Liberals vs. Convervatives

I'm no fan of labels like liberal and conservative...not in politics, religion, wherever. Still, they're often kind of hard to avoid...because it does feel feel like theres something about people such that, on the surface at least, do tend to fall in one of two camps, whatever you choose to call them. Denise Gellene describes what that something is in the LA Times article titled "Study finds left-wing brain, right-wing brain":

Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work. In a simple experiment reported todayin the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists at New York University and UCLA show that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information. Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions.

It's kind of funny what the actual study was...a fairly simple game involving either typing or not typing a letter on a keyboard when it appeared on a monitor.

Based on the results...liberals could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.

Lead author David Amodio, an assistant professor of psychology at New York University, cautioned that the study looked at a narrow range of human behavior and that it would be a mistake to conclude that one political orientation was better. The tendency of conservatives to block distracting information could be a good thing depending on the situation, he said.

Still, he acknowledged that a meeting of the minds between conservatives and liberals looked difficult given the study results. "Does this mean liberals and conservatives are never going to agree?" Amodio asked. "Maybe it suggests one reason why they tend not to get along."