In this months Focus Magazine (Page 23: Politics on th brain) there was a stub article that basically summed up some research that had been done regarding brain structure and the political leaning of a person. But the article presented something really counter intuitive to what you expect.

After examining the political leanings and brains structure of 90 adults, they found that liberals tended to have more brain matter in the anterior cinglate cortex, the region of the brain that deals with decision making with conflicting data, and Conservatives have a larger amygdala, the section of the brain responsible for processing emotions.

I thought this was surprising because, at least in Britain, conservatives are generally seen as the ones who are quite cold and clinical when making decisions, and liberals are seen as having an emotional basis for a significant portion of their reasoning.

For example (and forgive me for stereotyping here), if an art gallery were to apply for a government grant for an exhibition, in a typical case a conservative would be likely to weigh the benefits of the exhibition vs the costs and make a decision that way; where as  liberal would be more likely to say that you can't put a price on the benefits expression through art would bring to many people, which is quite an emotive response.

That's how I would see the two sides acting any way and I think this seems really counter intuitive to what the research tells us.

What do you guys think?

This research is a myth until it is replicated many times. Also 90 patients is hardly enough to show anything . Also did the article even mention what method was used to detect brain volume or mass or whatever else was measued? Plus, it always brings up the question was that portion of the brain bigger because people were born that way or did the neurons create more synapsis creating greater brain density due to use of that particular region.

Neuroscience is such a new science I would not trust any article shown in that magazine. Call me a skeptic, but that is the job of a scientist.

Also note that the seperation of the two hemispheres into different functions is over exaggerated and it is often the case that neural networks for brain processes work in both hemispheres transferring information to adjacent neurons. The hemispheres rarey work alone on any cognitive task.

I know the research still has to be replicated, and I'm sceptical too (that was the point of this thread really).

I'm not a neuroscientist though, so I would probably struggle to understand much more if I read the research itself. Neuroscience little more than the curiosity of a layman to me, I'm interested, but I've never read deep into the subject.

And the way they detected brain mass was by measuring blood flows to certain areas using an MRI scanner.

Well I'm no neuroscientist either, I just get annoyed when none scientific journals write about research because it is often overblown and manipulated just to make a good story for the mass audience. Still I cannot deny it can be interesting.

One thing to consider is that most conservatives don't want people to die in the streets.

For example, research tends to show conservatives donate more money and time to charity then liberals.

On average, how much you think the government should take care of other people is inversly related to how much you personally do for those people.

Considering nobody wants people to die in the street, it's actually pretty logical why people against social welfare would actually be the more emotional of the two.  They're more likely to help themselves and see how effective it can be vs government if everyone is willing to pitch in.

Also, keep in mind, Conservatives are the ones against stuff like gay marriage.  That's an emotional arguement against for sure.

Got a link? Is it legal to scan the article?

Well... i've got half of it replicated right here

http://scienceblogs.com/mixingmemory/2007/09/liberal_and_conservative_anter.php

No amyglia research I can find though.

Edit: Well this sorta is.

http://femailhealthnews.blogspot.com/2008/09/amygdala-and-social-conservative.html

There are like... a bunch of online articles about it.

This is actually from a study that released 2 months ago.  With hilairous politically motivated statements no less,  for example. 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1342239/Brain-study-reveals-right-wing-conservatives-larger-primitive-amygdala.html

http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/its-actually-conservatives-vs-liberalsand-liberals/

Looks like an ok one.  Such research also suggests Conservatives have more friends than liberals too... which is funny, considering the typical conservative is seen as this lonely miserly fellow.

Having a large amygdala would explain why the Republicans are so much better at politics then the Democrats in the US though.

Doesn't appealing to people's emotions work well in politics in general? Just look at Hitler.