Nonpolitical Images Evoke Neural Predictors of Political Ideology

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dc.citation.firstpage2693
dc.citation.issueNumber22
dc.citation.journalTitleCurrent Biology
dc.citation.lastpage2699
dc.citation.volumeNumber24
dc.contributor.authorAhn, Woo-Young
dc.contributor.authorKishida, Kenneth T.
dc.contributor.authorGu, Xiaosi
dc.contributor.authorLohrenz, Terry
dc.contributor.authorHarvey, Ann
dc.contributor.authorAlford, John R.
dc.contributor.authorSmith, Kevin B.
dc.contributor.authorYaffe, Gideon
dc.contributor.authorHibbing, John R.
dc.contributor.authorDayan, Peter
dc.contributor.authorMontague, P. Read
dc.date.accessioned2015-01-08T14:55:04Z
dc.date.available2015-01-08T14:55:04Z
dc.date.issued2014
dc.description.abstractPolitical 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.
dc.identifier.citationAhn, Woo-Young, Kishida, Kenneth T., Gu, Xiaosi, et al.. "Nonpolitical Images Evoke Neural Predictors of Political Ideology." <i>Current Biology,</i> 24, no. 22 (2014) Elsevier: 2693-2699. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2014.09.050.
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2014.09.050
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/78913
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherElsevier
dc.rightsThis is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
dc.titleNonpolitical Images Evoke Neural Predictors of Political Ideology
dc.typeJournal article
dc.type.dcmiText
dc.type.publicationpublisher version
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