Letter to Jonathan Haidt in his TED presentation of liberals and conservatives.

Thought you might appreciate a non-academic view of your presentation on TED. Many years ago I wrote a thesis based on the work of Lawrence Kohlberg. I found his ideas very useful in understanding the differences between conventional and post-conventional thinkers which equate to liberal and conservative according to Charles Hampden-Turner.

Thought your TED presentation was a big improvements of your earlier work which tired to explain liberalism and conservatism in terms of a long list of attributes.. You now relate the differences between liberal and conservatives in in terms of harm, fairness, ingroup, authority and purity.

Was happy to see someone after Lawrence Kohlberg working on the issues of morlaity and ethics. Kohlberg's work was built upon the foundations of Piaget and Erik Erikson. Not clear what the intellectual basis your ideas on liberal and conservative is. The terms 'liberal and “conservative” are more often used in political science rather than social science or psychology.

Found Kohlberg's work to be valuable because it was based on developmental psychology and each his stages of moral development. Kohlberg's would probably see lower Tea Party and citizen militia members as lower small group (stage 3) conservatives. Would guess that libertarianism would fit better into a pre-conventional stage where there is an emphasis on individualism rather than cooperation within a group.

It is possible thee is some genetic components of liberalism. About 20% of humans possess the Explorer Gene. Those with it are more curious, restless, and take more risks. In addition , a study of the UK show people on the extreme right who have larger amygdalas than liberals. Democrats show greater activity in their left insula, an area associated with self and social awareness. People who identified themselves as liberals generally had a larger anterior cingulate cortex.

Kohlberg made some profound observation about stage 5 post-conventional thought. First few people who did not get a college education develop stage 5 thinking. College students are exposed to post-conventional thinking in college, but most of the graduates do not develop the post-conventional thought process until they are in their mid-thirties.

More important, Kohlberg noticed that post-conventional thinkers understand conventional thought, but the reverse is not true. Conservatives have a difficult and few grasp post-conventional ideas. This may be why our political process in this nation is in disarray.

In my view the big difference between liberals (post-conventionals) and conservatives (conventionals) is their view of the law. Conservatives want a static unchanging world with religion and law in concrete. Conservatives are the defenders of the status quo. Post-conventionals see the law as a social contract that is negotiated and frequently changed.

My own view is that liberals have a more pragmatic outlook while conservatives are far more ideological, a term you refer to as purity. Purity can be a dangerous in politics and religion. We can look back to the fascist movements in Italy and Germany prior to WW2 to see where purity can take you.

Glad to see a psychologist working on the important issues of ethics an morality In my view liberalism and conservatism are not opposite sides on different sides the same coin. Don't think that a dialectal conversation between liberals and conservatives will produce much positive outcome because as Kohlberg observed, few conservatives can grasp post-conventional thinking.

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Al Jazeera English: 'The Republican Brain': Probing the limits of Left and Right

Rightardia has written about this before. There are substantial cognitive differences between liberals and conservatives. Some of this is caused by brain structure: extreme right wingers have larger amygdalas and liberals have larger corpus callosums.


It is as if humans are descended from at least two different lineages. Certainly, some of the differences are nurture as much as nature. This is a lengthy Al Jazeera article but worth reading.

The survey, " Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition", covered 88 studies over a period of five decades of research. A July 22 press release said the four researchers:

"report that at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include:

• Fear and aggression
• Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Need for cognitive closure."

source: 'The Republican Brain': Probing the limits of Left and Right - Opinion - Al Jazeera English Subscribe to the Rightardia feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/UFPYA


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Telegraph: Blood pressure drug 'reduces in-built racism'

Extreme right wingers may have defective amygdalas

"Propranolol is most often used to reduce high blood pressure by lowering the heart rate, as well as angina and irregular heartbeat. It is also used to manage the physical symptoms of anxiety, and control migraine.

It is thought to work by blocking activation of the peripheral 'autonomic' nervous system, and in areas of the brain involved with formulating emotional responses, including fear, called the amygdalae. Rightardia has reported before that conservatives have larger amygdala than liberals."

The amygdala is an almond shaped mass located deep within the temporal lobe of the brain.

The amygdala is a limbic system structure that is involved in many of our emotions and motivations.

Propranolol may be able to suppress racism.

Dr Chris Chambers, Cardiff University's School of Psychology, said the study should be treated with "extreme caution". He added:

We don't know whether the drug influenced racial attitudes only or whether it altered implicit brain systems more generally. And we can't rule out the possibility that the effects were due to the drug incidentally reducing heart rate.

graphic source: http://www.politicsplus.org/blog/2010/12/30/is-being-republican-a-brain-defect/

see http://tgr.ph/xXMXgu

source: http://biology.about.com/od/anatomy/p/Amygdala.htm

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Intelligence and conservative ideology

anterior cingulate and the amygdala

Lead researcher Gordon Hodson, a psychologist at Brock University in Ontario completed a study that was featured in LiveSceince. The study concluded:

Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies. Those ideologies, in turn, stress hierarchy and resistance to change, attitudes that can contribute to prejudice, Hodson wrote in an email to LiveScience.

Low intelligence in childhood also had a strong correlation to racism in adulthood.

But the factor that explained the relationship between these two variables was political: When researchers factored social conservatism in the analysis, those ideologies accounted for much of the link between brains and bias.

Rightardia has seen a similar studies in the UK which indicated conservatives have lower IQs. The brain structure of the left and right wingers are also diffrent.

Right-wingers had a more pronounced amygdala - a primitive part of the brain associated with emotion.

This may explain why conservatives are fearful of change, of other cultures and of other religions.

Those on the left had thicker anterior cingulates - which is an area associated with anticipation and decision-making.

The recent study suggests that political messages to conservatives should have a simple basic message that will elicit an emotional rather than a rationale response.


source: http://www.livescience.com/18132-intelligence-social-conservatism-racism.html

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