It is commonly thought that the political attitude of someone is the results from the experiences that person goes through. A recent study (Oxley et al., 2008), however, presents evidence that political attitudes tend to correlate with physiological traits.

Response to a Threat

This study investigates the possibility that people vary in general physiology and that certain of these variations encourage the adoption of particular political attitudes. The physiological variations that were measured were those that are usually elicited by a physical threat.

• Skin conductance: when facing a threat, moisture production in the outer layers of the skin increases, which in turn increases the electrical conductance. This makes it possible to assess sympathetic nerve activation through recording the skin conductance.
• Orbicularis oculi startle blink response: this is an involuntary response to a loud noise. A heightened ‘fear state’ is indicated by a higher blink amplitude (‘harder’ blinks).

The procedure used in the test was the following:

• Test subjects fill in a survey to ascertain their political attitude.
• Two months after the survey, they are invited to the lab where they are attached to physiological equipment that will measure the two indicators of their response to a perceived threat.
• The test subjects are shown 33 images with three threatening images (a large spider on the face of a frightened person, a dazed person with a bloody face and an open wound with maggots in it) in the series at random points. Here, the skin conductance was measures throughout the test.
• The participants, this time with headphones on, are asked to focus on a focal point on a computer screen, when, at seven unexpected moments, a loud, standardized level of white noise was heard. Here the blinking response was measured.

What Did They Find?

People with a more obvious response to a perceived threat, tend to attach more importance to those political aspects that focus on protecting the social unit (such as funding for defense, capital punishment and the Iraq war), while those with lower responses tend to favor political facets such as foreign aid, liberal immigration policies and gun control.

! Remarks !

• As I mentioned in a previous article, this type of research uses averages, so this may or may not apply to you as an individual.
• A correlation between physiology and political preferences was found, but not a causal relationship. This means that physiology can cause politics, or vice versa, or that there is a unknown underlying cause for this correlation.

Reference

Oxley, D.R; Smith, K.B.; Alford, J.R.; Hibbing, M.V.; Miller, J.L.; Scalora, M.; Hatemi, P.K. & Hibbing, J.R. (2008). Political Attitudes Vary with Physiological Traits. Science. 321, 1667 – 1670.