Your brain on politics: How much thinking is going on? – Press of Atlantic City

If you haven’t spent much time researching a political issue, your stance on it is likely an emotional reaction expressing cohesion with your “tribe,” rather than a reasoned opinion.

That was one of the messages from a webinar last week run by the New York Academy of Sciences, called “Is Your Brain Democratic or Republican?”

A panel of three experts on politics and neuroscience discussed the source of political polarization and how it interacts with brain development.

“There are shortcuts we use when we don’t spend a lot of time deliberating (on a topic or candidate),” said Marika Landau-Wells, an assistant professor at the University of California at Berkeley, who studies the effects of cognitive processes on political behavior.

Upsetting as it may be to political junkies, most people simply do not spend a lot of time thinking about politics, Landau-Wells said.

“The environment sends cues about what to think,” she said of people’s families, neighbors and peer groups. “It’s easy to accept messaging without reflecting on it.”

She and others on the panel suggested people should do the hard work of researching political questions deeply to minimize dependence on emotions. Coming to a more reasoned decision may lead to less extreme political polarization, Landau-Wells said.

John Froonjian, executive director of the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University, said those findings don’t surprise him.

“We have seen time and again that the way voters measure candidates is not by reading policy papers and checking a list of issue stances,” Froonjian said. “Voters respond to the person. They respond emotionally.”

He cited the long-used description of voters picking candidates based on who they’d rather have a beer with at the local bar.

“When people feel a candidate understands people like them, that helps them form a connection,” Froonjian said.

He said two examples show policies and issues often don’t hold a lot of sway with voters. 

“Look at Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Generally, polls showed majorities did not agree with a lot of his conservative positions, yet they felt Ronald Reagan had leadership qualities and they responded to that,” Froonjian said.

And during the last presidential election in 2016, Hillary Clinton had more detailed positions than anyone, “but emotionally people didn’t take to her.”

Neuroscientist Jay Van Bavel, associate professor of psychology at New York University, said research in his field has shown that people also have biological predispositions to different political preferences. 

Children’s personality traits can predict their political preferences as adults, he said.

A trait strongly associated with liberalism is openness to new experiences, while a trait strongly associated with conservatism is conscientiousness, Van Bavel said.

Other research has shown that the structure of the brain is different in conservatives compared to liberals, Van Bavel said.

“Liberalism was associated with the gray matter volume of anterior cingulate cortex. Conservatism was associated with increased right amygdala size,” according to the study’s summary, published in the April 26, 2011, edition of Current Biology.

But the study could not determine which came first — the political belief or the brain structure differences — since brains are changeable based on how we use them.

Froonjian said both candidates in the race for the House of Representatives in the 2nd District have the ability to connect with people, so it’s probable neither has an advantage when it comes to appealing to voters based on emotional response.

Congressman Jeff Van Drew, R-2nd, is facing challenger and Democrat Amy Kennedy, a former teacher from Brigantine married to former Rhode Island Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy.