Liberal Brains/Conservative Brains

Which One are You?

There's nothing more evolutionarily basic than our safety and one of the most important differences is how the two groups respond to threats and danger.

OK, which one are you? Someone who supports the killing of millions of unborn children or someone who is all right with caging children? Someone who wants to raise taxes to support welfare queens or someone who doesn’t give a damn about anyone but themselves? Someone who doesn’t care about keeping their family safe or some vigilante nut job? And now the biggest hot button: Are you someone who is trying to take away individual freedoms and force everyone to take an untested vaccine or someone who is trying to kill everyone? Maybe the judgments come down to this: Liberals are thinking, “You’re selfish” and conservatives are thinking,” You’re stupid.” 

In an unnuanced view of our nation, we are seemingly two sides facing off across an unbridgeable divide. Many of us are dismayed at how uncharitable, even hateful, we are feeling towards people who disagree politically. How can we understand these vastly differing views and is there anything we can do?

How Liberals and Conservatives Describe Themselves

Beyond the simplistic stereotyping, here are ways that liberals and conservatives tend to feel comfortable describing themselves: 

Liberals embrace being live-and-let-live and describe themselves as being concerned about compassion and fairness.  

Conservatives feel good about being law-and-order types and are more likely to say that they are people of honor and tradition. 

Who Is More Compassionate?

Research bears out that conservatives feel as much compassion as liberals. Where they diverge is who they feel it for. Conservatives express it for smaller, close-in social circles while liberals tend to feel compassion on a larger circle, including less fortunate people on a more global scale.

What is going on is much bigger than political and cultural differences. It’s really about brain differences and how they form our worldviews. The neurological differences lead to psychological differences and those lead to political differences. Our brains actually work differently and create different temperaments. 

What the Research Tells Us

A 2018 study showed repellant images (think car wrecks and excrement), to both groups and found that conservatives were more reactive to them. The difference was so marked that the researchers could often predict political affiliation based on the showing of a single photo. This suggests that conservatives are more attuned to assessing potential threats. 

There’s nothing more evolutionarily basic than our safety and one of the most important differences is how the two groups respond to threats and danger. We know from brain scans that the fear center, the amygdala, is larger and more active in conservatives. Research in five countries has found it to be true that fear drives conservatism and a desire for stability and organization.

Where Do We Go from Here?

Can we change our brains? Our somatic trauma therapy work is very much about changing our brains and regulating the nervous system. We use EMDR therapy, Somatic Experiencing therapy, Mindfulness and Attachment repair to bring this about. Some of the things we can do is literally create new pathways in the brain to help us feel more whole and grounded; we can help re-regulate the nervous system so that it has more resilience to be calm when there is no danger and mobilize into action when there is.

What does not seem amenable to change is these very different world views. Current research shows that political attitudes are remarkably stable over the long term. 

Now what? Our brains are driving our belief systems and these differences are here to stay. Both groups see what’s happening in the world but respond differently.

Both groups are people of conscience coming from deeply held values. We look at the same facts, the same suffering and reach different conclusions. Learning to tolerate and be respectful of differences is the hard work ahead.

I heard this story 30 years ago from a conflict resolution consultant and it stuck with me: For decades two groups of Irish women, one pro-choice and one anti-abortion, came together to talk about their differences, willing to really listen to one another. Over the years no one shifted her position, but they came to support one another, celebrate together, mourn together, understand and respect one another.

I am moved by these women with different brains and strongly held opposing beliefs who came to support one another, in spite of their differences, with intention, commitment and grace. It’s an inspiring story and so hard to do with both sides feeling that our very safety and integrity are at stake.