Do our brains shape our political views?

Time of India

30-05-2025

Fascinating research on neuroscience of ideology
Ideological extremism is usually explained by social, economic and demographic factors. There's not enough research on how individual thinking patterns can make some people more likely to support violence in defense of their beliefs or group. That's what Leor Zmigrod dives into in The Ideological Brain: A Radical Science of Susceptible Minds. Does ideology shape our brains, or do our brains shape ideological leanings?
Is there a neuroscience of free will, could extreme worldviews be rooted in cognition and biology? It all depends on how sharp the brief is. What's being studied? Political identities or radicalisation or religion? Is the research on brain areas that do the decision-making, or regions for emotional processing? Is focus on brain structure, or on brain function? Is there a 'how' in the mix, finding a mechanism, or is it simply a search for an effect?
The book asks as many questions as it answers as it threads together neuro-research, politics and philosophy to also shine a light on the scope of future research. Zmigrod and political neuroscientists like her are asking how deeply into our brain can ideological systems penetrate. 'How far into the mind and body indoctrination really goes.'
Experiments included mapping neural/brain activity and the region where it was happening when participants were exposed to political videos, news etc. Obedient actions evoked brain patterns different from free choices. A 2011 study that compared sizes of liberal and conservative brains found more conservative people had a larger right amygdala than political liberals.
Amygdalae are twin brain bits that store emotional 'feels' of negative emotions such as threat, fear & disgust, and information we internalise on social hierarchies. A brain part's size is linked to its processing capacity, but the degree to which anatomy responds to or depends on function is still under study. Enter the chicken-'n-egg puzzle. Do individuals lean towards more conservative ideologies because they have larger amygdalae or does being immersed in 'system-justifying ideologies' – status quo – and conservatism lead to structural brain changes?
But, aha, size doesn't matter, says the book. Two sets of scientists found that liberal participants had a larger ACC – a central sausage-shaped thingamajig incharge of emotional processing and cognitive control – but couldn't replicate the results in later tests. Zmigrod argues it's not the size, but function that matters. When it comes to ideological thinking, ACC is 'haughtily aware of its own importance'.
The queen is the prefrontal cortex (PFC) – that deals with complex decision-making and high-flying mental computations. More the damage or injury to PFC, more conservative the person. Those with a damaged PFC would identify extreme statements as moderate. Those with intact PFC would spot extreme for what it is. So, to be progressive, all you need is an undamaged PFC?
'Not so fast,' says Zmigrod. Because PFC's like a transport hub making sense of all the info zigging in and zagging out to and from all parts of the brain – it's never a standalone. And then there's dopamine. Most rigid individuals have specific genes that impact how and where dopamine is distributed through the brain – less in PFC, more in parts that control instinct. These pathways can be traced to discover the neurochemistry of ideology.
Summing up: The book says, greater the uncertainty, the more susceptible the brain is to dogmatism. Most leaders are creating ever-new uncertainties. What's that doing to people?
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Views expressed above are the author's own.