Science Forums 2

[CraigD]

If participants in this discussion intend to seriously explore possible neurological factors that influence political views and behavior, I suggest they avoid political specifics, such as examining and endorsing 2008 US presidential candidates.

Recent research by James Fowler and colleagues (summary Scientific American article, links to paper by Fowler, Baker & Dawes) suggests that genetic (and thus neurological) factors may strongly effect not so much a voter’s political ideology and partisan loyalty, but rather his or her likelihood of voting. To summarize and paraphrase the conclusions of this research, the act of voting appears to require a somewhat unusual emotional behavior that might be summarized as “a quixotic nature”, because on an emotional level, an individual voter does not feel like his or her actions can have much effect on the outcome of an election. Evolution, it appears, has selected for people who don’t waste time and effort on actions that can’t be counted on to produce guaranteed results. So low voter turnout, rather than indicating disillusionment and/or apathy, may reflect a once (and possibly still – witness the fact that, in much of the world, voting can get a person imprisoned or killed) high-survival value human behavior trait.

On the other hand, evolution has almost certainly selected for “group participation” genes. This suggests that, as many current political strategists claim, the key to “mobilizing” voters is to promote a sense of “going along with the troupe”. This suggest to me that the most effective sort of political advertisement is one that presents little idea content, but shows vivid visual images of similar looking people engaging in political camaraderie and going as a group to the polls, while also ridiculing “futile, looser” supporters of their opponents. This approach should increasing their likelihood of ones supporters voting, while assuring that ones opponents supporters feel that voting would be a waste of time.

For me, this sheds new light on a media and political speech phenomena I’ve long found puzzling – the criticism of a candidate as being “irrelevant” or “unelectable”, while ignoring his or her virtues and vices as a potential leader. Such a tactic exploits that candidate’s supporters’ “avoid futility” traits – which may well have a strong neurological and genetic basis.