Scientific support for the Maha Elective Ignorance Theory:
In an experiment that pols may want to note closely, researchers recently plopped 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats into scanners that measure changes in brain-blood oxygenation. Such changes are thought to be linked to increases or decreases in particular areas of brain activity.
Each of the partisans was repeatedly shown images of President Bush and 2004 Democratic challenger John F. Kerry.
When Republicans saw Kerry (or Democrats saw Bush) there was increased activation in brain areas called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is near the temple, and the anterior cingulate cortex, which is in the middle of the head. Both these regions are involved in regulating emotions. (If you are eating an ice cream cone on a hot day and your ice cream falls on the sidewalk and you get upset, these areas of your brain remind you that it is only an ice cream, that not eating the ice cream can help keep those pounds off, and similar rationalizations.) More straightforwardly, Republicans and Democrats also showed activation in two other brain areas involved in negative emotion, the insula and the temporal pole. It makes perfect sense, of course, why partisans would feel negatively about the candidate they dislike, but what explains the activation of the cognitive regulatory system?
Turns out, rather than turning down their negative feelings as they might do with the fallen ice cream, partisans turn up their negative emotional response when they see a photo of the opposing candidate, said Jonas Kaplan, a psychologist at the University of California at Los Angeles.
In other words, without knowing it themselves, the partisans were jealously guarding against anything that might lower their antagonism. Turning up negative feelings, of course, is a good way to make sure your antagonism stays strong and healthy.
You might remember that one component of the Elective Ignorance Theory is that a person’s worldview is integrated into his self-identity. For this reason, challenges to his worldview are perceived as threats to himself.
Put another way, the conceptual box they live in is who they think they are. Any challenge to the integrity of the box must be fought by any means necessary. That’s why you can’t have rational discussions with extremist partisans, because while you’re presenting data and concepts, they’re guarding their cave.
The psychologist quoted, Jonas Kaplan, hasn’t gotten all the way to the Maha Elective Ignorance Theory yet.
“My feeling is, in the political process, people come to decisions early on and then spend the rest of the time making themselves feel good about their decision,” Kaplan said.
Although it seems paradoxical that people would want to make themselves feel poorly, Kaplan said partisans have a strong interest in feeling poorly about the candidate they are not going to vote for as that cements their belief that they are doing the right thing.
With extremist partisans, as I say, the reaction is a lot more than just trying to smooth over doubts or resolving ambiguities. It’s a matter of guarding and defending every part of the “reality” they live in.
The result reflects a larger phenomenon in which people routinely discount information that threatens their preexisting beliefs, said Emory University psychologist Drew Westen, who has conducted brain-scan experiments that show partisans swiftly spot hypocrisy and inconsistencies — but only in the opposing candidate.
When presented with evidence showing the flaws of their candidate, the same brain regions that Kaplan studied lighted up — only this time partisans were unconsciously turning down feelings of aversion and unpleasantness.
“The brain was trying to find a solution that would get rid of the distress and absolve the candidate of doing something slimy,” Westen said. “They would twirl the emotional kaleidoscope until it gave them a picture that was comfortable.”
We all do this, of course. Righties are certain the only reason we lefties oppose President Bush’s policies is that we’re Bush haters. And yeah, we spend a lot of time dissing Bush and enjoying it. No question about that. But most of us leftie bloggers are focused on documentation and criticism of what Bush does. Those criticisms either stand or fall on their merits; the fact that I find Dubya to be an odious toad is beside the point.
And I may be imagining this, but it seems to me there is less cartoony anti-Bush humor on the Left Blogosphere than there used to be. Early on I wrote some humor pieces about Bush, but after awhile I couldn’t do it any more. He just isn’t funny.
On the other hand —
During the 2004 primaries some of the Dean and Kucinich supporters became downright insufferable. I developed a serious dislike of Dennis Kucinich because too many of his followers were nasty little brats. Also in those days I was a regular participant on the Atlantic Online forums (which I think are closed now), but some people with whom I’d enjoyed cordial online relations went off the wall whenever I said anything nice about any candidate other than Howard Dean. And I mean off the wall, as in vicious personal attacks. This was particularly startling to me because I like Howard Dean, and I don’t believe I wrote about him negatively. But that wasn’t good enough for the Deaniacs; either I was fur ‘im or agin’ ‘im. I was so rattled I broke off discussions and relationships and vacated the premises, never to return. So we have to watch for partisan blindness in ourselves, too.
I have a long-standing policy of distrusting new information that I want to believe. This is a habit of mind Jason Leopold would do well to cultivate. As I remember, many of the leftie blogs that linked to Leopold’s “Karl Rove is already indicted” story added a “reader beware” caveat to the link. But I don’t believe they all did.
I caught a lot of flack when I criticized Cindy Sheehan for getting her picture taken with Hugo Chavez, but I still think stunts like that compromised Sheehan’s value as an anti-war symbol. And then there’s the “WTC implosion caused by controlled detonation” freaks. Don’t get me started.
So, in the spirit of intellectual honesty, I admit that we lefties have our anterior cingulate cortex misfire episodes, too. But righties are worse.
Sometimes I manage to see my own hypocrisy.
Not only are righties worse in their willful ignorance, but it’s also contagious.
I worked next to an extreme wingnut who got his jollies by trying to bait me and sometimes others into political arguments. In retrospect, I see that he was one of the “Conservatives Without a Conscience” that John Dean wrote about.
Initially, naively, I tried to be even-handed, freely criticizing my “side” and its candidates. I welcomed the prospect and stimulation of a fair discussion.
But I soon realized that this was seen as weakness by the rightie, who would not brook any weakness at all in his “side” or his candidates, no matter how ridiculous their statements or actions. Instead, he would come up with the most fantastic rationalizations to protect the integrity of his worldview. If Rush or Bush told him that the sky was green, he would not only believe it, he would start to come up with arguments as to why it indeed was green. And he thought he was being clever in doing so.
The notions of “fairness” or “commitment to Truth, wherever it may lead” were completely foreign to this guy. All that mattered was winning, at any cost.
Faced with this type of confrontation, one in which I couldn’t easily walk away from (I had to sit next to the guy), I found myself eschewing fairness for “defending my cave” as you put it. The conversation degraded from a desire for an honest discussion, which was impossible, to simply getting this clown off my back, which meant having to watch my back and not admitting to any weakness whatsoever in my positions.
Eventually the situation resolved itself: At the end of my rope, I was fired because I told this guy off in an email. Not the brightest way to handle it, but I had to learn that the hard way. I got sick thereafter, which I believe was my body’s way of throwing off the emotional toxicity from the time I spent in an emotionally toxic workplace. It took me months to work through the anger of what happened and to begin to forgive everyone, including myself. I hope to start looking for work, soon. I am thousands of dollars in debt due to the downtime.
I’ve counselled others on DKos who have gone through similar problems in the workplace. I know my story is not unique, and is just one consequence of the poisoning of our entire culture by this particular, deliberate toxin of hate and lies coupled with small mindedness. It’s been quite an education.
I didn’t find the political blogs until after the 2004 election, but, in some occasional reminiscences over at Daily Kos, it seems the Dean fanaticism was rampant there as well.
Maha, I’m intrigued by your comments regarding Kucinich supporters. What made them so insufferable, in your opinion?
Would be interesting to see if education level has any bearing on the Elective Ignorance Theory. Or age.
I hate the neocons because like stalinists and maoists: they still love the ideology and blame the failures on execution( interesting pun).They do not care what blood is expended or what it takes to clean up their mess.
I did not hate George Bush when he was elected but knew in 2000 that he was a mediocre little man, a name brand that rich powerful and malevolent forces had funded and propped up like a cardboard cut out, and so I feared what was coming. I began to intensely despise him in 2001 when he allowed Sharon to destroy the West Bank and since then well you all know his actions and inaction have been a stellar performance of failure. It is his actions that I hate. the man is not worth the effort.
Maha, I’m intrigued by your comments regarding Kucinich supporters. What made them so insufferable, in your opinion?
You can get all my old gripes by googling:
site:www.mahablog.com Kucinichistas
Here’s one thing I wrote here:
I wonder if our general perception that righties are worse is because of where the line between the camps is drawn. I think it stands to reason that if the American political spectrum skews right (conservative Chrstians get lots of air time but Marxists and even radical feminists don’t so much), but only 37% of Americans still support the president, it stands to reason that there will be more crazies left in that 37%. (As in, say you had a straight line with the extreme right on one end and the extreme left on the other; if you broke the line apart about 1/3 of the way from the extreme right, the percentage of extremism on that 1/3 of the line would be higher because the middle of the original line is on the other part. If that makes sense.) I would argue some lefties are just as belligerant and stubborn and ignorant but they’re also so marginalized that they have fewer platforms from which to speak, so they’re out there but we don’t hear from them as often as we do from the media-enabled rightie fringes.
Not that “lefties do it, too” is justification for the behavior, which is maybe a lesson some righties could stand to learn. Some people forgot to get in line when they handed out critical thinking skills.
I have a long-standing policy of distrusting new information that I want to believe.
Amen to that. I think such a policy is a necessity for anyone who would like to be a decent person.
So sorry for you, moonbat.
I’ve had it a bit better, the guys I work with voted overwhelmingly for Bush.All but one now realizes the mistake, and the final hold out is loosing faith quickly.I was verbally beaten several times, but my response was always “just wait a couple of months, then let’s pick up the debate”. It worked, and now my worst critic has asked me how I figured it out.
I just said I change the batteries in my bullshit detector weekly…
A little humble humor goes a long way, buttin heads rarely works, but there are times……
Hope you are back to work soon.
erinyes: Thanks for your kind words, and for some useful tips.
I don’t understand why so-called Liberals don’t support actual liberals.
Kos and Aravosis hate Cynthia McKinney choosing to believe the lies told about them by the extremist right-wing rather than look at her record of being a tiny minority of actual progressive voting.
In this post Maha distances hirself from Kucinich, another of a tiny minority of actual Democrats, simply due to the rude behavior of some of his followers.
And finally, Maha finishes off with another baffling comment, Cindy Sheehan is diminished for appearing with Chavez. Huh?
Why do the so-called liberal blogs hate Chavez? When one hears the reality of what he’s accomplished in the 8 years he’s been continually elected to office, how can anyone (other than the extremely wealthy and powerful) NOT like his policies?
So I guess I sum it up with a question: Why are the liberal blogs NOT supporting real liberals, but supporting the moderate Republicans (like Reid and Pelosi and Clinton) that make up the vast majority of the Democratic party?
I was on the Atlantic, Maha, one of the two Deaniacs there. I don’t remember it the way you do; I certainly never attacked you personally and only remember heated arguments with the late Marie Cook.
Correction: Bri and I also argued with RJ Heaney. But not with you, mainly because you never got nasty. But neither did I, ever.
Mary Mary — Bri and Elaine just about eviscerated me. They were ruthless. I became a warmonger and a dupe and a brainwashed idiot and a few other things. Those two were the biggest reason I left.
I don’t understand why so-called Liberals don’t support actual liberals.
I don’t understand why so-called Liberals don’t think liberals should think for themselves.
My distancing from Kucinich — whom I like overall, actually — has more to do with his history and some of his behavior when he was running for president. The brainless robots who supported him were what made me give him a closer look, however. I do judge trees by their fruit.
FYI I don’t “hate” Hugo Chavez. I’m happy with him as long as the people of Venezuela are happy with him. But if you don’t understand why the photo of Chavez and Sheehan diluted Sheehan’s value as an antiwar symbol, then you must be utterly oblivious to the practical realities of politics. I suspect you are the kind of impractical flake that has helped keep liberalism marginalized lo these many years.
IMO Cynthia McKinney is a mixed bag. Most of the time I don’t mind her, but sometimes she’s a bit of a loose cannon.
Well hell, maha, why in the world would you ever take anything Elaine said seriously? I totally forgot about her.
I never knew you were upset, though, just thought you moved on to start up this enterprise. Bri felt personally betrayed and horribly hurt, that I know for sure.
“I do judge trees by their fruit.”
I never do; people support candidates because of their own mixed bag of needs, stated and unstated, acknowledged and unacknowledged. But I agree that most voters do so judge. Soft sell works best, always.
Well hell, maha, why in the world would you ever take anything Elaine said seriously? I totally forgot about her.
She’d been friendly up until then. We’d talked on the phone a few times.
I never knew you were upset, though, just thought you moved on to start up this enterprise. Bri felt personally betrayed and horribly hurt, that I know for sure.
I did everything short of mailing him cookies to get him to calm down, but he wouldn’t let up, so I left. I felt personally betrayed and horribly hurt, because I had liked Bri a lot.
Re judging trees by their fruit, that doesn’t mean going by voters, but by their most ardent followers. Most voters aren’t supporters. I think if you look at any group of followers it tells you a lot about the quality of the leader.
The Atlantic forums were filled with complete left wing nutters who could easily be herded over a cliff at the slightest provocation. I know, because I provoked them!
I know, because I provoked them!
Yet I don’t remember you. How odd.