La Différence

  Readers of this blog know that we have covered the ongoing examination of the differences between liberals and conservatives for several years. More data has come out, it doesn't at first glance seem to be all that revealing or different from what we've already read. But I do like seeing it back in the headlines. One question here - if conservatives are so reactive to perceived threats because their physical fear experiences are intense, then why the general denial of global warming by conservatives? If anything could be a perceived threat, this is it.

AlterNet: Scientists Discover the Fascinating Psychological Reason Why Conservatives Are…Conservative - Right-wing ideology is tailored to a particular psychological profile.

A large body of political scientists and political psychologists now concur that liberals and conservatives disagree about politics in part because they are different people at the level of personality, psychology, and even traits like physiology and genetics.

That conservatives respond much more rapidly to threatening and aversive stimuli (for instance, images of "a very large spider on the face of a frightened person, a dazed individual with a bloody face, and an open wound with maggots in it..."