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           The Ghost World of Liberals and Conservatives


July 2008

Space, Time, and Class War

 

The Darwinian Paradox of Rich Liberals and Poor Conservatives

 

Which came first: the chicken, the egg, or the dominance behavior?

 

In Politics on the Brain: and fMRI Investigation (2006), Jordan Grafman et al. scanned the brains of 14 Democrats and 10 Republicans while they performed a version of the Implicit Association Test containing the faces and names of 36 well-known politicians. The Implicit Association Test has become a staple of polipsych research (see link), and Grafman's team yielded a bonanza of neuropolitical treasure: activity in the left amygdala and left and right fusiform gyri correlated with the degree of political party affiliation and valence of one's beliefs; political party affiliation strength was negatively correlated with activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; and, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex was part of the emotional network associated with political attitudes.

 

These findings, by themselves, would catapult the Grafman experiment into one of the premier experiments in the short history of neuropolitics. However, hidden beneath this golden haystack was one of the seminal revelations of human social organization: the neural correlates of dominance and submission. And Grafman stumbled right on top of it.

 

Grafman asked his subjects to rank well-known politicians (within their own party), on a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 being the most powerful member, and 7 indicating a minor party role. While performing fMRI, Grafman found that the "pecking order" rankings, or the perceived "powerfulness" of politicians, correlated with activity in the left anterior cingulate cortex (BA 32) and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA 9). Even more remarkably, rankings of "powerfulness" were negatively correlated with activity in an almost mirror-like fashion in the right hemisphere: the right anterior cingulate cortex (BA 32) and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA 10).

 

The curious nature of this topographically inverse relationship between the left and right hemispheres in the expression of dominance levels was addressed by Grafman:

 

"Politician pecking order (1 = high power, 7 = low power) was positively correlated with left cingulate activation and negatively correlated with right cingulate activation. One possible interpretation of this finding is that highly powerful politicians may be considered less approachable than less powerful politicians, consistent with the hemispheric asymmetry and valence model of emotions [Davidson et al. 2000; Demaree et al., 2005] and the dominance/submission lateralization model".

 

Grafman's interpretation of a hemispheric switch between dominance (left hemisphere) and submission (right hemisphere) certainly fits the general tendency of behavioral activation and behavioral inhibition of the left and right hemispheres, respectively (see Demaree). But what does Grafman's result tell us about how the brain encodes dominance levels?

 

The fact that the left anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is activated during the "pecking order" ranking task is interesting from the perspective of the political-religious affiliation. After all, it was the famous Amodio experiment (2007) that reported conservative and liberal variations in the activity of the ACC in Go-NoGo tasks. Further, conservatives and liberals diverge greatly in their attitudes towards dominance and hierarchical social organizations (see How Conservatives and Liberals Organize into Social Groups).

 

The ACC is heavily involved with rewarded behavior in general, and indeed, seems to be encoding both long-term and short-term rewards in primates (Amiez, 2006). How this relates to dominance encoding is purely speculative, but there may be reason to believe that dominance and reward-value encoding share common neural substrates, since dominance levels correlate with reward levels, that is, the higher the dominance level, the greater the share of rewards.

 

The paradox of the rich liberal: Al Gore's number of children (4) and carbon footprint are much higher than the average American

 

As a general rule, salient inanimate and animate objects seem to be subject to some sort of reward-value encoding, although this does not necessarily mean that the same neural substrates are encoding all the different aspects of a particular stimulus. For example, cannibalism typically occurs in humans as the starving brain shuts down its higher (and more evolutionarily recent) cortical functions.

 

It seems that we might be subconsciously encoding the food value of our friends and associates, just in case we become very hungry, which is therefore exposed under the extreme circumstances of starvation. An analogous system of encoding may be subconsciously constructed for potential sexual partners, that is, we might be encoding the "sexual-value" of those around us in an analogous manner.

 

Curiously, the left and right anterior cingulate cortices seemed to have formed a topographically inverse dance of dominance encoding, that is, when the left ACC is activated, the right ACC is deactivated. This reverse-symmetry is also found in reward-encoding. The left amygdala was found to be activated during the experience of winning, while the right amygdala was activated during losing (Zalla, 2000).

 

In any event, the left and right ACCs were not the only regions in play during dominance categorization. Grafman found a slightly less symmetric activation of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) (BA 9), along with the inhibition of the broader definition of the right DLPFC (BA 10) with increasing dominance levels. This is interesting in light of Knoch's findings (2006), that the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is involved in the application of "reciprocal fairness", that is, applying equality in social interactions.

 

Knoch et al. used low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation to disrupt activity the right and left DLPFCs, and noted that disruption of the right DLPFC increased the probability of acceptance of intentionally unfair offers (in the Ultimatum Game). As interesting, disruption of the left DLPFC had no impact. This result fits neatly with the hemisphericity theory of political orientation, as the "right-brained" liberals are more sensitive to social inequality, while the "left-brained" conservatives are more inequality-tolerant.

 

Indeed, the seeds of "class war" seem to be found on opposite sides of the brain, with the liberals more likely to rail at the inequalities in social position and resource distribution. But how can a relatively small group upper-class elites maintain such a long-standing and powerful foothold over the masses? And why do social classes persist in all large human populations?

 

God, Parents, Dominance, and Submission

 

The relationship between dominance, submission, and religiosity is a strong one. Religious practice involves a number of submissive behaviors, most prominently kneeling and bowing, acceptance of a higher power, and fixing religious icons in upper, more distant space. Fred Previc (2006) has formally proposed a theory of religiosity (see God, Dopamine, and 3-Dimensional Space) that centers on the dopaminergic system and its orientation towards the management of the upper visual field.

 

This explains a number of religious phenomena: near-death experiences; religious dreams and hallucinations; and, the positioning of religious icons, heaven, and god into upper, distant space. It also supports Grafman's idea of a left-hemispheric neural network that categorizes dominance. The neurology in Previc's model of religiosity is mainly distributed in the left-hemisphere, partially overlapping the regions identified by Grafman in dominance categorization.

 

God, to the religious, occupies the most highly activated location in the neurology that stores dominance valuations, which is believed to be closely associated with the neurology that supports parental bonding and imprinting (Persinger, 1983). Thus the heavy use of "father" and "mother" as pseudonyms for god.

 

Conservatives and Liberals, or Masters and Servants?

 

All the evidence we have gathered so far implicates conservative males as being more "dominant" than liberal males (see Dominance Behaviors). However, this result is based on a fairly narrow, yet important, spectrum of behaviors. Male conservatives, based on our limited evidence, are more likely to ascend to higher levels within their respective business organizations. They are also more competitive than liberal males, and more likely to organize into hierarchical social groups.

 

Interestingly, both conservative males and females are more likely to maintain eye contact than their liberal counterparts, which is a phylogenetically ancient dominance behavior. However, with regards to dominance, the evidence on conservative females is less definitive, perhaps due to the elevated reproductive tendencies of conservative females, and the general advantages of female submissiveness (towards males) in reproductive output.

 

Genetic and cultural assimilation, thy name is liberal

 

But from animal studies, the answer is quite clear: dominant males sire more offspring. The reproductive advantages of male dominance are substantial, which places animal populations in the fast lane when it comes to the Darwinian process of sexual selection. Given the obvious advantages of dominance, why are most animals, except for alphas, submissive to at least one other animal in their social groups?

 

There are several right answers to the social value of dominance and submission, two of which involve the reduction of intragroup conflict (Wilson, 2000) and increased reproductive yield. Intragroup conflict is exacerbated when an alpha dies or is removed, as interruptions in the dominance hierarchy result in higher overall stress levels and lower reproductive rates. And when it comes to the study of dominance and reproduction, no animal has been of more scientific interest than the lowly chicken.

 

Dominance behavior has been the bane of the poultry industry since the chicken was first domesticated about 4000 years ago. The problems associated with chicken dominance are many: crowding reduces egg production in dominant strains more than it does with submissive strains; high-dominance strains are more competitive than low-dominance strains; high-dominance strains have greater individual variations in body-weight and egg production; a greater percentage of females within dominant strains have low rates of egg production; and, social dominance levels are more likely to be retained in high-dominance strains, (i.e., low social mobility) (Craig).

 

What does the chicken tell us about human dominance behavior and reproduction? Perhaps nothing. But perhaps everything. The chicken's curious dynamic of dominance, reproduction, and population density is interesting in light of the parallels with human reproduction. Dominance levels and spatial requirements are correlated in many species, including humans. What makes this interesting is that conservatives maintain higher levels of space per person, both inside and outside their homes (see Conservatives need more space than liberals).

 

The space-hungry nature of conservatism is ultimately due to higher reproductive rates. As animal reproduction is, on average, inversely correlated with high-population densities, the conservative tendency to migrate to the suburbs certainly follows. The more socially-dominant conservatives are more averse to population density, which is analogous to the greater reproductive problems of dominant, but spatially-limited chicken strains.

 

Reproduction and Racism

 

It is also interesting to note the probable correlation between reproductive effectiveness and xenophobia. In the case of chickens, which exhibit a rather extreme version of xenophobia, strangers introduced into small flocks are attacked by all flock members. The presence of intruders had quite a negative impact on the resident chickens: they ate less, lost weight, and produced fewer eggs. Dominant strains reacted more antagonistically to intruders than submissive strains.

 

The disruption of chicken social life associated with the introduction of intruders has correlates with human social behavior. It seems that caucasians especially disposed with racist tendencies are more disrupted in their performance on cognitive tasks after being exposed to blacks (Richeson, 2003). People with lower racist tendencies seem to be more cognitively efficient in multiracial environments.

 

Further, Richeson's work isolated a right hemispheric network including the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and right anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) as key in the inhibition of racist tendencies. As we mentioned above, activity in both the right DLPFC and right ACC were inversely correlated with dominance categorization. It seems that dominance, reproduction, and xenophobia are all correlated variables, in both humans and chickens.

 

The Time Value of Genetic Diversity: the Paradox of the Rich Liberal

 

Relative to conservatives, liberals are cultural chameleons. This is evident in the graph below, where we asked 609 people in our Election 2008 survey to rate themselves on a scale of -5 (very poorly) to +5 (very well), on how well they could assimilate into a new culture, such as China or India.

 

As can be seen in the graph below, the more liberal one is, the higher one rates their rate their ability to adapt into other cultures. The conservatives in both genders rated themselves the poorest. Also, it is interesting to note that females indicate greater difficulty in cultural assimilation, which is most likely due to reproduction. That is, females are more reliant on extended reproductive support networks. While the conservatives organize more rapidly for intergroup competition and conflict, the liberals organize more rapidly for cultural assimilation and adaptation.

 

How well could you assimilate into a new culture?
(VL=Very Liberal, L=Liberal, LB=Libertarian, M=Moderate, C=Conservative, VC=Very Conservative)

 

Based on some (unreported) statistics we've gathered in one of our surveys, the liberals are more likely to voluntarily reduce reproduction in the face of crowding and environmental problems. Conservative reproduction is more sensitive to economics, that is, seems to be constrained by financial incapacity.

 

This environmental sensitivity and rapid reduction of reproduction that liberals display places them firmly on the K side of the r-K selection continuum (see The Population Biology of Conservatives and Liberals). K strategists inhabit the same territories for long periods of time, are highly specialized in the way they survive in those environments, and maintain larger gene pools than their polar opposites, the r strategists. The r strategists reproduce quickly, discover new habitats quickly, are generalists, and maintain smaller gene pools, all traits we have implicated in religious conservatism.

 

From a genetic perspective, liberals are loading their environments with a large number of genes per square kilometer. They do this by seeking out genetic variation in mate selection, having more sexual partners, a greater tolerance for immigration, a greater adaptability into other cultures, and a greater tolerance for high-population densities.

 

From a Darwinian perspective, this is a significant adaptive strategy. The loading of a fixed territory with large numbers of diverse genes and cultural memes is a milestone of Darwinian strategy, and we can thank Ronald Fisher for elucidating the evolutionary role of genetic diversity.

 

Fisher's Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection (1930) states that the greater the genetic variation of a population, and the greater the selective pressure on that population, the greater the rate of change in gene frequencies in that population. In other words, individual variation within a population is the seed of natural selection, and selective pressure will change gene frequencies in that population as a whole.

 

However, variation is also the seed of specialization, and superloading an environment with diverse genes has the interesting side-effect of generating many alternate approaches to survival. This, when combined with the superloading of diverse cultural memes, increases the carrying capacity of a fixed habitat. There is indeed a method to the madness of urban environments, which are richer in genetic, economic, and cultural diversity.

 

One of the evolutionary advantages of liberalism lies in its capacity to withstand K-extinctions. Within a habitat, the greatest probability of population extinctions occur during two periods: the initial phases of colonization; and, at the point in time when the habitat has reached its maximum carrying capacity (see MacArthur and Wilson's discussion on this). The former event is referred to as an r-extinction, and the latter a K-extinction.

 

 

The liberalistic tendency to load a fixed territory with diverse genes and memes resists the phenomenon of K-extinction, and increases the probability of survival of at least a proportion of the original gene pool. This answers the Darwinian paradox of the rich liberal. Conservatives are quick to point out the hypocrisy of the extravagant lifestyles of rich liberals, however, like the conservatives, they are playing a very Darwinian game of survival of the gene, just on the different playing field of K-strategy.

 

Rich Liberal, Poor Liberal

 

While the liberals are remarkable in their ability to reduce birth rates and assimilate diverse cultural memes, they are paying a heavy price in the reduction of their genetic presence in the population gene pool. However, this reduction is hitting primarily those with incomes under $200K, as can be seen in the table below.

 

Political Affiliation	Gender	Income Level (in $)	Average Children
Conservative	Female	0-50K	1.6
		51-100K	1.9
		101-200K	2.0
		201K+	2.3
Conservative	Male	0-50K	1.5
		51-100K	1.7
		101-200K	2.1
		201K+	2.0
Liberal	Female	0-50K	1.5
		51-100K	1.4
		101-200K	1.4
		201K+	2.1
Liberal	Male	0-50K	1.0
		51-100K	1.5
		101-200K	1.1
		201K+	2.0

Number of children by income level, ages 45 years and up 

 

Among both males and females, there is a distinctive reproductive advantage in the 201K+ cohorts when compared to the 0-50K and 51-100K cohorts. Please note that this data only includes those aged 45 and over. This controls for age, as by 45, most individuals are done with reproduction. (Also, note that these rates are not representative of the population as a whole, as our survey respondents come from a more educated and less reproductive demographic). In both the liberal males and females, only the 201K cohort is at replacement level. Further, 201k+ liberal reproductive rates are comparable to 201K+ conservative rates.

 

While the rich liberals are for the most part unaware of the Darwinian game they are playing, their behavior constitutes one of the most effective of all reproductive strategies: genetic and cultural diversity; environmental sensitivity; and, a higher value for not only for genetic distance, but a higher value for genetic distance across time.

 

Within the same generation, average genetic distance is closer, on average, than it is to subsequent generations. Overall, the conservatives are more likely to focus their altruistic behaviors over a lower genetic bandwidth than liberals. Following this line of reasoning, this effect seems to be generationally operational, that is, conservatives are less likely to focus altruism across generations, as evident with their lower environmental sensitivity.

 

Rich Conservative, Poor Conservative

 

Ironically, the fate of the wealthy in the United States is mainly in the hands of the lower-income conservatives. Without this influence, liberalism would indeed make the lives of the rich a very difficult one. This begs the question: why are they aligning with the rich, and what Darwinian game are they playing?

 

The lower-income conservatives indeed have a worse opinion of the wealthy (see How Conservatives and Liberals Organize into Social Groups) than the higher-income conservatives. However, their opinion of the rich is much better than any liberal, regardless of income. While the liberals uniformly consider the wealthy to fill a predatory social function, the lower-income conservatives consider them, on average, a positive social force.

 

This may relate to the general dopaminergic nature of conservatism, and the associated left-hemispheric lateralization of dominance categorization. As mentioned at the beginning, the Grafman experiment detected an activation of both the left anterior cingulate and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during a dominance categorization task. Adding more fuel to a left-hemispheric bias in dominance categorization, Michael Gazzaniga's account of a split-brain patient (that had an unusually pronounced ability for language comprehension in his right hemisphere), implied that the left-hemisphere generates positive valuations of dominance, while the right-hemisphere, most likely in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, generates negative valuations.

 

While this left-hemispheric system appears to be the neurology employed by conservatives, rich and poor, to categorize dominance in a more positive light, what Darwinian advantage is being served? Certainly, the rich conservatives are enjoying substantial reproductive advantages, just like the rich liberals.

 

As seen in the above table, the lower-income conservatives have higher reproductive rates than their liberal counterparts. There are several reasons to believe that reproductive advantage is central to the low-income conservative's Darwinian strategy. First, unstable dominance hierarchies tend to lower reproductive output. Second, hierarchical organizations are more effective at intergroup competition, thus, successful dominance hierarchies provide reproductive advantages even for the most subordinate members. Third, dominance hierarchies are more effective in supporting dispersal and survival in new and unfamiliar habitats, which ultimately organizes the new territory for reproduction.

 

This organization for reproduction and intergroup competition is the primary Darwinian strategy for lower-income conservatives. We have noted previously (see God, meet Darwin) that organized religious practice improves the percentage of males that reproduce. Further, the lower-income conservatives are nearly equivalent with high-income conservatives in their assessments of threat from outgroups. As we stated before, there is indeed a correlation between dominance, xenophobia, and reproduction.

 

Spatial and Temporal Distributions of Conservative and Liberal Genes

 

The conservatives have a distinct tendency to propagate their genes over wider territories. The enhanced tendency for conservatives to emigrate and engage in intergroup competition is fundamentally a genetic distribution strategy across space. This strategy distributes genes across a wide range of habitats, in a sense, throwing different environments at a more limited set of genes.

 

Liberals seem to be doing the opposite, that is, throwing a wider spectrum of genes at a fixed environment. This strategy superloads an environment with genes and cultural memes, and distributes a larger number of genes across time, at the same time, placing a higher value on genes in future generations.

 

Within these two Darwinian strategies lives the paradox of the rich liberal and poor conservative. The liberals scratch their heads about the baffling political motives of the poor conservatives, but from a Darwinian perspective, it makes sense. It is a reproductive strategy of lower social standing, compensated with reproductive effectiveness.

 

Conversely, the conservatives jump upon any opportunity to expose hyporcrisy in rich liberals. However, the rich liberal nearly rivals the reproductive proclivities of the rich conservatives, while sporting an effective reproductive strategy across time: one that combines genetic and cultural diversity, environmental sensitivity, and high reproductive rates.

 

Class war is the beneficiary of this potpourri of divergent approaches to distributing one's genes across space and time. The reproductive alliance of wealthy and not-so-wealthy conservatives is the foundation of the continuity of a hierarchical economic distribution system, allowing the upper classes to be the primary organizing force for economic production and outgroup competition.

 

However, when this hierarchical system depresses reproduction among the lower classes, which coincides with economic downturns, political change is never too far away. Given the recent chain of economic events, the lower income conservatives are indeed having their reproductive legs cut from underneath them, and the spatial distribution of their genes, fueled by cheap energy, is coming to a grinding halt.

 

 

Charles Brack, July 2008

 

References:

 

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D. Amodio, J. Jost, S. Master, C. Yee. (2007) Neurocognitive correlates of liberalism and conservatism. Nature Neuroscience 10.

 

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T. Zalla, E. Koechlin, P. Pietrini, G. Basso, P. Aquino, and J. Grafman (2000) Differential Amygdala Responses to Winning and Losing: a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study in Humans, European Journal of Neuroscience, 12 (5), 1764-1770.

 

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