[ghostpepper]

> Scientific studies show a real difference in brain structure - rightists have enlarged fear centers - so it appears to be an intrinsic evolutionary difference and it makes sense it remains the same across time.

can you point to a few studies on this topic? I am struggling to imagine how one would design a study to measure this

[j4coh]

Also curious what is a fear center and what an enlarged one would look like if removed via surgery.

[somenameforme]

It was a 2011 study that found a 0.28 correlation in amygdalae size vs conservative political identity among a tiny group of college students. A replication attempt dropped that correlation to 0.068 which is basically nothing, and completely failed to replicate at all the other, even weaker, findings of the previous study. And the media called the amygdala the "fear center", which is dumb. It plays a key role in memory - especially long term memory, emotional processing, the understanding of social cues, and more. Removing it would render someone extremely mentally retarded.

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I'd also add on this issue that considering political issues among college students is itself silly. Our political positions on things is impacted by our life experience, and at the point of college one has very little life experience to formulate views off of. Political identity will often shift radically from age 20 to 40, which against suggests a genetic basis as being farcical - at least beyond the point that your brain structure will typically correlate, to some degree, with the development of skills, identity, etc.

[immibis]

I meant to say that the left/right divide is built in to humans, not that each individual human is predisposed to always be left or always be right.

The rightward shift as people age is pretty easily explained by self-interest. When you start with almost nothing, you want a fair share because that's more than you have now. Once you climb the ladder, you don't want a fair share because that's less than you have now. Once you get above the average, you want to stretch the pyramid taller because that puts you at a higher absolute position, and the higher up you are, the more you want to stretch it. When you're below the middle, you want to shorten the pyramid because that puts you at a higher absolute position (the pyramid extends below the floor).

But that's assuming wealth dynamics continue to work how they did for boomers. IIRC millennials were the first generation to shift leftwards with age, because they mostly didn't get to above-middle positions on the pyramid.

It's the subtle things that keep society stable.