Why Liberals are Smarter than Conservatives- New Scientific Study

sweetpotato

Why Liberals Are Smarter than Conservatives
By Erica Schickel, HuffingtonPost.com
Posted on September 19, 2007, Printed on September 19, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/62436/

Once again science has confirmed what we already know: liberals and conservatives think differently. Neuroscientists at NYU and UCLA conducted a simple test on college students all along the political spectrum.They were seated in front of computers and given the simple task of pressing a key every time the letter "M" flashed on the screen. Here's the hitch: every once in a while the letter "W" would flash and the subjects were told to not push a key when they saw "W."

Both groups recognized the letter "M" accurately. But when that pesky "W" popped up the conservatives just couldn't help themselves and -- DOH! -- they pushed the key! They simply could not recognize any letter not being "M." They continued to dogmatically stab away at the keyboard not seeing the letter so plainly in front of them. Everyone, of course, was hooked up to electroencephalograms, and liberals EEG's lit up like pinball machines while apprehending and considering all the subtle differences between "M" and "W." They made fewer mistakes and demonstrated a greater subtlety of mind. Conservatives, ever the partisans, just declared "W" was "M" and called it a day.

But lookout! The researchers threw a curveball by reversing the test, flashing "W's" and asking subjects to ignore the "M's." The results were exactly the same. If told "W" is the order of the day, then well, by heck, that's just what they're gonna do. It's that simple.

History has already shown that conservatives are suckers for "W." The letter has some kind of hypnotic effect on them, causing them to jab their index fingers at things -- liberals, mostly. "W" is their kind of letter, all points, aggressive, starting favorite conservative words like "War" and "Wealth" and "Welfare State." If you built a giant "W" out of steel and dropped a liberal on it, he would be impaled through his head, heart and groin. Yee-haw, it's BBQ!

Frank J. Sulloway, a researcher at UC Berkeley's Institute of Personality and Social Research told The Los Angeles Times that the results "provided an elegant demonstration that individual differences on a conservative-liberal dimension are strongly related to brain activity." The Times reports that "liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts, and 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy." Thus with one simple experiment we have solved the mystery of how half our nation fell for the 9/11/Sadaam Hussein boondoggle. W is to M as Sadaam is to Bin Laden. While they share some qualities (spikey, swarthy, hateful, gun lovin') they were decidedly NOT the same man. But those differences are irrelevant once your mind has been made up for you.

So now it's been scientifically proven that liberals are smarter than conservatives. There's no point in gloating: conservatives don't recognize science, either. Just let them continue digging their own spider holes of fuzzy logic and dogmatic umbrage and come November '08 we can use our superior hand-eye coordination and letter-recognition skills to hit all the right letters.



© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/62436/

decides2dream

cute.

DriftingByTheStorm

huh.
i figured this thread would be full of negative responses arguing that unscientific nature of the test, or this or that reason why the findings are unsound.

but nope.

just some smiles and grins.

surferdude

A little research by yourself and/or some critical thinking I'd you'd know why it's horrible interpretation of test results.

http://slate.com/id/2173965/

Guess the results aren't universal.

gue_barium

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

huh.
i figured this thread would be full of negative responses arguing that unscientific nature of the test, or this or that reason why the findings are unsound.

but nope.

just some smiles and grins.

2 outta 3 aint bad.

soulsinging

while this study is a piece of shit, i don't doubt the conclusion

DriftingByTheStorm

surferdude wrote:

A little research by yourself and/or some critical thinking I'd you'd know why it's horrible interpretation of test results.

http://slate.com/id/2173965/

Guess the results aren't universal.

That article is a "horrible interpretation" every "counter argument" is simply an attempt to laugh off the study.

argument 1 wrote:

"Fifteen minutes is a habit? Tapping a keyboard is a way of thinking? Come on. You can make a case for conservative inflexibility, but not with this study."

Yep it sure is. How many fucking times do you need to see M and press a key for it to be a "habit" ... face it. Liberal pressed the key correctly 2 to 4 times more accurately than convservatives. You can argue semantics of terms all day. Boo fucking hoo.

argument 2 wrote:

"An "ms"—millisecond—is one-thousandth of a second. That means participants had one-tenth of a second to look at the letter and another four-tenths of a second to hit the button. One letter, one-tenth of a second. This is "information"?"

Wah. Boo hoo. We didn't have enough time to look at the letter. Our conservative brains don't account for things that happen that quick. If it happens in less than 1\10th of a second and it is only 1 letter, it isn't "information". again, fucking semantics and sob stories.

argument 3 wrote:

"You could argue that showing them a series of M's and then surprising them with a W injects some complexity and ambiguity. But that complexity is crushed by the simplicity of the letter choice and the split-second deadline."

Huh? Nothing complex happens quickly, according to this author. And i guess binary patterns aren't complex because they are just 1s and 0s? Give me a fucking break. Further, conscious or unconscious is not a good point to debate in your argument, since many would probably claim that half the problem with conservatives is their unconscious bias towards preconceived notions anyhow. So this guy thinks we should discount the test because it only relies on unconscious reactions? The exact same reactions that are likely to be the problem ? HAHAH!


And then the last argument?

argument 4 wrote:

"But real life is seldom that simple. Maybe what you saw—what you think you saw—will turn out to require a different response from the one that has hitherto served you well. Maybe it won't. Maybe, on average, extra sensitivity to such conflicting cues will lead to better decisions. Maybe it won't. Extra CM sensitivity does make you more likely to depart from your habit. But that doesn't prove it's more adaptive. "

Ah. Yes, wise monkey. You see, in "real" life, you see a "W" instead of an "M", but that "W" is just "what you saw" or "what you think you saw" and in real life just because you traveled down a road past 15 lights that were all green and then the 16th light is red, that red light is just "what you saw" or "what you think you saw" and "[maybe] will turn out to require a different response from the one that has hitherto served you well. Maybe it won't. Maybe, on average, extra sensitivity to such conflicting cues will lead to better decisions. Maybe it won't. " ... OH THIS SOUNDS INTELLIGENT ... you see, its "complex". You THINK you saw that the 16th light was red , and it MAY require a different action (stop instead of go) but MAYBE it DOESN'T? mmm ... uh huh ... ???

"Extra CM sensitivity does make you more likely to depart from your habit. But that doesn't prove it's more adaptive" ... i see wise buddha ... so you admit the liberals in the study are more likely to deviate from a habit if presented with information that contradicts the habit, but you disagree that such deviation is necessarily more likely to be of adaptive benefit ... hell ... who says stopping at a red light is necessarily more adaptive. You COULD get there quicker if you ran it.

What the fuck ever.

That article is a pile of BS written by someone who, just a guess, is probably a conservative, and doesn't want to "deviate from a previous habit" of assuming he is right.

LikeAnOpeningBandForTheSun

=congrats on your newfound superiority

chopitdown

the appropriate conclusions for the article is that liberals vs conservatives that are aged 18-22 behave differently on computer based exams and may be "smarter" at pushing buttons. So now I know when i want a good data entry person, I know to hire a liberal b/c they will be flawless at keystroking Leave it to the liberals to try to do soooo little and claim sooo much

also, if this "November '08 we can use our superior hand-eye coordination and letter-recognition skills to hit all the right letters." and the article are so true...how do you explain all the old liberals in FL not being able to work the voting machines correctly? I guess as soon as arrows and names are introduced (aka the task gets complicated) liberals get confused

hippiemom

MrSmith wrote:

=congrats on your newfound superiority

It's not really newfound .... I've known it all along

Ahnimus

Ha, this interested me. My frist thought was this is kind of bogus. But then I reflected on what I've learned about neuroplasticity and brain-health.

In general, I'll accept that conservatives think conservatively and liberals think liberally. If that is true, which in probably is in general, then it follows that conservative brain-'power' would actually decrease with age. Consequently there should be a greater risk to conservatives of aquiring alzheimer's.

Click click, it turns out it's true.

According to the National Vital Statistics Reports published on October 12, 2004 for 2002 the average number of deaths due to Alzheimer’s Disease across the United States was 20.4 per 100,000 people. 22 out of 31 Conservative States had a higher than average rate of death due to Alzheimer’s Disease (71% of Conservative States) versus 10 out of 20 Liberal States that had a higher than average rate of death due to Alzheimer’s Disease (50% of Liberal States). The highest rate of death due to Alzheimer’s Disease in the country is found in North Dakota with 46.4 per 100,000 people. The lowest rate of death due to Alzheimer’s Disease in the country is found in New York with 9.4 per 100,000 people.

http://www.conservative-truths.com/archives.php?id=A2005051
Source: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr53/nvsr53_05acc.pdf

baraka

As much as I would love to believe this, being a liberal and all, I'm not so sure this is a measure of intelligence, as much as it is an interesting insight of how liberals & conservatives 'think'. Hardcore conservatives are basically trying to preserve the status quo, or the past, the 'truths' they learned growing up. If you really want to compare IQ's then how about a standard IQ test?