Brains and Politics - it's not ONLY the Amygdala that is different in Conservatives!!!!!

I wrote previously about the brain and how we react, how we think here.
In response to the question raised in the video below, if you read my original post, the science research to date indicates that our experiences change our brain, not that our brain determines our politics or other attitudes. In the above, I noted that there were distinct changes to the brain of cab drivers in the UK who had to pass a licensing test requiring them to learn certain map related information, and that the related part of their brain showed distinctive changes as a result of the learning and related problem solving exercise using that part of the brain.

I've also written in the past about the psychology of conservatives as it relates to right-wing authoritarianism and intolerance, which has been well-documented.

New research reported by the HuffPo supports the previous research:

Conservative Politics, 'Low-Effort' Thinking Linked In New Study        

The Huffington Post | By David Freeman Posted: 04/ 9/2012 10:44 am Updated: 04/ 9/2012 2:16 pm

Conservatives and liberals don't seem to agree about much, and they might not agree about recent studies linking conservatism to low intelligence and "low-effort" thinking.
As The Huffington Post reported in February, a study published in the journal "Psychological Science" showed that children who score low on intelligence tests gravitate toward socially conservative political views in adulthood--perhaps because conservative ideologies stress "structure and order" that make it easier to understand a complicated world.
Ouch.
And now there's the new study linking conservative ideologies to "low-effort" thinking.
"People endorse conservative ideology more when they have to give a first or fast response," the study's lead author, University of Arkansas psychologist Dr. Scott Eidelman, said in a written statement released by the university.
Does the finding suggest that conservatives are lazy thinkers?
"Not quite," Dr. Eidelman told The Huffington Post in an email. "Our research shows that low-effort thought promotes political conservatism, not that political conservatives use low-effort thinking."

For the study, a team of psychologists led by Dr. Eidelman asked people about their political viewpoints in a bar and in a laboratory setting.

Bar patrons were asked about social issues before blowing into a Breathalyzer. As it turned out, the political viewpoints of patrons with high blood alcohol levels were more likely to be conservative than were those of patrons whose blood alcohol levels were low.
But it wasn't just the alcohol talking, according to the statement. When the researchers conducted similar interviews in the lab, they found that people who were asked to evaluate political ideas quickly or while distracted were more likely to express conservative viewpoints.
"Keeping people from thinking too much...or just asking them to deliberate or consider information in a cursory manner can impact people's political attitudes, and in a way that consistently promotes political conservatism," Dr. Eidelman said in the email.
The study was published online in the journal "Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin."

That would certainly go a long long long way towards explaining the excruciatingly stupid beliefs in place of cognition expressed by Wisconsin conservative Glenn Grothman, conservative grunt - in the slang sense:

Slang . a soldier, especially an infantryman.

Slang . a common or unskilled worker; laborer

I wonder if Grothman believes the women who serve in the Wisconsin legislature should be paid less than he is?  I'm guessing that wouldn't go over well with most of them --- ALTHOUGH there ARE some incredibly backward and submissive women in politics on the right who think things like that, who are submissive women.  In the case of Grothman it appears to be more of the corrupt right selling out women to corporate greed.

Kiss good bye any notion of gender equality; kiss good bye any notion of pay according to merit.  Kiss good bye the advances in thought of the 19th, 20th and 21st century.

From Jezebel:

Yet More Dickery Oozes Out of the Talking Holes of Wisconsin’s Cheesy Republicans



Conservatives have a problem
with women.
For that matter, all men do.

• The Cornell Review (1984),
• reported in Time (April 2005

After the Republican marionette doll named Scott Walker that masquerades as Wisconsin's Governor signed a bill Thursday repealing the state's 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act and then disappeared for the weekend to perform at a few horrifying children's birthdays, a lot of Wisconsin's Democrats were understandably disheartened. Observed Christine Sinicki, a Democratic state rep. who co-authored the original legislation, "This whole session has been anti-woman and anti-middle class, and this fits right in with that agenda," none of which would shock the Wisconsin voters who successfully launched a recall campaign for Scooter after he took aim last year at collective bargaining rights for the state's public workers. According to the Daily Beast's Michelle Goldberg, though, not everyone in Wisconsin is displeased with the Governor's decision to make it more difficult for working women to bring discrimination suits against their employers. For people like Republican state senator Glenn Grothman (pictured here probably picking his nose in front of constituents and a major proponent of the repeal effort), not only was the Equal Pay Enforcement Act burdensome to those poor, beleaguered businesses who no doubt found it impossible to both turn a profit and pay women the same — if not, gasp, more! — than their male colleagues, it went against the natural, nurturing impulses of women. Amid the piles verbal feces that spluttered out of Grothman's mouth when he was given an opportunity to defend his support of the act's repeal, Grothman

Take a hypothetical husband and wife who are both lawyers. But the husband is working 50 or 60 hours a week, going all out, making 200 grand a year. The woman takes time off, raises kids, is not go go go. Now they're 50 years old. The husband is making 200 grand a year, the woman is making 40 grand a year. It wasn't discrimination. There was a different sense of urgency in each person.

Never mind that Grothman is one of those doughy old legislators who believes it'd be unconscionable for a woman to get an abortion — women, especially married women, don't bring in the six-figure salaries because they just can't ignore the uterine siren-call to birth enough stout children to work the homestead and replace the older siblings that have died from scarlet fever. There's no actual pay gap, he insists — it's just ladies being all baby crazy.
Though Grothman cites Ann Coulter as evidence that gender pay gap really only exists between married women and their hubbies, a 2007 study by the American Association of University Women showed that women earn only 80 percent of comparably educated men only a year after college graduation. Even accounting for such factors as GPA, institution selectivity, age, race/ethnicity, workplace flexibility, and number of children, an unexplained 5 percent discrepancy between male and female pay lingered. But good luck sharing that data with Grothman — he doesn't accept such liberal poppycock. In fact, Grothman could argue — and sort of does through the mitigating second person — that money and the making thereof is more important to dudes because one day a special lady is going to detect in them the ability to provide amply the way female lions can sniff out physical weakness in a wildebeest. Said Grothman,

You could argue that money is more important for men. I think a guy in their first job, maybe because they expect to be a breadwinner someday, may be a little more money-conscious. To attribute everything to a so-called bias in the workplace is just not true.

You could argue that, Mr Grothman, but you'd be wrong because making money isn't gender specific — it's something all Americans, male and female, love to do.

Instead of Ann Coulter, there are a number of credible sources that could have been used to address the earning inequality between men and women. One suggestion would be the National Committee on Pay Equity.  Wikipedia, despite it's flaws, is far more credible; they have two entries that apply:' Gender Pay Gap AND Male-Female Income Disparity in the United States; or pretty much anything written by Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz on the subject, but especially their academic research.

Perhaps we should not be too surprised at how badly someone like Grothman could screw up distinguishing a credible source, from a bogus one like Ann Coulter.  Because in the area of education there have been some horrible outcomes in Wisconsin.... which scored the only F-, the very lowest of 28 states scoring extremely poorly in science education.

from the HuffPo:

GALLERY: WORST STATES FOR SCIENCE EDUCATION

Wisconsin - F

Wisconsin is the only state to score a 0/10 in the science education standards report. They earned a failing grade. Shown above is a dairy farm in Wisconsin (Getty Images).

We know that conservatives are anti-science and anti-education, and of course anti-women and anti-middle class.  It would have been a less attractive pastoral scene, but the photographer should have taken a photo of Grothman instead, appearing for the poster child for the tragedy of poor research and sociological retardation.