re: Political Bias Affects Brain Activity

Response to Le Teh's Political Bias Affects Brain Activity.

The title pretty much says it all. There are actual blockages in people's brains when they strongly believe in something. This was really interesting to read, even though it's not very surprising. I'd like to do this test on religiously rather than politically staunch people. This test already showed us that people are very politically biased and not likely to change their mind about their preferred candidate, no matter what facts are presented to them, so now I'd like to see if very devout people have the same brain blockages. (Not to harp on religiously devout people--I'd want to include hard-edged atheists in this test as well.) I've met more people who've converted religions before political views, so I just think that'd be something interesting to see...

However, this test does seem to show why negative attacks are so popular in campaigns--you will blatantly ignore inconsistencies on your side of the political coin, but they stick out like a sore thumb on your opponent's side.