantages and disadvantages from these brain differences. A strong belief in coaching is that the more you understand your strengths and weaknesses, the better able you will be to devise a plan to leverage those strengths and compensate for those weaknesses. Knowing the advantages and disadvantages of the biological basis of who you are can help you to understand how to best use the advantages your brain provides, what to be aware of around the disadvantages, and how to make changes that will enhance your ability to succeed in your present environment. Knowledge is power and we shouldn't be afraid of understanding the biological component that contributes to making us who we are.

HORMONES

Chemicals that impact the structure and operation of the brain and interact with the brain to influence behavior.

Estrogen.A hormone found in much greater abundance in women than in men that enhances female brain circuits helping women master nuanced social skills of communication, observation, and intuition. Estrogen protects physical health and mental wellbeing. It moves women toward developing harmonious relationships, staying connected, and toward a preference for avoiding conflict, and increases a woman's ability to literally feel gut sensations more than men.

Oxytocin. A hormone that drives desire for connection, nurturing and bonding behavior, especially when combined with estrogen. In women, the feeling of connection reduces stress.

Progesterone.A hormone that works in conjunction with estrogen - sometimes mellowing; sometimes the opposite.

Testosterone. A fast-acting, aggressive, hormone and driver of sex. Men have 10 to 100 times more testosterone than women, enabling men to engage in interpersonal conflict and competition. The higher the level of testosterone, the more interest there is in winning the game, gaining the power, and defending the territory through strength, and the less interest there is in high quality social relationships.

Vasopressin. When combined with testosterone this hormone has a subtle aggressive impact; when combined with oxytocin it supports connection, bonding and socializing.

Cortisol.A highly sensitive hormone, made in the adrenal glands, that is activated under emotional and physical stress. Research on cortisol levels suggest that leaders with lower cortisol levels know how to relax under pressure and stay cool when facing challenges.

Dopamine. A neurochemical that stimulates pleasure circuits in the brain and provides a sense of well being.

Serotonin. A neurochemical that provides a sense of ease and calm, controls impulses and aggression. Women, in general, have about 30% more serotonin than men. Women whose ovaries make the most estrogen and progesterone are more resistant to stress because they have more serotonin. Women with less estrogen and progesterone are more sensitive to stress and have less serotonin.