Identifying the Political Spectrum

We found it in church too. Jesse obtained the text of two dozens of sermons that were delivered in Unitarian (liberal) churches, and dozens more that were delivered in Southern Baptist (conservative) churches. Before reading the sermons, Jesse identified hundred of words that were conceptually related to each foundation (for example, peace, care, and compassion on the positive side of Care, and suffer, cruel, and brutal on the negative side; obey, duty, and honor on the positive side of Authority, and defy, disrespect, and rebel on the negative side). Jesse then used a computer program called LIWC to count the number of times that each word was used in the two sets of texts. This simple-minded method conformed our findings from MFQ (Moral Foundation Questionnaire): Unitarian preachers made greater use of Care and Fairness words, while Baptist preachers made greater use of Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity words.

We find this patterns in brain waves too. We teamed up with Jamie Morris, a social neuroscientist at UVA, to present liberal and conservative students with sixty sentences that came in two versions. One version endorsed an idea consistent with a particular foundation, and the other version rejected the idea. For example, half of our subjects read ‘Total equality in the workplace is necessary.” The other half read “Total equality in the workplace is unrealistic.” Subjects wore a special cap to measure their brain waves as the words in each sentence were flashed on a screen, one word at a time. we later looked at the encephalogram (EEG) to determine whose brains showed evidence of surprise or shock at the moment that the key word was presented (e.g., necessary versus unrealistic)

Liberals brains showed more surprise, compared to conservative brains, in response to sentences that rejected Care and Fairness concerns. They also showed more surprise in response to sentences that endorsed Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity concerns (for example, “In the teenage years parental advise should be heeded” versus “….should be questioned”). In other words, when people choose the labels “liberal” or “conservative,” they are not just choosing to endorse different values on questionnaires. Within the first half second after hearing a statement, partisan brains are already reacting differently. These initial flashes of neural activity are the elephant, www.happinesshypothesis.com/chapters.html leaning slightly, which then causes their riders to reason differently, search for different kind of evidence, and each different conclusions. Institutions come first, strategic reason second. ~ Pages 161 -163