• About
    • About
    • What is Public Interest Communications?
    • Our Team
    • Theories We Use
    • What We’ve Shared
    • Center Updates
    • Programs & Affiliates
      • frank gathering
      • The Research Prize in Public Interest Communications
      • Journal of Public Interest Communications
      • UF Programs
    • Contact Us
  • Our Services
    • Strategy Consulting
    • Issue Research
    • Training – Frameworks and Custom
  • Frameworks & Resources
  • Training
  • Case Studies
Center for Public Interest Communications
Support
  • About
    • About
    • What is Public Interest Communications?
    • Our Team
    • Theories We Use
    • What We’ve Shared
    • Center Updates
    • Programs & Affiliates
      • frank gathering
      • The Research Prize in Public Interest Communications
      • Journal of Public Interest Communications
      • UF Programs
    • Contact Us
  • Our Services
    • Strategy Consulting
    • Issue Research
    • Training – Frameworks and Custom
  • Frameworks & Resources
  • Training
  • Case Studies
  • Research & Insights

Conservatives and Liberals Will Probably Disagree About Why They Disagree

  • August 8, 2014
  • 2 minute read
Total
0
Shares
0
0
0
0

People who hope that conservatives and liberals can get past their disagreements to get more done will find little comfort in a new study that suggests that different political outlooks may be hard wired into our brains.

“Politics might not be in our souls, but it probably is in our DNA,” write political scientists John Hibbing and Kevin Smith of University of Nebraska-Lincoln and John Alford of Rice University, in the June 2014 issue of the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

“Natural tendencies to perceive the physical world in different ways may in turn be responsible for striking moments of political and ideological conflict throughout history,” says Alford, one the study’s authors.

Using eye-tracking equipment and skin conductance detectors, the three researchers have observed that conservatives tend to have more intense reactions to negative stimuli, such as photos of people eating worms, burning houses or maggot-infested wounds.

Combining their own results with similar findings from other researchers around the world, the team proposes that this so-called “negativity bias” may be a common factor that helps define the difference between conservatives, with their emphasis on stability and order, and liberals, with their emphasis on progress and innovation.

“Across research methods, samples and countries, conservatives have been found to be quicker to focus on the negative, to spend longer looking at the negative, and to be more distracted by the negative,” the researchers wrote.

The researchers caution that they make no value judgments about this finding. In fact, some studies show that conservatives, despite their quickness to detect threats, are happier overall than liberals. And all people, whether liberal, conservative or somewhere in between, tend to be more alert to the negative than to the positive — for good evolutionary reasons. The harm caused by negative events, such as infection, injury and death, often outweighs the benefits brought by positive events.

“We see the ‘negativity bias’ as a common finding that emerges from a large body of empirical studies done not just by us, but by many other research teams around the world,” Smith explained. “We make the case in this article that negativity bias clearly and consistently separates liberals from conservatives.”

Behavioral and Brain Sciences, June 2014

Researchers:
John R. Hibbing and Kevin B. Smith, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln
John R. Alford, Rice University

0
0
0
Total
0
Shares
Share 0
Tweet 0
Share 0
Related Topics
  • conservatives
  • Democrats
  • frankology
  • liberals
  • neuroscience
  • Republicans
Previous Article
  • Research & Insights

Message to Myself: “Wow…I Can Do It!”

  • August 8, 2014
View Post
Next Article
  • Research & Insights

Want People To Listen? Talk to Them The Way You’d Want Someone To Talk To You

  • August 11, 2014
View Post
Think we can help with your goals? Read about our services and how we work.
Or reach out today to tell us a bit about your project and inquire how we might help.

 
 

Join our network

We'll send insights and opportunities when you least expect

More of our work
  • The Back-of-the-Envelope Guide to Communications Strategy
  • How to Tell Stories About Complex Issues
  • Things I learned from YouTube stars, ex-extremists, and storytellers about fighting hate
  • How We Are Making Sure The Science We Share Is Good
Latest from the Center
  • Teresa Gonzales and Nicole Bronzan
    Paper exploring local discursive frames of poverty and race wins 2023 research prize
  • Center welcomes two collaborators in research and strategy
  • 2023 Research Prize Finalists
    Center announces three finalists for the $10,000 public interest communications research prize
  • Rakeem Robinson
    Center honors the memory of colleague Rakeem Robinson
How We Help – Case Studies
  • hands with medicine
    Invest in Trust – a vaccine communications guide for CNAs
  • Strategic Communications Academy for University of Florida Engineering Scholars
  • illustration of hand holding United States flag
    Covering immigration in local news—an exploration by Define American

Subscribe

Keep up with our latest; request our periodic newsletter.

UF Logo

Center for Public Interest Communications
PO Box 118400
Gainesville, FL 32611-8400

An auxiliary unit of the College of Journalism and Communications

Copyright © 2022

Contact Us

We are eager to chat with you about your project or training need.

Send us a note

The Center for Public Interest Communications, the first of its kind in the nation, is designed to study, test and apply the science of strategic communication for social change. We are based at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications.

  • Social Change Communication
  • Science Communication
  • Strategic Communication
  • Broader Impacts
  • Public Interest Communication
  • Narrative Change
  • Leadership Development
  • Strategy Development
  • Effective Presentations
  • Research Translation & Insights

Input your search keywords and press Enter.