14 DAY TRIAL // Imagine monitoring what happens in a politician's brain while you're asking him sensitive questions! That's exactly what scientists at Emory University did. And the results were revelatory although maybe not very surprising.
Prior to the 2004 US Presidential election, researchers asked staunch party members from both the Democrats and the Republicans to evaluate information that threatened their preferred candidate. The subjects' brains were monitored while they pondered. The results were announced yesterday.
"We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," said Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory University. "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts."
According to Westen, all the subjects reached totally biased conclusions by ignoring information that could not rationally be discounted. And once they had their minds made up, the brain activity in the areas that deal with negative emotions such as disgust ceased. On the other hand activity increased in the circuits involved in reward. This type of reaction is similar to what addicts experience when they get a fix, Westen explained.
The study points to a total lack of reason in political decision-making. "None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged," Westen said. "Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones."
In the attempt to trigger the rational reasoning processes in the politicians' brains the scientists presented them obviously contradictory statements made by either George W. Bush or John Kerry. The subjects were then asked to rate the discrepancies and afterwards they were presented with another statement that may solve the discrepancy.
However, the brain imaging revealed that the reaction of both Democrats and Republicans was always emotional. They always denied the obvious contradictions of their own candidate and jumped upon the contradictions of the other candidate.
"The result is that partisan beliefs are calcified, and the person can learn very little from new data," Westen said.
It is interesting that researchers also tested the reaction towards other, neutral, characters. For example the politicians were asked to rate inconsistencies made by actor Tom Hanks. In this case both Democrats and Republicans reacted alike. They do have the ability of performing rationally, but when their vested interests contradict reason or fact they will always choose interest.
The relevance of these findings may be far beyond the political realm and probably reveals something about anyone. "Everyone from executives and judges to scientists and politicians may reason to emotionally biased judgments when they have a vested interest in how to interpret 'the facts'", Westen said.