Browsing by Author "Hibbing, John R."
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Item Cortisol and politics: Variance in voting behavior is predicted by baseline cortisol levels(Elsevier, 2014) French, Jeffrey A.; Smith, Kevin B.; Alford, John R.; Guck, Adam; Birnie, Andrew K.; Hibbing, John R.Participation in electoral politics is affected by a host of social and demographics variables, but there is growing evidence that biological predispositions may also play a role in behavior related to political involvement. We examined the role of individual variation in hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) stress axis parameters in explaining differences in self-reported and actual participation in political activities. Self-reported political activity, religious participation, and verified voting activity in U.S. national elections were collected from 105 participants, who were subsequently exposed to a standardized (nonpolitical) psychosocial stressor. We demonstrated that lower baseline salivary cortisol in the late afternoon was significantly associated with increased actual voting frequency in six national elections, but not with self-reported non-voting political activity. Baseline cortisol predicted significant variation in voting behavior above and beyond variation accounted for by traditional demographic variables (particularly age of participant in our sample). Participation in religious activity was weakly (and negatively) associated with baseline cortisol. Our results suggest that HPA-mediated characteristics of social, cognitive, and emotional processes may exert an influence on a trait as complex as voting behavior, and that cortisol is a better predictor of actual voting behavior, as opposed to self-reported political activity.Item Differences in negativity bias underlie variations in political ideology(Cambridge University Press, 2014) Hibbing, John R.; Smith, Kevin B.; Alford, John R.Disputes between those holding differing political views are ubiquitous and deep-seated, and they often follow common, recognizable lines. The supporters of tradition and stability, sometimes referred to as conservatives, do battle with the supporters of innovation and reform, sometimes referred to as liberals. Understanding the correlates of those distinct political orientations is probably a prerequisite for managing political disputes, which are a source of social conflict that can lead to frustration and even bloodshed. A rapidly growing body of empirical evidence documents a multitude of ways in which liberals and conservatives differ from each other in purviews of life with little direct connection to politics, from tastes in art to desire for closure and from disgust sensitivity to the tendency to pursue new information, but the central theme of the differences is a matter of debate. In this article, we argue that one organizing element of the many differences between liberals and conservatives is the nature of their physiological and psychological responses to features of the environment that are negative. Compared with liberals, conservatives tend to register greater physiological responses to such stimuli and also to devote more psychological resources to them. Operating from this point of departure, we suggest approaches for refining understanding of the broad relationship between political views and response to the negative. We conclude with a discussion of normative implications, stressing that identifying differences across ideological groups is not tantamount to declaring one ideology superior to another.Item Disgust Sensitivity and the Neurophysiology of Left- Right Political Orientations(Public Library of Science, 2011) Smith, Kevin B.; Oxley, Douglas; Hibbing, Matthew V.; Alford, John R.; Hibbing, John R.Disgust has been described as the most primitive and central of emotions. Thus, it is not surprising that it shapes behaviors in a variety of organisms and in a variety of contexts—including homo sapien politics. People who believe they would be bothered by a range of hypothetical disgusting situations display an increased likelihood of displaying right-of-center rather than left-of-center political orientations. Given its primal nature and essential value in avoiding pathogens disgust likely has an effect even without registering in conscious beliefs. In this article, we demonstrate that individuals with marked involuntary physiological responses to disgusting images, such as of a man eating a large mouthful of writhing worms, are more likely to self-identify as conservative and, especially, to oppose gay marriage than are individuals with more muted physiological responses to the same images. This relationship holds even when controlling for the degree to which respondents believe themselves to be disgust sensitive and suggests that people’s physiological predispositions help to shape their political orientations.Item Nonpolitical Images Evoke Neural Predictors of Political Ideology(Elsevier, 2014) Ahn, Woo-Young; Kishida, Kenneth T.; Gu, Xiaosi; Lohrenz, Terry; Harvey, Ann; Alford, John R.; Smith, Kevin B.; Yaffe, Gideon; Hibbing, John R.; Dayan, Peter; Montague, P. ReadPolitical ideologies summarize dimensions of life that define how a person organizes their public and privateᅠbehavior, including their attitudes associated with sex, family, education, and personal autonomy [1ᅠandᅠ2]. Despite the abstract nature of such sensibilities, fundamental features of political ideology have been found toᅠbe deeply connected to basic biological mechanisms [3, 4, 5, 6ᅠandᅠ7] that may serve to defend against environmental challenges like contamination and physical threat [8, 9, 10, 11ᅠandᅠ12]. These results invite the provocative claim that neural responses to nonpolitical stimuli (like contaminated foodᅠor physical threats) should be highly predictive ofᅠabstract political opinions (like attitudes toward gun control and abortion) [13]. We applied a machine-learningᅠmethod to fMRI data to test the hypotheses that brain responses to emotionally evocative images predict individual scores on a standard political ideology assay. Disgusting images, especially those related to animal-reminder disgust (e.g., mutilated body), generate neural responses that are highly predictive of political orientation even though these neural predictors do not agree with participants' conscious rating of the stimuli. Images from other affective categories do not support such predictions. Remarkably, brain responses to a single disgusting stimulus were sufficient to make accurate predictions about an individual subjectメs political ideology. These results provide strong support for the idea that fundamental neural processing differences that emerge under the challenge of emotionally evocative stimuli may serve to structure political beliefs in ways formerly unappreciated.