Yesterday afternoon at Barnes and Noble I found a particularly good article in American Scientist magazine about the somewhat-nebulous concept of “emotional intelligence,” and the scientific questions related to it. One specific fact in the article led me to clarify something unusual about myself, and also form an intriguing hypothesis about the neurology of politics, and particularly the tendency toward bigotry.
I offer a theory that, often for physical, neurological reasons, people who use rational bases for decision-making may tend to be liberal, and people who use emotional bases for decision-making may tend to be conservative. My path to this theory leads through the front of my own brain, which has literally, physically, in all seriousness, lost its ability to use emotion to make decisions. This affects my way of thinking in ways that I believe shed some light on political thinking in general.
You know how abnormal psychology has long been a focus of psychological research, because the exceptions to the rule shed light on how the mind functions in a way that normalcy doesn’t? My own unusual neurology has become my personal laboratory. I have injuries to my prefrontal cortex and the fronts of my temporal lobes. I also have some other unusual neurology that I was born with, but which I won’t get into here.
This knowledge is important because it clues me in to specific physical reasons for unusual features of my personality, intellectual style, and behavior. The neuro quirks are also uncommon enough to be useful for comparing and contrasting myself with “normal” people (in a world where we are all unique, there is no “normal,” but at any rate people who mostly don’t have these specific conditions). A little knowledge of the things that make one’s own brain unique can be quite helpful in forming an experiential understanding or model of the way brains in general work, and why people are the way they are.
Anyway, the American Scientist article (“Feeling Smart: The Science of Emotional Intelligence” by Daisy Grewal and Peter Salovey) described an early 90’s study that shed light on emotional decision-making:
One group of participants in this study had been identified as having lesions to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex of the brain. Patients with this type of brain damage have normal intellectual function but are unable to use emotion in making decisions. The other group was normal, meaning that their brains were fully intact. Because there was no way for any of the players to calculate precisely which decks were riskier, they had to rely on their “gut” feelings to avoid losing money.
Damaiso’s group demonstrated that the brain-lesion patients failed to pay attention to these feelings (which he deems “somatic markers”) and subsequently lost significantly more money than the normal participants. Therefore, defects in the brain that impair emotion and feeling detection can subsequently impair decision-making. Damasio concluded that “individuals make judgments not only by assessing the severity of outcomes, but also and primarily in terms of their emotional quality.” This experiment demonstrates that emotions and thought processes are closely connected. Whatever notions we draw from our Stoic and Cartesian heritages, separating thinking and feeling is not necessarily more adaptive and may, in some cases, lead to disastrous consequences.”
The day before yesterday my boyfriend and I went to the grocery store together. I wanted to buy some kind of frozen food to eat for dinner this week. After mulling several choices with price and taste in mind, I picked up a small-size Digiorno veggie pizza and took it to our cart. I started to think about nutrition, though–the pizza had quite a lot of crust and fat and not enough of anything healthy. I stopped, frozen by indecision. It wasn’t obvious which of the factors was more important. “Put it in the cart,” said my boyfriend, who wanted to check out and go home. I explained my dilemma. “Put it in the cart and come on,” he said, in a flash of irritability, “it’s not that hard to make a decision.” I did as he asked and felt unhappy with myself. “It really is that hard for me to make a decision,” I said.
This scene probably doesn’t sound unusual at all. But it happens so constantly to me that I’ve long understood that there is something abnormal going on. I am an extraordinarily slow and indecisive shopper! As far as I can tell, it is literally true of me that I can’t and don’t use my emotions to make a decision. If I can’t make a satisfying decision based on logical factors, I have to fish around for something to break the tie (or be aided by my boyfriend demanding that I put the pizza in the cart!).
I think this insight about emotions and decision-making has broader implications. Both the article and my own long experience support the idea that “separating thinking and feeling is not necessarily more adaptive and may, in some cases, lead to disastrous consequences.” But it could be very misleading to connect more strongly emotional decision-making with “higher emotional intelligence.”
I suggest that, for instance, people who tend to strongly base their judgments on emotions are more susceptible to become bigots. The anti-gay movement, for instance, has no logical underpinning, unless you count some ambiguously-applicable scripture references. It rests fundamentally on its members experiencing their distressed emotions about homosexuality as valid information on which to base an ideological choice (in some cases, distressed emotions about their own homosexual inclinations).
A Daily Kos diary this morning about the experience of seeing the news world through the FoxNews lens described The O’Reilly Factor thus: “The show is all about placing blame. Almost every story centered on getting at who was ‘at fault.'” Commenters interpreted this as a culture of victimhood–but what if it is more accurately seeking to use emotions as a basis for grasping the nature of events and their causes–as a valid means of discernment? Who’s at fault? Probably the usual suspects, if our feelings tell us right.
Some people who use the emotional style of reasoning feel besieged by modernity and challenges to traditional beliefs about the nature of things. Scientific reasoning has been considered by some conservatives through the ages to be anathema, nihilistic, disturbing– because it is guarded against emotional reasoning and the “wise judgment” of emotionally-justified human beliefs. And this is perceived as tantamount to being against God–against morality and reality and the truest authority!
Scientists and liberals are as emotional as conservatives, and are no less able to have convictions (or religious feelings). But, are we people who, for neurologically-based reasons, tend to make decisions based on various external factors, more so than on emotions? And are far-right conservatives people who, for neurologically-based reasons, experience their emotions as a strong basis for decision-making?
I am liable to be misunderstood: I’m not remotely saying that liberals are brain-damaged, nor that brain injury makes you more “logical,” nor that wingnuts should be lobotomized. I was always a logical thinker and I am 90% sure I would have been a liberal regardless of whether I’d hit my head. But this specific unusual feature of my neurology, the loss of my ability to use emotion as a direct decision-making criterion, does make me think a little about the role of this particular faculty in human life.
There are some highly intelligent people who are staunch bigots. Poor reasoning ability is not necessarily the problem; an unfortunate judgment based on a negative emotional feeling is. Some people, maybe particularly more intelligent people, can be convinced that factual evidence or rational arguments are compelling enough to outweigh the emotion, and they can change their opinion. During the 20th century there were a great many people who came to realize blacks and whites are not different kinds of people but morally the same kind, and bigotry and segregation therefore irrational and morally and socially harmful. Gradually a similar kind of realization is happening in regards to homosexuality. Though there will always be bigots, because some susceptible people will always feel emotionally uncomfortable about particular categories of people, and behave as bigots. This is human nature.
(I would argue that I am particularly non-susceptible to that type of bigotry. And yet, I want to make the point that I could be bigoted in a slightly different sense, because I have certain convictions and beliefs, and I am sometimes prone to pass judgment on groups of people I think are wrongheaded or ignorant or uncompassionate. Perhaps this is the typical liberal version of bigotry–and I take it seriously. The “rationality” of it can be seductive [“what’s the matter with Kansas??? they’re fucking morons who vote for the culture war rather than their own interests, that’s what!!!”], but since it can lead to unkindness and divisiveness, it does concern me. I think the conservatives call it “liberal elitism;” if you think about it a little bit it makes a little sense as the “enlightened” rationalist’s “elite” scorn for the non-rationalist. What would happen if we appropriated the term “elitism” to use ourselves? Hey, if gays can call each other fags, and blacks can call each other niggas, liberals can surely call each other elite, or, ah, 1337, though that would be a different connotation. 🙂
This diary is not the entire explanation for the brain basis of political alignment, and I don’t believe liberals and conservatives split strictly as “rational vs emotional.” But divisions on a fair number of issues, especially bias issues, can be described at least partly along the lines of (negative emotional judgment) vs (positive emotional judgment and/or rational judgment).
Some Americans had the appropriate negative emotional reaction to terrorists, and used that as a basis for supporting actions to destroy or at least defy and torment Muslims in general. And they are scornful toward the liberals who have had the same appropriate negative emotional reaction, but use a rational basis to argue for reality-based strategies to prevent and defend against terrorism rather than making more terrorists by enflaming the whole Middle East. They are scornful because the liberals’ failure to use their emotional pain and anger as a basis for their course of action seems just wrong, and almost inhuman. It calls their loyalties into question.
See? Am I right, is so much of this based on such a little aspect of the way the brain works?
The American Scientist article includes a little portrait of Mr. Spock captioned, “Emotion was considered irrational by the Stoics, a view that has persisted into modern times and is epitomized by the character of Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy on the Star Trek television series. Spock hailed from the planet Vulcan, where pure logic is exalted, making him the consummate Starfleet science officer; yet his Vulcan father had married a human schoolteacher, giving Spock a vulnerable emotional side.” Spock was as “human” as anyone else, but his ability to make decisions based on logic alone gave him a particular kind of wise judgment.
(Incidentally, there’s a book titled Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet. It’s not a reference to Spock, but “an allusion to Vulcan, the crippled armaments maker of the Gods, who defended heaven.” I think the neo-cons are Romulans. 🙂
I’m not going to claim I’ve never asked for recommends before, but I am going to claim this is the most important and thoughtful diary I have written, and I do hope people will get to see it and think about it. There are many theories about why people are liberal or conservative. George Lakoff’s strict father/nurturant parent model is one I have respected but increasingly felt dissatisfied by. Yes, people have these kinds of models in their heads–but why? Physically, neurologically, where does it come from? That question is not quite answered in this diary, but I think it’s very related. Perhaps because people who reason less on emotion are less behaviorally reactive and more, well, nurturant.
(x-posted from Daily Kos)
Update [2005-8-3 15:5:37 by Elizabeth D]: Some people had questions about, for instance, whether I am wrongly over-simplifying everything to a dichotomy between rational and emotional. My point is more specific than that, and my replies below go into more detail about that and other questions.
Whoa, this is weird. Yesterday I wrote a rough draft of a post calling for more logic in government. I used Vulcans as an example. Today I see this. It’s a little unsettling.
Recommended. I like this theory.
McCoy [later in the same episode, as they are facing death]: I thought you said there were always alternatives?
Spock: Did I? Perhaps I was mistaken.
McCoy: Well, at least I lived long enough to hear that.
– sorry, couldn’t resist
Nice diary Elizabeth D.
I think that you have found a nugget of truth here. I do think rational v. emotional is part of the equation. Probably not the whole equation for all people, but perhaps a lot of the equation for a lot of people.
I don’t seem to fit your theory. I make most of my decisions emotionally….but after I think rationally about it I find that I made the right decision after all.
I do believe that liberals tend to have an earthy common sense that allows us to see all of the possibilities of taking a certain road all the way to its end. Some of my conservative acquaintances seem to have difficulty with that.
I don’t think liberalism and conservatism splits exactly along the lines of this one neurological trait. I think there are definitely emotionally guided people with liberal views and rationally guided people with conservative views.
Could it be possible that the right wing overriding emotions are a need for control out of fear? Fear of poverty, of not being better than others so you get the perks, of not being respected, fear of being dominated by others, of being overrun by others, etc.
While the overriding emotions of liberals may be another form of fear. Fear of loss of freedom, of not being understood, of others hurting, of not being kind, of feeling others pain, of the loss of the natural world, of injustice, etc.
But, I am rambling here, and just sorta thinking out loud…um… out keyboard…no that doesn’t sound right…………… awww, ya’ll know what I mean, don’t ya?
Don’t know if I am contributing or even making sense.
I’m away for 2 weeks otherwise I would flood this with comments – Its one of my favourite subjects…
This is an interesting diary. I am trying to wrap my head around the idea of making decisions based purely on logic. On the political aspect — I can’t entirely believe that rational/ emotional decision-making aligns very closely with liberal/ conservative. I guess I know too many emotional liberals. I do think that right and left embrace different narratives about what is good emotional reasoning: eg, the lust for violent revenge that seems to be expected on the right, or the demand for informed sympathy one finds on the left. We are taught which emotions to mistrust — and liberals obviously have a healthier set of story lines.
my everyday decision-making is not so much about using “pure logic” as it is about weighing various pro/con factors, but not being able to use my emotional feeling as one of those factors. I am a very emotional person, that just does not get integrated into my choice-making even when I want and need it to.
If you think of it in the terms I use in my diary, focusing on bias-related issues that are fundamentally dependent on emotionally-based judgments, you may be able to see why I would think people with greater or lesser dependence on emotional decision-making have a general tendency to divide ideologically along those lines.
You also mention different kinds of acceptable emotions that are characteristic of liberals and conservatives–I think you are right to point that out as important. I would argue that these are characteristic of different social styles that MAY correlate somewhat with the emotional versus rational decision-making style issue. The “story lines” (like the Lakoff model) relate to biological tendencies in my (Jungian influenced) view. But of course there is no denying people are complicated and unique, and there are a variety of major factors that enter into personality!
if a tiger jumped out of your closet, you wouldn’t run away, but you would think “gee, I should run now.” and then run away?
this is not about failing to have physiological kinds of responses to fear or anger. Those kinds of respones are associated with the brainstem, not the prefrontal cortex–you’re wired to react urgently in that kind of situation without involving your higher thought processes. What happens in the prefrontal cortex is discernment, judgment, decision-making. It would probably be switched OFF anyway if a tiger attacked and you were panicking.
did you read the diary and that’s seriously your question, or did you just glance at it, see that I have an impairment in acting on emotion, and post something snarky? Either way you didn’t understand and maybe you should keep trying.
I’m not talking about a minor problem that just makes me a balky pizza-buyer. The effects are pervasive and moderately disabling particularly because they seriously impair my ability to motivate myself. I don’t get into that in the diary because it’s more about what one might learn from it rather than my personal suffering.
As some one that has been fascinated by the different experiences of consciousness for pretty much my entire life, and that has worked with people that have different mental and physical disabilities, I would be very interested in any details you would like to share of your daily struggles with this.
I find the little daily things to be the most interesting, because they often point to profound differences in perception and action. To me, the differences, and similarities, bring us to understand what every person has to teach us about how we ourselves view the world and how we are biased. This leads all of us to knowing ourselves and others better, leading to compassion, empathy and makes it easier to “walk a mile” in the shoes of another person.
I understand if you don’t want to share anything for whatever reason you have, but if you do I would be profoundly grateful. You have already expanded my view of the world of consciousness in this diary. I thank you for that.
First, I really liked the diary. I’m more than a should-have-been psych major, I’m a close relative of a research psychologist, so I come by my interest honestly.
The problem is that we’re not in a neutral system or space, we’re in an intensely adversarial system which is in the process of being conquered by barely nonviolent fascists who are, or represent, the leadership of most of the economic and cultural forces that makes up the United States of America. But that doesn’t mean all is lost (more at the bottom).
One of the assets they own and operate is the mass media that constitute our sole important public gathering and political debate space, and provide us with all our common experience of society and reality. Our system gives society and individuals few rights in our common meeting and gathering space, so the owners are largely free to fabricate most of the reality and the debate we experience together.
All told, that’s a profoundly unfair world to try to operate our system in.
So we can’t safely apply conclusions from daily life to the way people behave in the contemporary political environment. The contemporary political environment is approaching extremes we only find in science fiction.
In a very ordinary, historic sense, it’s obvious that liberals would be more rational. Liberals believe in using government to achieve societal goals. Government is a system to liberals. To run it effectively, we must consider inputs, forces, speeds, distance of reach, etc. All this requires quite a lot of rational thinking.
Conservatives believe in government as a fixed religious doctrine, as a priori rules for the game of life. Government for them is a framework so they need to do relatively little rational problem-solving about government. Being corporatists and religious fundamentalists, they want to run (not lead) an authoritarian society, so they need people to think as little as possible. Their institutions attract such people for all the reasons outlined in the diary.
So back to our science-fiction present, the opposition has everything to gain by suppressing intellectualism and amplifying emotionalism, and it has almost all the resources and space of society in which to do it. The opposition knows that humans are very malleable and they’ve spent billions learning how to manipulate masses of people away from rational thinking and towards emotional thinking.
As a small-boat sailing instructor, when presented with rough weather I was able to keep crews as calm and self-sufficient as you like, or if they were the loose cannon types, manipulate levels of controlled mild panic enough to get them to do what I wanted without going to pieces. When I consider the Republican Revolution, I’m looking at people running the whole ship of state with a level of professionalism that dwarfs my little seat-of-pants sailboat skipper’s tricks.
We’re not necessarily lost yet. Whether by intrinsic inclination or by economic-political pressure, voters are more emotional than rational. If we recognize this and shift our messaging and appeals towards the emotional end of the spectrum, we can go a long way towards neutralizing the right’s advantages. We don’t have to lie, we don’t have to insult or demean. We just need to appeal to much of the mass of brain the other side connects with so much better than we’ve been doing.
My diary is about a hidden neurological factor, and you’re talking about what politics looks like in the real world, particularly under the effects of lies and coersion on human freedom. I think you’re right to emphasize that. On a certain level I think humans are fairly simple and fairly dumb machines, and if you’re clever you can fool/manipulate most of the people most of the time. The neocons in particular take this cynical view quite seriously and explicitly.
Cynicism corrupts, though. It has to be transcended by a basic clear-eyed respect for the human person and the human experience. I think that our task is less straightforward and requires much more finesse than that of the neocons, and I think that it always has been, that task involves calling people to awaken, enlighten, and particularly to pay attention to the difference between fact and opinion or feeling. Not because facts are good and feelings are bad, but because feelings can pretty literally run away with your decision-making if you don’t have any aware control over that effect.
The entire concept of dualism is an interesting one. Why have human beings so often seen thought and emotion as separate, often conflicting entities? As if we choose to act emotionally OR rationally. In reality, our emotions shape our thoughts, and our thoughts evoke emotion.
Perhaps the very nature of “consciousness” leads us to be conscious (sometimes) of our emotions and therefore to view them as separate from our thoughts. We all have had the experience of changing our emotions by changing how we think about something. A simple example would be feeling fear – then rationally examining the situation and determining that it is, in reality, not really threatening. We then experience the feeling of fear gradually subside.
That gives us the perception that “thought” (standing to one side of our “self” has examined “emotion” (standing over there, separate from thought) and that the two separate things have done battle with each other and that thought has won. Of course, the converse happens too – we act, under the influence of strong emotion and if we later regret those actions – we say emotion won.
My religious training was Catholic, and I was taught that emotion was essentially a base instinct – that the mind, rationality, was an aspect of the soul, and that emotion arose from the (inferior) body. That one should strive to suppress and overcome emotion and to live only according to reason. It was only after I left the church and rejected religious belief that I started to reclaim emotion as part of my mind, inseparable from thought.
I am a biologist, and of course, scientists also give the impression that they act only on logic. However, this is not true. The questions they find interesting to investigate, the enthusiasm of the pursuit, the “aha” that comes with insight and discovery all have an emotional component.
Your situation is very interesting. Not having experienced it, I can’t really imagine what it must be like. I had a colleague once who was both a philosophy professor and a psychotherapist and with whom I once had a very interesting conversation as he explained the role of emotion in decision-making, which I thought of while I was reading your diary.
My personal view is that thought and emotion are not separate, but that it is human nature – because of the nature of consciousness itself – to see them as if they were. You mention that you have always been very logical, and that you are still, despite your injury, very emotional. Perhaps your situation leads you to feel this (I would argue, false) separation more so than the rest of us, but I think we all feel it to some extent.
You point out that you are not suggesting anything as simplistic as “liberals -> rational” “conservatives -> emotional” and others have mentioned how emotional many liberals are (myself included). In fact, conservatives have often derided liberals as too touchy-feelly, bleeding hearts, etc. and portrayed themselves as more hard-headed and pragmatic (i.e. rational).
The other thing I’ve been thinking of since reading your diary earlier today, is of infidelpig’s diary about the two wolves. Perhaps both wolves are our emotions. Liberals and conservatives simply choose to feed different wolves. Because it all comes back to – our emotions shape our thoughts, our thoughts evoke emotions. And since we can choose what we think, we can also choose what we feel.
But changing our emotions by changing our thoughts is not an easy process. I guess that’s what keeps therapists in business.
[Sorry for such a long comment. Thanks for the thought 🙂 provoking diary.]
I imagine feeling and reasoning as two forces that blend and interact organically to create our behavior, I think that’s what you’re saying too.
I also was brought up Catholic, and contrary to much liberal assumption, it is a faith with a tremendous rationalist intellectual tradition. It has substantial anti-rational threads too, but as an adult I’ve learned (sometimes with surprise) to quite respect Catholicism. Its intellectual traditions could hardly be any more different from today’s powerful fundie protestantism. Catholicism is also pretty sincere about developing the individual morally, and I can kind of see that as the source of the “suppressing emotion” thing that you talk about. Like I say in my diary I think that wise and compassionate decision-making often becomes more likely when you’re not making decisions on emotion, but on a reasonable analysis of the situation and on moral convictions. I don’t see that interest in emotional control in today’s conservative protestantism. On the contrary, they cultivate intense feelings of association with an exclusive group (the church, the conservative movement, the nation), feelings of hate against enemies natural and supernatural, exhuberantly emotional and demonstrative worship, etc.
“In fact, conservatives have often derided liberals as too touchy-feelly, bleeding hearts, etc. and portrayed themselves as more hard-headed and pragmatic (i.e. rational).”
I am cynical about their portrayal, I think it is a kind of justification of their choice to act on their stronger negative/selfish feelings. They see it as courageous and manly to act aggressively and ambitiously, and they fear weakness. But it’s very disingenous of them to say that they aren’t acting on feelings. They absolutely are, but the feelings are very unexamined.
And I agree, changing thoughts does not do much to change emotions because the thoughts are usually not exactly what is producing the emotions. Our emotions are reaction to our cumulative experience.
I am really getting to hate Scientific American. It is a journal of science, yes, but in so many little ways it has been adopting the fascist paradigm. I suppose that deserves some explanation, though I won’t be giving it tonight.
Your first problem, and it amplifies a problem built into the article, is the mere dichotomy of thought into logical and emotional. Of course such a dichotomy can be made but many societies and civilizations have not made it, or have made it in ways that are completely different from white North America circa 2005. Indeed, the French, who up until a couple years ago we counted part of Western Civilization, have long held that emotions have an underlying logical structure of their own.
My point is only that the subject of study of the article (and your diary) is not “the mind” but thinking of early 21st century Americans and their possible physical (brain lobe) correlates. If it has as large a compass as that.
Most people I know who think emotionally are not Republicans–this may be because I don’t know many Republicans (I definitely know a few) but also because some people have good hearts and so when they think emotionally they are not republicans.
Consider a public example. I think it is obvious that when Bush thinks at all, his thinking is emotional. Having a rotten heart, his thinking is bad. Now consider Cheney, who seems to me to pursue evil with cold clear logic–not emotion. I don’t think the dichotomy works the way you think.
“One group of participants in this study had been identified as having lesions to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex of the brain. Patients with this type of brain damage have normal intellectual function but are unable to use emotion in making decisions. The other group was normal, meaning that their brains were fully intact. Because there was no way for any of the players to calculate precisely which decks were riskier, they had to rely on their “gut” feelings to avoid losing money.”
From the description of this experiement, it is far from clear to me what the lobe in question actually does. Why are we calling it emotion when it sounds like it actually performs and elaborate mathematical calculations unconnected to human social interaction?
While you may have trouble making decisions–and I extend my sympathy–I don’t think lack of emotion provides an explanation. I have a friend who seems almost completely emotional, but when it comes to making decisions this does not help him but hinders him as he feels each side of the situation and then can’t choose.
On the other hand, economists and game theorists build their theories of decision making without any emotions at all. All they require is the ability to assign a preference order to a set of outcomes.
I quoted their summary of a 12 year old psych study which clicked something into place for me about the nature of a very real neurological problem I have pesonally. Then I went off in another direction entirely with insights that derive from my own reasoning and my own experience. Most of what I’ve said here has nothing to do with the American Scientist article.
“Your first problem, and it amplifies a problem built into the article, is the mere dichotomy of thought into logical and emotional.”
You seem to think I’m over-simplifying in a general sense that I actually do not agree with. However: I have a specific problem which means I cannot use emotion for a specific kind of thought process. For these purposes it makes absolute logical sense to make a distinction between using or not using emotion for this specific thought process, in order to reason about the role of emotion in choice.
“some people have good hearts and so when they think emotionally they are not republicans.”
Absolutely. No argument there. Remember where I said that many bias issues divide along the lines of (negative emotional judgment) vs (positive emotional judgment or rational judgment)? This is because liberalism is, I would argue, an alliance between positive-feelers and rational thinkers.
“From the description of this experiement, it is far from clear to me what the lobe in question actually does. Why are we calling it emotion when it sounds like it actually performs and elaborate mathematical calculations unconnected to human social interaction?”
This brain area does a variety of things, and connecting emotion into choice and judgment is one of them. Elaborate mathematical logic is not. The point of the study was not that the participants’ brains were doing some complex math to figure out the secret of the cards (to me it’s obvious on the face of it that that is not occurring), but to demonstrate that the understanding about the cards comes THROUGH the experience of the emotions that the participant has when drawing good or bad cards. The “normal” participants come to feel subtly emotionally different about the good decks than the bad and to make choices on that basis. The lesioned participants are unable to use that emotional information to guide their choices (this is something I can relate to from everyday experience, but that might naturally be a harder concept for someone else). In this ingenious setup the emotional feeling is actually valuable information about how to win the “game.”
I don’t “lack” emotion. I just cannot and do not use it as a basis to make decisions. Indecisiveness happens to everybody and is normal and human. But lacking this particular aspect of normal decision-making does create a special set of problems.
an alliance between positive-feelers and rational thinkers
I agree. A good point.
I have to second what Janet S. just mentioned. The rational/emotional dichotomy does a great deal of damage to the highly complex reality of determining voting behavior. Mutually exclusive dualisms are exceedingly rare in real life.
I’d also have to disagree with the premise of the diary (which was an exceedingly informative read on neurology for a layperson) on another point. These different types of brain activity exist in a very concrete historical context. To boil voter behavior down to a matter of neurological functioning again ignores a massive amount of data demonstrating a number of social variables (dichotomous or otherwise) which also explain these differences.
responds to this kind of question.
My diary is not a wholistic treatment of psychology or political behavior in general, it is an examination of one discrete neurological element. It is not about dividing all human thought or behavior as rational or emotional, which would be misguided and impossible. I’m not asserting that this one little thing is the central or only fact of voter behavior, only that it has certain significances.
This may supplement what you have written:
I just read this interesting article on the Discover Magazine website (I don’t remember seeing it in the print version of the magazine) about the brain chemistry of near death experiences and out-of-body experiences.
What caught my eye was this:
So, the religious right might be suffering from epilepsy? Or some brain condition that mimics epilepsy?
This also caught my eye:
I think religiosity and emotion are certainly linked, so doesn’t it make sense that the religious wackos are all drawn to the party of emotional responses over the party of logic and science? Yet somehow, we have been labled the bleeding hearts? How did that happen? Is it that we are the party of empathy and they are the party of anger and fear? This seems obvious to me. It also explains why more positive religious peole are in our party, while the controlling fire-and-brimstone you-will-burn-in-hell-if-you-don’t-do-things-my-way religious types are on the right.
On a lighter note, Your photo of Mr. Spock reminded me of the GOTV images I created last year:
That article was in the print Discover, I remember reading it. It’s not about the specific brain function my diary is about, but it’s definitely interesting. The temporal lobes are involved in experiencing the presence of another person, and also in religiosity. If the temporal lobe is stimulated directly (or by a seizure, a brain tumor, etc), it produces some degree of religious experience in most people. But this doesn’t exactly mean that religious experience is abnormal, only that it’s related to the temporal lobe. But there are definitely accounts of people who became excessively relgious, then were diagnosed with a brain tumor and became non-religious again when it was removed.
Most people don’t want to think that human experience is so physically something that is happening in the brain, because they feel diminished by the reductionism of that kind of knowledge. But it is. And metaphysical thinking is our way of conceptualizing ourselves as something “more” anyway.