David M. Amodio et al, “Neurocognitive correlates of liberalism and conservatism,” Nature Neuroscience, September 9, 2007. Finding: Liberals perform better on a conflict-monitoring task and show more anterior cingulate cortex activity in the test.
Luciana Carrago et al, “The Automatic Conservative: Ideology-Based Attentional Asymmetries in the Processing of Valenced Information,” PLoS One, Vol. 6, No. 11, November 9, 2011. Finding: Conservatives more than liberals are automatically attracted to negative stimuli.
Kanai et al, “Political Orientations are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults,” Current Biology, 21, 1-4, April 26, 2011. Findings: Conservatives have larger right amygdala, liberals have more gray matter in the anterior cingulate cortex.
Douglas R. Oxley et al, “Political Attitudes Vary With Physiological Traits,”Science, September 19, 2008, Vol. 321, No. 5896, pp. 1667-1670. Findings: conservatives have stronger physiological reactions to loud noises and threatening images.
Nicholas O. Rule and Nalini Ambady, “Democrats and Republicans Can Be Differentiated By their Faces,” PLoS One, Vol. 5, No. 1, January 18, 2010. Finding: speaks for itself.
Aaron Sell et al, “Formidability and the logic of human anger,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, September 1, 2009, Vol. 106, no. 35, 15073-15078. Finding: stronger men (as measured by bicep size, among other measures) more likely to support death penalty, Iraq war, use of force in international conflicts.
Shook, NJ and Fazio, RH, “Political ideology, exploration of novel stimuli, and attitude formation,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2009, vol. 45, p. 995-998. Finding: Liberals show more exploratory behavior in a learning video game; conservatives in contrast employ an “avoidant” strategy.
