lawyerlee
06-27-2007, 08:16 PM
I found this Newsweek article incredibly fascinating and thought it might provoke some good discussions on the forum. :)
This Is Your Brain On Politics (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19461257/site/newsweek/?from=rss)
Ever wonder why fear-mongering seems to work so well at the polls—while appeals to reason often leave the electorate cold? A new book applies neuroscience to politics to figure out why the Democrats struggle to push the buttons in voters’ brains.
Westen’s thesis is simple. “A dispassionate mind that makes decisions by weighing the evidence and reasoning to the most valid conclusions bears no relation to how the mind and brain actually work.” That’s true when it comes to choosing a significant other, buying a car, and choosing a president. Madison Avenue has known this for decades. Democrats haven’t. Instead, their strategists start from an 18th-century vision of the mind as dispassionate, making decisions by rationally weighing evidence and balancing pros and cons. That assumption is a recipe for high-minded campaigning—and, often, electoral failure. But by recognizing the strides that neuroscience, psychology and, in particular, the science of decision making have made in recent years, Westen argues, politicians can tap into “the emotional brain” that guides most political decisions.
The book discussed in the article (The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation by Drew Westen) sounds incredibly fascinating. I think it is up for discussion whether there really is any difference in mudslinging between conservatives and liberals, and I suppose that also depends a lot on the individuals in question, but the difference in approach does seem to lead to people viewing conservatives as strong and liberals as weak. More importantly, though, is the researcher's finding that this perception is something that happens in the brain and affects how we make decisions when we vote.
I think we can all attest to the fact that our views and decisions on political topics are often less than rational, as evidenced by some of the heated discussions we've engaged in here on CC (and before on WC) that are largely fueled by emotion, rather than reason. I can't tell you how many times I've been forced to re-examine my views on a topic when I read a particularly poignant comment by someone else and realized my views aren't as flushed out as I'd arrogantly assumed they were.
It seems as though the researcher / author of the book discussed in the article is approaching the subject from the perspective of how Democrats can use neuroscience research to return to greater success in presidential elections, so I'm not sure how much that may or may not cloud his objectivity. Is he asserting that the more rational response would be to vote for Democrats and that people have chosen to vote for GWB out of emotion? And is that fair? I'll be interested to read the book and examine that issue further.
This Is Your Brain On Politics (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19461257/site/newsweek/?from=rss)
Ever wonder why fear-mongering seems to work so well at the polls—while appeals to reason often leave the electorate cold? A new book applies neuroscience to politics to figure out why the Democrats struggle to push the buttons in voters’ brains.
Westen’s thesis is simple. “A dispassionate mind that makes decisions by weighing the evidence and reasoning to the most valid conclusions bears no relation to how the mind and brain actually work.” That’s true when it comes to choosing a significant other, buying a car, and choosing a president. Madison Avenue has known this for decades. Democrats haven’t. Instead, their strategists start from an 18th-century vision of the mind as dispassionate, making decisions by rationally weighing evidence and balancing pros and cons. That assumption is a recipe for high-minded campaigning—and, often, electoral failure. But by recognizing the strides that neuroscience, psychology and, in particular, the science of decision making have made in recent years, Westen argues, politicians can tap into “the emotional brain” that guides most political decisions.
The book discussed in the article (The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation by Drew Westen) sounds incredibly fascinating. I think it is up for discussion whether there really is any difference in mudslinging between conservatives and liberals, and I suppose that also depends a lot on the individuals in question, but the difference in approach does seem to lead to people viewing conservatives as strong and liberals as weak. More importantly, though, is the researcher's finding that this perception is something that happens in the brain and affects how we make decisions when we vote.
I think we can all attest to the fact that our views and decisions on political topics are often less than rational, as evidenced by some of the heated discussions we've engaged in here on CC (and before on WC) that are largely fueled by emotion, rather than reason. I can't tell you how many times I've been forced to re-examine my views on a topic when I read a particularly poignant comment by someone else and realized my views aren't as flushed out as I'd arrogantly assumed they were.
It seems as though the researcher / author of the book discussed in the article is approaching the subject from the perspective of how Democrats can use neuroscience research to return to greater success in presidential elections, so I'm not sure how much that may or may not cloud his objectivity. Is he asserting that the more rational response would be to vote for Democrats and that people have chosen to vote for GWB out of emotion? And is that fair? I'll be interested to read the book and examine that issue further.