What’s Going On In The Political Mind?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Democrats, Independents, Republicans, Science
NY Times has an interesting story about how the Dem, Repub and Indy brain respond to different candidates and their message.
The biggest news surrounds Hillary…
Voters who rated Mrs. Clinton unfavorably on their questionnaire appeared not entirely comfortable with their assessment. When viewing images of her, these voters exhibited significant activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, an emotional center of the brain that is aroused when a person feels compelled to act in two different ways but must choose one. It looked as if they were battling unacknowledged impulses to like Mrs. Clinton. [...]This phenomenon, not found for any other candidate, suggests that Mrs. Clinton may be able to gather support from some swing voters who oppose her if she manages to soften their negative responses to her. But she may be vulnerable to attacks that seek to reinforce those negative associations.
Maybe voters are wondering if the negative attacks against Hill throughout the last decade are actually fair. Maybe they’re reassessing Bill Clinton when compared to George Bush’s 00s, and placing that sympathy at Hillary’s feet.
One thing’s for sure. Hillary Clinton brings about a lot of mixed emotions and as the story suggests that’s a very vulnerable position to be in.
As for men v. women, the study found that gender preferences are evening out….
In recent presidential elections, Democrats have done better with female voters, while Republicans have appealed more to men. So far this time, male swing voters seem to be looking more closely at the Democrats. After viewing all the candidate videos, our male subjects, when viewing still photos of the Democrats, showed significantly higher activity in the medial orbital prefrontal cortex, an area that is activated by rewarding stimuli, than they did while looking at pictures of the Republicans.Women did not display such a one-party skew, but rather tended to react to individual candidates. So the traditional gender pattern of party preference may not be as prominent this year, particularly among men, and that may be good news for Democrats.
I wonder how they’d react if Ron Paul was thrown into the mix as a 3rd party candidate option?
This entry was posted on Sunday, November 11th, 2007 and is filed under 2008 Election, Democrats, Independents, Republicans, Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 26th, 2008 at 9:38 am
believe me i cant hear any thing you think about secretly about any person or about your self.