The brain is involved in politics, just as it is involved in many other aspects of human behavior. Neuroscientists are beginning to examine how neuroanatomy and neurobiology affect political attitudes and beliefs. Left-wing and right-wing political beliefs are both determined in the brain in response to biological and environmental influences. These studies represent an exciting merger of neuroscience and political science.
A step into the anarchist’s mind: examining political attitudes and ideology through event-related brain potentials. (Link)
Individualism, conservatism, and radicalism as criteria for processing political beliefs: a parametric fMRI study. (Link)
Interest in politics modulates neural activity in the amygdala and ventral striatum. (Link)
Neural bases of motivated reasoning: An fMRI study of emotional constraints on partisan political judgment in the 2004 US presidential election. (Link)
Neurocognitive correlates of liberalism and conservatism. (Link)
Political ideology as motivated social cognition: Behavioral and neuroscientific evidence. (Link)
Political orientations are correlated with brain structure in young adults. (Link)
Red brain, blue brain: Evaluative processes differ in Democrats and Republicans. (Link)
The Automatic Conservative: Ideology-Based Attentional Asymmetries in the Processing of Valenced Information. (Link)
The political left rolls with the good and the political right confronts the bad: connecting physiology and cognition to preferences. (Link)
The politics of attention: gaze-cuing effects are moderated by political temperament. (Link)
Voting behavior is reflected in amygdala response across cultures. (Link)
