[BlackGriffen]

This just in: Republicans really are heartless bastards and Democrats really are bleeding heart crybabies. Source:

[...]
In the experiment with Graham, researchers exposed him to photographs of the presidential candidates, commercials for President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and other video images, including the Daisy commercial from 1964. In that advertisement, promoting President Lyndon B. Johnson against Barry Goldwater, images of a girl picking daisies and singing are replaced by images of a nuclear explosion.
[...]
The researchers had already zeroed in on those images and their particular effect among Democrats on the part of the brain that responds to threats and danger, the amygdala.

Graham, like other Democrats tested, responded to the Sept. 11 images with noticeably more activity in the amygdala than did the Republicans, said the lead researcher, Marco Iacoboni, an associate professor at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute who directs a lab at the Ahmanson Lovelace Brain Mapping Center there.

The first interpretation that occurred to me, Iacoboni said, is that the Democrats see the 9/11 issue as a good way for Bush to get re-elected, and they experience that as a threat.

But then the neuroscientists noted that same spike in amygdala activity when the Democrats watched the nuclear explosion in the Daisy advertisement, which was used to promote a Democrat.

Freedman suggested another interpretation based on his political experience: the theory that Democrats are generally more alarmed by any use of force than Republicans. For now, Iacoboni leans toward this second interpretation, although he is withholding judgment until the experiment is finished.
[...]
One of the most striking results so far is the way that subjects react to candidates after seeing a campaign commercial. At the start of the session, when they look at photographs of Bush, Kerry and Ralph Nader, subjects from both parties tend to show emotional reactions to all the candidates, indicated in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain above the nose associated with reflexive reactions.

But then, after the Bush campaign commercial is shown, the subjects respond in a partisan fashion when the photographs are shown again.

They still respond emotionally to the candidate of their party, but when they see the other party's candidate, there is more activity in the rational part of the brain, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. It seems as if they're really identifying with their own candidate, whereas when they see the opponent, they're using their rational apparatus to argue against him, Iacoboni said.

The neuroscientists have tested 11 people so far, and they warned against drawing conclusions until about twice that many are examined.
[...]

So it's true: the Rethugs are heartless bastards and the Democries are bleeding hearts.

That should hopefully take care of the flaming quota for the thread. I just wanted to post this because I thought that the results, and that the studies are being done at all, are interesting.

BlackGriffen

[Millennium]

So in other words, no one thinks rationally about their own candidate, but everyone thinks rationally about the others. Meaning that the only rational conclusion is that every candidate sucks.

Was this nor already immediately obvious?

[BlackGriffen]

Originally posted by Millennium:
So in other words, no one thinks rationally about their own candidate, but everyone thinks rationally about the others. Meaning that the only rational conclusion is that every candidate sucks.

Was this nor already immediately obvious?

Only to the non-partisans.

BG

[BRussell]

Why did someone report on this? They have a theory, and haven't tested it yet. They obviously need to have their subjects look at violent images not associated with politics in order to show what they're trying to say here. And I bet they'll find absolutely zero evidence of difference between Democrats and Republicans.

I've got to get into this field. It's apparently wide open.

[BlackGriffen]

Originally posted by BRussell:
Why did someone report on this? They have a theory, and haven't tested it yet. They obviously need to have their subjects look at violent images not associated with politics in order to show what they're trying to say here. And I bet they'll find absolutely zero evidence of difference between Democrats and Republicans.

I've got to get into this field. It's apparently wide open.

Indeed it is:

It seemed so last century, Joshua Freedman said. Consultants were quoting Freud as if it was cutting edge. It was all about interpretation instead of using new technology to measure what's actually happening in the mind.

You could be famous! Go for it, BRussell.

BlackGriffen

[macvillage.net]

Originally posted by Millennium:
So in other words, no one thinks rationally about their own candidate, but everyone thinks rationally about the others. Meaning that the only rational conclusion is that every candidate sucks.

Was this nor already immediately obvious?

I think the best satement about the presidential election was that it's a pathic offering.

[PacHead]

Wow, what a great, intensive scientific study. They tried this out on 11 people so far, but warn that the tests aren't reliable until they've at least done twice as many.

Meanwhile, I conducted my own study the other day. I asked 7 people, and they all agreed that leftists are cowards & morons. I'm going to try and ask twice as many people next week, and then my theories will be proven and written in stone.

[tie]

Originally posted by PacHead:
Meanwhile, I conducted my own study the other day. I asked 7 people, and they all agreed that leftists are cowards & morons. I'm going to try and ask twice as many people next week, and then my theories will be proven and written in stone.

LOL. Publish or perish. Aim for a slightly obscure journal, or a conference in the dead of winter in Iceland, and you'll be on the way to academic stardom.

[voyageur]

They should try testing undecided voters periodically over the next months until the election, and see how their intermediate and final choices match up with their brain activity.