So, the amygdala doesn't just impact fear response, it also does anger, anxiety, and stress. An overactive amygdala negatively impacts your ability to think clearly.
Just like alligators. They're so ornery because they have all them teeth and no toothbrush
Which should mean that it would be implicated in conservative thought processes, being as they are so fear-and-anger-driven in everything they do.
it's a bit of a "chicken and egg" problem, but yes studies show that conservatives typically have an overactive amygdala. now, is it overactive because they're conservative, or are they conservative because it's overactive? hard to say.
HA HA take that COMMIE you're braver than me due to your genetic superiority! ^oh ^wait
I didn't have fascists scientifically proving that they're cowards on my 2026 bingo card.
It's still just as funny as the flat Earthers that keep accidentally proving that the Earth is round
It's still just as funny as the flat Earthers that keep accidentally proving that the Earth is round
Which is itself extra funny because I believe they both knew this and measured its circumference in ancient Egypt using two faraway towers, if I'm remembering that episode of Carl Sagan's Cosmos correctly.
Fear is, famously, an excellent impetus for rational decision-making. (/s just in case)
Fear and rage force you to use unreliable heuristics instead of critical thinking and analysis resulting in poorer choices, it's why so much propaganda relies on triggering those emotional states to get you to stop thinking and accept the message. Less fear in decision making is a beneficial mutation.
I've been saying this forever, but, like, these people really need to go back and reread Chicken Little. They're getting Fox News, getting scared, and reacting based off of what Fox is telling them, and not what the Chicken Little's are telling them.
The sky is not falling.
Take a deep breath, calm the fuck down, and chill. Everything's okay. As long as we stop freaking out.
Ha ha ha, Chicken Little is way above the reading level of most Conservatives.
Fun fact: Conservativism can be linked to Lead and/or Mercury exposure
I'm autistic and have an oversized amygdala but that doesn't stop me from being leftist. I just feel compassion for everyone human. Still struggling with the compassion for animals that I eat.
ironically i fear the SHIT out of right wingers, because they seem to actively want me to suffer before i die, for the crime of not being able to have a job
To be fair, they want everyone but themselves personally to suffer and die.
Veganism is my unattended moral compromise. I am positive that future generations will look at us and our factory farming and, aghast, see us as the monsters as we are - much like we look back at slaveowners, even those who were against the institution at the time.
Since I am not living in or near the wild and not hunting for my own food, it is clear to me that veganism is the only real moral choice, and yet I still participate.
I am complicit in this delightful supreme pizza and complicit in this breaded chicken sandwich.
The better educated you are, the more left leaning you tend to be:
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/04/26/a-wider-ideological-gap-between-more-and-less-educated-adults/
Conservatives tend to be dismissive of science and empirical evidence:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160713172717.htm
Higher verbal IQ correlates with liberal attitudes:
https://www.psypost.org/verbal-iq-predicts-political-participation-and-liberal-attitudes-twice-as-strongly-as-performance-iq/
Whatever this dumb shit is, is a reaction to that. As usual, they project their own shortcomings on their enemies.
In any case, what it comes down to is basic empathy and morality. If you care for others, you tend to vote left. If you care for only yourself and your self-interests, you vote right. There is no debating that, it's stated right there in the fucking ideology.
I would also add that somewhere between 21% - 25% of the American population is functionally illiterate. This means that people can read short messages, texts and headlines if they focus, but are basically incapable of comprehending and internalizing written material more abstract or complicated than a meme or tweet.
The far-right MAGA conservatives who are ride-or-die with Trump no matter what happens also seem to line up pretty close to this percentage. I don't think anyone has done a direct study of a connection or even correlation, but I would put money on the bet that the Venn diagram is a perfect circle.
How can you not mention the awesome studies on bullshit.
https://jspp.psychopen.eu/index.php/jspp/article/download/6565/6565.pdf/
Conservatives fall for bullshit.
I appreciate the effort but conservatives are not reading any studies.
No wonder Republicans are so phobic of everything. They got overinflated amygdalas. Amygdalas so big they look like this:
Conservatives are more afraid of everything, and respond in anger. How the fuck is that "better"?
Those are “manly” emotions! But also don’t forget that we are better for running countries because we’re so calm and cool.
Ah, the typical nazi idea of correlating random body measurements with complex behavioral and emotional patterns.
You mean the Brit/American eugenics idea.
Hitler was a great fan of these racists so he sent a dr Mengele to study the superior Nordic race at Carnegie's American Eugenics Society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eugenics_Society_Exhibit_(1930s)._Image_from_Wellcome_Library.jpg
Went to a Mediterranean restaurant for dinner with my wife. We celebrated her birthday, and so decided to check the dessert menu. We generally don't get dessert, just never really lie thing, but this menu has a dessert called amygdalopita, which piques my interest. Why would they name it after part of the brain?
And so upon further research, we discovered that the Greek word αμύγδαλο (amýgdalo) means almond. And this really got my wheels turning, because it brought back memory of EMT classes, way back in like 2003, where they talked about the amygdala being named such due tonit being almond shaped.
So I like a dessert that not only tasted great, but also helped me make connections, maybe fire off some neurons I hadn't in a while.
For the curious ones, from Psychology Today:
"A larger amygdala is primarily associated with increased anxiety, heightened emotional reactivity, and stress-related disorders, often acting as a hyper-active "threat detector" Symptoms frequently include persistent fearfulness, depression, irritability, and hypervigilance, as the brain over-processes neutral stimuli as threats."
Whoever made the original meme is an absolute moron.
I'M AFRAID OF EVERYTHING LIKE A REAL MAN!
OMG they are so detached from reality that they are bragging about being terrified?
Conservatives don't know anything about the person they voted for. They don't know anything about how their government functions. They don't know anything about their Constitution.
I promise they don't know what an amygdala is or what it does.
conservatives have a hyerptrophied amygdala due to always constantly feeling fear.
"Be afraid." We have people posting "Be afraid." with 0% irony.
What?
I'm afraid of urban density, diversity, genders and social progress. That makes me superior.
Fear is the mind killer. Long live the fighters.
I've seen some interesting discussion of this linked to the idea of survive/thrive strategies. Is the world a dangerous place that calls for avoiding risks and protecting what you have, or is it full of opportunities and calls for exploring and being open to novelty? Neither inclination is fundamentally wrong. But I'm not sure how to reconcile that with modern "rightists" who want to burn down the system and aren't conservative in the lowercase-C sense.
"I'm more scared than you!" Is a weird flex.
"I'm afraid more often and that's why I'm a terrible person!"
Nice to see conservatives were able to rebrand the "conservatives have over-active amygdala and are scared of everything for no reason" articles
Since we're sharing fun facts, conservatism and authoritarianism is unsurprisingly correlated with high levels of obedience in things like the Milgrim shock experiment replications. Something akin to 90% compared to the original 60% (which was already quite high since they only had white men at the time).
They're also more likely to choose selfish options in things like the prisoners dilemma, too!
(Edit, if you wanna read more there's an open source textbook I use: https://opentextbc.ca/socialpsychology/ )
The average American reads at an elementary school level, and many are functionally illiterate. Here is a case in point.
Ironic that right-wingers seem to be particularly enamoured of the “It’s afraid” meme then (doubly ironic that it’s from an anti-fascist parody).
Stay close to the tree line. Learn to identify plants with poisonous oils. Stockpile the leaves that are like paper. If you must run a fire, use clean burning fuels, to avoid disclosing location. Dig a deep hole and build a privacy wall out of poisonous vines.
Edit that was for something else lol
When you claim to have a strong ability to sense danger, so you join the demonic pedophile death-cult.
Let's just say I get scared real easy.
the brain is plastic, so it seems far more likely to me that being in conservative circles causes the amygdala to enlarge than the opposite
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
._Image_from_Wellcome_Library.jpg){kind=link}