In my last set of postings, I delved into the field of
punditry. More specifically, I related
what the political writer, Philip E. Tetlock,[1] had to
say about predicting political events or developments. One observation I made was that pundits
aren’t necessarily in the business of changing minds. Their audiences consist of people who pretty
much agree with them. Pundits serve to
reinforce already held beliefs about the political world and, in addition, they
can provide talking points. To be open
to new information and/or arguments is to take a reasonable approach to
political thinking and calculating. What
it turns out to be, though, is that when it comes to politics and what people
who have an interest in it tend to do is not think about politics, but rather
feel about politics; that is, “[t]he political brain is an emotional brain” –
so says Drew Westen.[2]
Let’s state that a bit differently. If you view our thinking and deciding about
politics and government as a dispassionate process – one in which we take in
information, weigh pro and cons over possible courses of action or policy and
reason what is best either for ourselves, our family, our community, nation, or
the world, you’re wrong. According to
Westen, this is not how the human mind works.
Those in the business of politics, such as those working in political
campaigns who assume that is how people think about politics, will not be
successful. Westen and his colleagues
came to this conclusion from their research into political thinking; I mean
political feeling.
For example, in 2004, during the presidential campaign that
pitted John Kerry against George W. Bush, Westen’s team identified fifteen
committed Democrats and fifteen committed Republicans, each subject supporting
his/her party’s nominee. The researchers
showed them slides from which the subjects read information which depicted
Kerry and Bush being dishonest, inconsistent, slimy, pandering, or simply
acting poorly in some way. Through
accompanying questioning and scanning their brains, the researchers wanted to
see how the subjects reacted to the information for each of the
candidates. To begin with, the
reasonable response would have been to condemn the depicted behaviors equally
along some standard for appropriate conduct.
By recording the subjects’ responses and then reviewing the information
derived from the scanning, the researchers’ aim was to ascertain what was
happening cognitively. To guide this
research, they proposed four hypotheses:
(1) the negative information would cause the neural circuits found to be
associated with negative emotions to be activated; (2) overall activation in
the brain would be geared at “regulating” emotions through such coping
mechanisms as rationalization; (3) parts of the brain associated with conflict
would be activated; and (4) parts of the brain associated with reasoning would
not be activated since they expected the subjects to “reason” from their
emotions. The slides, for example,
presented one candidate condemning the Iraq war and another slide showing him praising
it. They also saw the other candidate
waxing-on about how we need to take care of the veterans while his
administration cut funding for VA hospitals. Summarily, the researchers found that the
subjects found it easy to find fault with the candidate they did not support
while only mildly finding fault with the candidate they supported. But not only was this research able to record
the inconsistency in the answers the subjects provided, it, due to the
scanning, checked on how the brain physically responded to the information.
The first detection was expected; neurons associated with
stress fired up. This causes an
unpleasant sensation within the subject.
To “handle” this, the brain attempts to deny the information causing the
negative reaction – this reminds one of the five stages of grief. It seems that this, if allowed to stand, is a
way to turn off the unpleasant chemical business happening internally. What the
researchers found interesting was how quickly the brain was able to do this
type of mental gymnastics. “The neural
circuits charged with regulation of emotional states seemed to recruit beliefs
that eliminated the distress and conflict partisans had experienced … [a]nd
this all seemed to happen with little involvement of the neural circuits
normally involved in reasoning.”[3]
If this weren’t telling enough, the researchers were able to
detect another finding that surprised them.
Once the false conclusions were accepted by the subject and the neural
circuits associated with unpleasant sensations deactivated, those associated
with positive emotions were engaged – they fired up. These partisan subjects’ brains not only
found a way to stop feeling bad, but also found a way to feel good, and the
neurons so activated substantially coincided with those stimulated in a drug
addict when getting his/her fix. Westen
asks: is there something to the notion
of a political junkie?
If this is what a political operative is facing in a
political campaign, what chances does reasoned debate have in the process? The saving grace is that roughly about sixty
percent of the population is partisan (just about thirty/thirty between the
major parties). That leaves forty
percent not so committed to either one side or the other and, therefore, these
people are subject to being influenced by well-run campaigns that can put
together a good, well presented argument relevant to their needs. Of course, to begin with, these are the same
people who have less interest in politics.
People who are partisan become partisan by having this interest nurtured,
usually from a very young age. I
attribute my interest, for example, to the interest my father expressed around
the house (actually the New York apartment) I lived in during my early years. Once one is exposed to such messaging, it
usually comes with the bias built-in. My
father was a union painter who was very committed to his union. Along with that, there was a partisan bias
toward the Democratic Party – my first trip to Hyde Park occurred when I was
eleven or so. I suppose most strongly
held partisan emotions are generated in similar ways. As the years have gone by, I have tried to
become more reasonable in my views of politics.
I still love FDR, but I have in this blog pointed out short comings
attributed to the New Deal – you can judge how “dispassionate” I have
become. The point is that a civically
minded citizen should be reasonable yet emotional enough about politics and the
welfare of our commonwealth to be motivated to learn and become involved in our
political activities. This adds to the
challenges of a civics teacher.
[1] Tetlock, P.
(2013). How to win at
forecasting. In J. Brockman (Ed.), Thinking:
The new science of decision-making, problem-solving, and prediction
(pp. 18-38). New York, NY: Harper Perennial.
[2] Westen,
D. (2007). The political brain: The role of emotions in deciding the fate of
the nation. New York, NY: PublicAffairs, p. xv.
[3] Ibid., p. xiv.
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