We have evolved a capacity to circumvent rationality to maintain beliefs, which explains the otherwise inexplicable core support for Trump and Clinton.
A group of Danish scientists put religious and non-religious people in an MRI to look for differences in brain activity while they listened to a recording of a highly rated preacher. Nothing special happened in the brains of non-believers, but something striking happened in the brains of believers. Their medial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices turned off. And there was a dose-response curve—the more devoutly religious the believers rated themselves to be, the more complete the shut-down of brain areas that orchestrate our ability to evaluate information objectively and make independent decisions based on that information. Prefrontal cortices enable us to think outside the box. Psychologists call that kind of thinking executive function.
The opposite of executive function is inside-the-box thinking. The most inside box is our relationship with our self—our self-image. Successful management of self is key to managing our other inside box—our social network. Both boxes require careful maintenance of core values. From children’s dependence upon their parents to business peoples’ dependence on their connections, we survive by maintaining values that form our identity and are shared across our social networks. So we have evolved a capacity to circumvent clear thinking when maintaining beliefs that strengthen social bonds is more important for survival than thinking outside the box. Put roughly, we get stupid for a reason. We dumb down to manage our self-image so we can present an effective self to others. We fend off challenges, including rational challenges, so we can agree about contentious issues with people we depend upon.
Although the professors’ experiment compared religious to non-religious people, turning off executive function to protect beliefs that strengthen social bonds is not limited to religious beliefs per se. Because we evolved by natural selection, and success in social networks is promoted by shared beliefs, religious convictions are low hanging fruit for detecting the underlying phenomenon with an MRI. Protecting any convictions that keep us at peace with ourselves and in with our in-crowd, including deeply shared political convictions, could generate the same mind-numbing effect.
But can this turn-off of executive function enable Trump supporters to overlook his most crude plans for implementing “Americanism, not globalism”—like building a one-thousand five-hundred mile-long wall on the Mexican border for twenty-five-thousand million (25 billion) dollars? And is prefrontal cortical shut-down powerful enough to cause Clinton supporters to disregard her role in the destruction of Libya and the consequent establishment of ISIS in North Africa?
Based on the capacity of billions of believers to gloss over stark biblical commandments to behave like ISIS and Boko Haram—to blind themselves to the dark side of their most revered religious text so they can maintain an inside-the-box faith that The Bible is a guide to universal morality—The Neuroscience of Core Support: Trump, Clinton and Prefrontal Cortices argues that cortical shut-down is a liability of human nature that explains uncritical loyalty on an epidemiological scale … and so is more than enough to explain otherwise inexplicable core support for Trump and Clinton.
I was really surprised to see that this was written by an academic – it’s usually journalists who don’t bother to link back to (or even reference) original research articles. You have written an interesting little opinion piece (even worth wading through all the pop-up ads to read it), but you really need to link to the primary source for the study you referenced.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/01e6e3f5f24ed7aa1b5510f80085b66686391564789bc3167f7e0a7b4b7ede28.png Your content is superb and Mind Blowing
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists. Humanity has emerged from a dark age of superstitious feudalism. The masses have no genuine grasp of our dilemma. Our institutions and economy are created from words of art by priests of occultic orders. Our past is a mystery;mostly myth and fable. Our future is a self fulfilled self replicating dystopian Idiocrasy. Humanity lacks the intelligence or wisdom to even know what they don’t know. Amused and confused. Self abused. Ignorant savages with high tech weapons of mass destruction.
The planet has become a vast insane asylum run by the inmates following the yellow brick road looking for the wizard of OZ.
The BIBLE fables are utilized to induce a psychic virus called religion. A disease masquerading as a cure.
It causes people to believe en mass what only idiots or lunatics could believe in isolation. Pretending to know things that you do not KNOW is the lifeblood of religion. The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance ; it is the illusion of knowledge.
All churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim, are simply human inventions. They use fear to enslave us. They are a monopoly for power and profit. The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste,preferring to deify error,if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.
The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste,preferring to deify error,if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.
In all ages the people have honored those who dishonored them. They have worshiped their destroyers; they have canonized the most gigantic liars, and buried the great thieves in marble and gold. Under the loftiest monuments sleeps the dust of murder.
There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action. Therein lies the origins of religion and politics.
The world is full of injustice, and those who profit by injustice are in a position to administer rewards and punishments. The rewards go to those who invent ingenious justifications for inequality, the punishments to those who try to remedy it.
Is there an intelligent man or woman now in the world who believes in the Garden of Eden story? If you find any man who believes it, strike his forehead and you will hear an echo. Something is for rent..