Sexuality, Religiosity and the Olfactory System?
(Part 4 of Political and Sexual Arousal in Conservatives and Liberals)
The fertility rates of Ultra-Orthodox religious sects are substantially higher than the rapidly sinking secular populations. How are the Ultra-Orthodox managing to maintain this extraordinary pace in the face of a worldwide decline in birth rates?
The Israeli Experiment
Israel is one of the truly unique fertility experiments in the world, combining different combinations of ethnicities and religions under the specter of ethnic and religious conflict. The Jews in Israel are divided between caucasian and middle-eastern ancestry. The Israeli Arabs are divided between the Muslim (80%), Christian(11%), and Druze(9%) religions. Within these religious-ethnic groups, religiosity further varies between the secular, Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox.
The secular caucasian Jewish population has effectively emulated the secular caucasian post World War II fertility patterns found in North America. This included a jump in birth rates during the 1940s and 1950s, and then decreasing steadily to replacement levels in the 1990s (at about 2.1 births per female).
The secular non-caucasian Jewish population has undergone quite a transformation in fertility rates. Prior to immigration to Israel, Jewish fertility rates were about 6 births per female, and dropped quickly as they assimilated into secular Israeli life, down to 3 births per female in the 1970s and finally down to replacement levels in the 1990s.
In the Arabic population, the Christian component has followed a similiar trend, and dropped to about 2.5 births per female in 2000. The Druze component dropped from 7 births per female in the 1970s to about 3 in the 1990s. The Muslim component is an anomaly, having declined from 9.3 births per female in the 1960s to 4.5 in the mid 1980s, and curiously maintaining that level up to the present time.
But these fertility rates are relatively tame compared to the Jewish Ultra-Orthodox faction. The Ultra-Orthodox differ from the National Orthodox by their general desire for preservation of traditional religious practices and avoidance of contact and acculturation with secular influences. The Ultra-Orthodox group maintains a fertility rate of about 6 to 7 births per female.
Sociological explanations of these high birth rates involve the beliefs that correspond with Ultra-Orthodoxy. The Jewish Ultra-Orthodox have separate educational systems which minimize contact with secular influences, arranged marriages that occur at a young age, strong social encouragement of high birth rates, very low divorce rates, and governmental financial support that varies with the number of children.
However, these are only partial explanations at best, as they cannot totally explain the steep elevation in fertility of the Ultra-Orthodox.
So what does explain this curious procreative efficiency of the Ultra-Orthodox? Do they have more sex? Do they use less birth control? Are their sperm counts higher? Do females conceive more easily? Do their dietary restrictions improve their fertility rates? By refusing to assimilate into modern secular society, have they reduced its low-fertility influence? Is sexuality and fertility neurologically somehow connected to strong religious belief?
Super-Monogamy and the Ultra-Orthodox
The Ultra-Orthodox Jews generally hold very conservative viewpoints and support right-wing Israeli candidates. Their marriages are very stable if both parties are Ultra-Orthodox. They practice the traditional dietary restrictions of the Hebrew religion, and maintain monogamous sex practices at higher rates than the secular population.
What is causing this super-monogamy among the Ultra-Orthodox? How are they producing so many offspring over an extended time with the same partner? These stable marriages are baby factories, even though female attire is conservative and religious awareness is very high.
Neurosexuality
Neural mechanisms that control human sexual behavior are still poorly understood. But let's take a brief look at some of the current research in neurosexuality and how it may relate to the curious relationship between religion, sex, and fertility.
Control of sexual behavior is widely distributed throughout the nervous system. Not all aspects of sexual function are controlled by the same neural networks, nor even limited to the brain. Sexual arousal, sexual performance, and orgasmic control mechanisms utilize both common and unique neural components in their execution.
Control of sexual behavior is also distributed asymmetrically in the brain. The left hemisphere's dopaminergic pathway, starting in the substantia nigra and winding through the ventral striatum, promotes sexual activity. Modifying the impact of dopamine in this circuit changes sexual appetite.
The left hemisphere's temporal lobe is also implicated in hypersexual behavior. Hyposexual disorders are highly correlated with lesions in left temporal lobe. Conversely, lesions to the right temporal lobe are correlated with hypersexual disorders. Regions in the left and right temporal lobes seem to be interfering with each other, forming one of the many regulatory pathways in the widely distributed neurosexual network.
The Amygdala Buried Beneath the Temporal LobeBesides forming a key control switch in the neurosexual network, the temporal lobes have a key role in religiosity. Michael Persinger, one of the pioneers in the field of neurotheology, used weak electromagnetic fields to stimulate bursts of neural activity in the temporal lobes of 900 volunteers, producing feelings of a sensed presence in some, and religious sensations in others.
Persinger found that when the left temporal lobe was stimulated, and the right temporal lobe was quiesced, feelings of a sensed presence or God were common. High levels of inferior temporal lobe activity have been associated with both increased religiosity and sexuality.
But the temporal lobes have diverse sensory and memory functions, and are closely associated with the functioning of the amygdalae. The amydalae are buried deep within the anterior-inferior temporal lobes and maintain close interconnections. Damage to the anterior regions of the temporal lobes will often interrupt amygdala processing.
The amygdala and the inferior-anterior temporal lobe have the lowest seizure threshold of all brain regions, and damage to this area can result in temporal lobe epilepsy. Temporal lobe epileptic seizures have been associated with three ostensibly unrelated phenomena--religiosity, sexuality, and strong olfactory sensations.
The amygdala has a functionally varied structure. The lateral amygdala is newer on the evolutionary scale, exhibiting the most complexity in primates, and connecting to the insular, superior, inferior, and middle temporal regions, where it receives auditory, visual, and somesthetic information. Direct stimulation of this area will excite the medial hypothalamus.
In contrast, the medial region of the amygdala is evolutionarily much older, and involved in olfaction, sexual arousal, and motor activity associated with executing sexual behaviors. The medial region is sexually dimorphic, and if stimulated, can induce ovulation, uterine contractions, lactation, and lordosis in females. The female medial amygdala is a principle estrogen uptake site, and adjusts immune system activity during the menstrual cycle. The female amygdala neurons are smaller, more numerous, and more densely packed than those of the male, and fire more frequently when excited.
In males, it can trigger penile erection and male-specific sexual behavior. In males, the amygdala is larger, synaptically more diverse, and changes in response to variations in testosterone levels. The medial amygdala projects directly into the ventromedial and preoptic areas of the hypothalamus, which coincidentally, are also sexually dimorphic.
The lateral amygdala has an excitatory influence on the medial hypothalamus. In contrast, the medial amygdala has an inhibitory influence. The lateral and medial amygdala can together regulate hunger, thirst, sexual arousal, and aggression by their combination of excitatory and inhibitory medial hypothalamic influences.
A Nose, A Nose, My Kingdom for a Nose
The medial amygdala receives axons from the olfactory bulb, and then projects directly to (and from) the medial hypothalamus. The olfactory system (and its close cousin, the gustatory system), are the only sensory systems that plug directly into the amygdala, as sensory information from visual or auditory sources must be processed in other regions before being forwarded to the amygdala.
There is a good reason for this arrangement, as the olfactory system is a relatively simple chemical sensing system when compared to the auditory and visual systems, which are more recent in evolutionary terms and require more neural complexity.
The olfactory system was therefore initially handed the burden of sexual arousal which it would never completely relinquish, even as the auditory and visual systems cut an ever larger slice of the expanding neural pie. The medial region would carry most of the amygdala's burden of olfactory management, and the lateral region would handle the up-and-coming auditory and visual sensory system input.
The hypothalamus is therefore exceptionally responsive to olfactory sensations, and highly reliant on the amygdala (and piriform cortex) to analyze the input. The amygdala and hypothalamus, both being sexually dimorphic, react to pheromonal stimuli depending on the sexual orientation of the amygdala and hypothalamus. In females, the preoptic region of the hypothalamus is heavily involved in the mediation of hormonal levels during the mentrual cycle. In male primates, the preoptic region increases the frequency of erections and semen discharge efficiency.
Discussion
So what does all this have to do with religion, sex, and fertility? In our Winter 2006 survey, religiosity and the reported efficiency of the olfactory system were strongly correlated. People that reported the highest rates of religious preoccupation also reported the highest efficiency rates of their olfactory systems. Those that had no religious preoccupation reported the lowest.
The low rates of conscious sexual awareness among the Ultra-Orthodox is seemingly paradoxical in light of their higher reproductive rates and lower average age at first pregnancy. But the stronger olfactory orientation of the Very Religious might provide at least a partial explanation of this curious phenomenon.
Sexual arousal in non-human male primates is strongly tied to periovulatory odors, (female odors during ovulation). Human research is also showing a male preference in periovulatory odors, and a female preference during ovulation for the steroid androstenone, a substance found in high concentrations in male sweat.
Temporal lobe epileptic (TLE) patients, which often experience very high levels of religiosity, were compared to a control group of non-epileptics to study their relative responses to erotic words, religious words, and neutral words. The control group was most excited by the erotic words. The TLE patients exhibited the greatest response to religious words, and the lowest response to sexual words.
How were the TLE patients able to reverse normal sexual arousal responses to erotic words and transfer that arousal to religious words? This may be the result of the temporal lobe's close connection to the amygdala, which may be short-circuiting visual and auditory sexual signals, and at the same time favoring sexual information coming from the olfactory system.
This begs the question---do the Very Religious have a greater tendency for the olfactory-based sexual arousal? If so, then this would explain the cognitive data we have collected and provide for an efficient means of procreative sex. It may also help maintain longer breeding periods with the same partner.
The reported elevation in olfactory efficiency of the Very Religious and their relative deficiency in visuospatial performance may be related. The non-religious are the exact opposite---they report the lowest olfactory efficiency and the highest visuospatial performance.
At this point, the high correlation we encountered in our survey between sense of smell and religiosity is circumstantial. The fact that females, in general, are more religious and also have more efficient olfactory systems is also circumstantial.
But the neural components that handle sexuality, religion, and olfaction are a little too closely connected to ignore. If the evolution of human religiosity has in part adapted some aspects of the olfactory-amygdala-hypothalamic neural pathway into religious cognition, it would not be the first time that evolution has made use of phylogenetically ancient structures in new and surprising ways.
The Ghost World of Conservatives and Liberals
So far, we have performed five separate surveys, receiving more than 7,000 responses to a wide variety of seemingly non-political questions. We have asked Conservatives and Liberals about their favorite colors, prescription drug use, hair color, competitiveness, phobias, favorite foods, how they rate their current relationships, how many square feet in their homes, etc, etc, etc.
In short, we ask them questions which seem to make absolutely no sense with regards to their political preferences. In many cases, the responses do not vary much by political affiliation, and were misses. However, we frequently encounter a hit. One such hit was the strong elevation in reported rates of anxiety and depression in Liberals. Another was the strong elevation in competitiveness in Conservatives. Still another was the higher difficulty that Liberals have in following verbal conversations.
The hits kept coming and were telling us something--Conservatives and Liberals had different neurological profiles, on average. What those profiles were would have to be referenced against the current evidence from cognitive neuroscience. While the neurological interpretation of any one cognitive result would not carry much weight with regards to any particular theory, a series of cognitive results would narrow the list of neurological hypotheses that could explain them all.
Let's summarize some of the major cognitive evidence we've gathered in 2005 about Conservatives and Liberals.
The Unambiguous Conservative, the Ambiguous Liberal
One of the strongest cognitive variations between Conservatives and Liberals we see in all of our surveys--Conservatives have more defined or unambiguous thinking styles. They are more likely to have a definitive opinion on more subjects than Liberals. Liberals are very tolerant of ambiguity and more reluctant to commit to a particular point of view. The Liberals are more likely to respond "Not Sure" to questions involving a wide variety of subjects.
There is long standing but controversial evidence about the cognitive unambiguity of Conservatives dating back to the 1950s, when Adorno introduced his F-scale, which was slanted more towards political agenda than unbiased scientific analysis.
However, we have found that Conservative cognitive unambiguity is not universal across all subjects. One such subject is the Theory of Evolution, where Conservatives exhibit a lot more ambiguity than Liberals. This ambiguity is coming mainly from Religious Conservatives, who are frequently unsure of how to adapt evolutionary theory into their religious beliefs.
Finally, we almost always report data broken out by gender, and with good reason. Gender variations within a political affiliation are often sizable. It is not very often we encounter cases where there are high variations between Conservatives and Liberals, but low variations between the females and males within their respective political cohorts. One of these cases is cognitive unambiguity, where Conservative females and males have very similar scores. The same is true for Liberal males and females.
The Competitive Conservative, Uncompetitive Liberal
We had been seeing probable variances in competitive levels between Conservatives and Liberals in every survey beginning with our inaugural survey. However, defining exactly what competitiveness is, and how to measure it was equivocal. In our third survey, we asked for an intuitive self-assessment of competitiveness, and the Conservatives and Liberals happily obliged.
The Conservatives considered themselves to be significantly more competitive than did the Liberals. Even more interesting was that the competitiveness rating was a positive linear function as one went from left to right in the political scale. We finally reported what is a controversial result, as competitiveness is ambiguous and has no generally accepted measurement standards.
But we have uncovered two other corroborating pieces of evidence that support the elevation in Conservative competitiveness. First are the higher rates of Liberal depressive disorders, as depressive disorders substantially interrupt normal competitive behaviors. Second is the male Conservative's substantially higher rate of high school sports participation. However, the Liberal females were more likely than the Conservative females to participate in high school sports, even though they had a lower self-assessment of their competitiveness.
One very interesting development--Very Religious Conservatives report a lower competitiveness profile. Strong religious beliefs seem to be interferring with competitive attitudes.
The Depressive and Anxious Liberal
Perhaps the most revealing difference is the enhanced tendency that Liberals have for depressive and anxious disorders. We stumbled onto this phenomenon in our Spring 2005 survey, and filled in some of the details in our Summer 2005 survey.
Liberals report higher rates of major depression, mild depression, bipolar disorder, agoraphobia, OCD, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, and general anxiety. This is true for both males and females. Liberals also report higher stress levels and lower confidence levels (both soon to be reported).
Liberals are also much more likely to use anxiolytics and antidepressents. Liberals report more difficulty in maintaining attention during conversations. Liberals on average spend more time in "negative" emotional states. By "negative", we mean mental states that seem to be contrary to their own self-interest. They also report lower rates of involvement in pair-bond relationships.
The Reward-Seeking Conservative
Reward-seeking is not a very good psychological concept to categorize behavior. Almost any behavior can be interpreted as reward-seeking, even sleeping. However, Conservatives seem to be more active in the pursuit of "physical" rewards. This is still ambiguous, and a more measurable definition, with the help of Newtonian physics, might be: Conservatives are more likely to displace mass. As silly as this definition sounds, we believe this to be a valid way to measure reward-seeking and the respective impacts that Conservatives and Liberals have on their environments.
In other words, Conservatives move things around more than Liberals. Their attitudinal variations with respect to exploiting natural resources is reflective of their differential tendencies to use the environment. Put an equal number of Conservatives and Liberals into two identical environments, with identical technology, and over the short run you will likely see that the Conservatives have displaced more mass than the Liberals.
However, the simple displacement of objects in an environment does not make a modern economy, so this is not to be interpreted as an economic advantage for Conservatives. But Conservatives and Liberals do seem to impact an economy in different ways, on average.
We suspect that there are significant variations in the percentages of Liberals and Conservatives employed in the various economic sectors, although we have yet to compile evidence for this suspicion. According to this theory, construction, transportation, manufacturing, etc., should contain a higher percentage of Conservatives.
The Urban Liberal, the Suburban Conservative
The Liberal tolerance for dense urban lifestyles is very different from Conservatives, who drove the exodus to the suburbs just as soon as the automobile was invented. Conservatives generally dislike urban life, and cite overcrowding, traffic, and crime as their primary reasons. Liberals tend to have a much better view of urban life, and cite culture, tolerance, excitement, and the wide variety of people as their primary reasons.
Our results indicate that Conservatives will distribute themselves over a wider area than Liberals. However, our results indicate that this tendency is correlated with race, and occurs primarily in caucasians. The caucasian Conservatives had the highest aversion to big city life. The caucasian Liberals were not much different than non-caucasians in their tolerance for big city life.
Further, the Conservative aversion to high population densities is not just outside the home, but inside the home as well. Conservatives maintain lower densities within their family home, despite having more people per household. The Conservatives also maintain their increased square footage per person regardless of community size.
Substantial Deficits in Visuospatial Reasoning for Very Religious Females
We have included a number of visuospatial tests in three of our surveys, and have reported results from two. Our initial results indicated an advantage in visuospatial task performance for Liberal females and Conservative males. Visuospatial testing, especially in the context of administration via the internet, is not reliable, and we cautioned that the results were inconclusive.
However, after our third successive and substantial deficit in visuospatial task performance by the Very Religious females, we now believe this to be a real phenomenon. In our most recent survey, we added an additional category--those indicating that they think about God constantly.
Those females indicating that they think about God constantly performed at chance, and about half the rate of the next lowest cohort---those that think about God frequently. While there also appears to be a deficit among males, it is not as substantial and still inconclusive. The question is--what is neurologically behind this visuospatial reasoning deficit in the Very Religious females? And is it related to their enhanced religiosity?
Good vs Evil
The Conservatives, even the non-religious Conservatives, have a strong tendency to categorize things as Good or Evil. This tendency also increases with the strength of conservative beliefs. We have referred to this Good vs Evil world view as a binary morality model. However, the Liberals have a very low propensity for binary morality models, which is consistent with their more ambiguous cognitive styles and their lower propensity for reward-seeking. This is consistently one of the largest variations between Conservative and Liberal attitudes that we see in our surveys.
The Ghost World
There we have it, a brief glimpse into the Ghost World of Conservatives and Liberals. This shadow world will not be found in newspaper opinion columns, political talk shows, or political blog sites. As we descend further into the depths of this world, peeking down through layer after layer, we come face to face with its indifferent master--evolution.
Why do people hold different political opinions? Why don't we all believe in the same thing? Wouldn't we be better off if we all had the same politics? Probably not. The persistence of political diversity most likely means that it is performing some valuable evolutionary function. But what function?
It's been a long struggle for the human race, still mired in a long history of conflict and bloodshed. But the rate of violent death and inter-group warfare have been decreasing at a steady pace despite staggering improvements in weapons technology. Amid this decline, the diverse thinking styles of Conservatives and Liberals have managed to function effectively in organized societies, much like their ancestral counterparts.
Human economic behavior has led to progressive specializations of knowledge and behavior, organizing humans to fit into a sort of integrated economic consciousness, to better execute the needs of economic production. Conservatives and Liberals do indeed use their brains differently. Could the combination of Liberal and Conservative thinking styles provide a society with an advantage?
Unfortunately, these diverse thinking styles have correspondingly diverse political orientations, which frame the production and distribution rules for economic output. It is the production and distribution rules that are a primary battleground in the eternal war between Conservatives and Liberals.
If we take a homogenous group of Conservatives, all believing the same thing, and put them into a closed society, you will likely see political and religious diversity after a few generations. This diversity will vary proportionately with population and territorial growth. It seems that humans do a very poor job of maintaining homogeneity in their political and religious attitudes.
Large social groups produce a never ending supply of politically-focused "Conservatives" and "Liberals" positioned on opposite sides of the politically-unfocused "Moderates". While the political attitudes of these three groups will vary from society to society and from time to time, the "Moderate" group will always be the least politically aware. But why? What is the evolutionary value of a politically-unfocused group of "Moderates" surrounded by politically-focused groups on the left and right?
Somewhere in the Ghost World lies the answer.
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If You Want to Be President, You'd Better Smile the Right Way
Ask a lot of stupid questions, and sometimes you get an interesting answer. We presented a group photo of a collegiate club, and asked the 1,616 respondents in our Winter 2006 survey to see if they could guess who the president was from the following options: A standing male with strong masculine features and a disingenuous smile (top left); a standing male with a sincere smile (top right); a sitting female with a disingenuous smile (bottom left); and a sitting male with a sincere smile (bottom right).
Click on picture to see it enlargedThe respondents selected the man on the bottom right, and by a wide margin. Next came the woman on the bottom left. The standing males with the strong masculine features came in 3rd and 4th. (See graph below).
Percentages by Political Cohort and Gender (Red=Bottom Right, Green=Bottom Left, Blue=Top Left, Black=Top Right)So what characteristics of the man on the bottom right would make people think he was the president? His smile was the most genuine and expressive. His posture was the most relaxed. The female on the bottom left was selected next across all cohorts, but had neither a genuine smile or relaxed posture, and was slightly distant from the group. The male on the top left had strong masculine features, but a disingenuous smile. Interestingly, the Liberals had a very low preference for the two standing males, and it may be possible that their masculine features may be causing this aversion. However, this is pure speculation at this point.
We will begin our research on the psychological reactions to the potential 2008 Presidential candidates in our upcoming Spring survey.
Brack and Zhang, February 2006
Email: Brack@neuropolitics.org
Zhang@neuropolitics.org
The Impact of Introversion and Extroversion on Political and Religious Preferences
(Part 1)The evolutionary value of extroversion is so high that it begs one question---why are there so many introverts? And why is introversion rampant in areas with very high population density?
Shyness is highest in Japan, where it is estimated to afflict 57% of the population. Taiwan is a close second, at 55%. In the United States, it is estimated that 40% of the population consider themselves shy. Israel has the world's lowest rate of reported shyness, at 31%.
However, shyness and introversion are related, but not identical psychological attributes. We did not distinguish this subtlety in our Winter 2006 survey, which consisted of 1,616 people.
We allowed the participants to self-categorize themselves into one of four categories, (introverted, somewhat introverted, extroverted, somewhat extroverted), and noted a distinctive influence that extroversion and introversion have on political and religious tendencies.
But first, who is more introverted--Conservatives, Moderates, or Liberals? In the graph below, we combined somewhat introverted into the introverted category, and the somewhat extroverted into the extroverted category.
Relative percentages of Introverts and Extroverts (Red=Extroverts, Blue=Introverts) (Con=Conservative, Mod=Moderate, Lib=Liberal) (F=Female, M=Male)Liberals are most introverted in both genders. 68.5% of Liberal males categorized themselves as introverted, versus 56.9% of Conservatives and 58.5% of Moderates. Females were less introverted, on average. The Liberal female reported a slightly higher level of introversion, at 59.6%. The Conservative females were close, at 58.5%. Moderate females reported the lowest level of introversion, at 50.0%.
This is expected, as we had noticed a Liberal elevation in the reported levels of Social Anxiety Disorder in our Spring 2005 survey. However, the rates of Social Anxiety Disorder are much lower than the rates of introversion, another indication that these two psychological attributes are not equivalent.
Religious Variations
Among the Conservatives, the extroverts are more religious, on average, than Conservative introverts.
Percentage of Conservatives that think constantly or frequently about GodThe percentage of extroverted Conservative females that think constantly or frequently about God is 67.9%. The introverted Conservative females drop to 51.9%. Among the Conservative males, the numbers were 48.9% and 39.8%, respectively.
This pattern is repeated in the Moderate females (extroverts=29.8%, introverts=23.4%), Moderate males (extroverts=18.4%, introverts=15.9%), and Liberal males (extroverts=16.4%, introverts=13.4%). Curiously, the introverted Liberal females break this pattern (18.8%), and beat out the extroverted ones (15.3%).
The introverts were slightly more likely to accept Darwinism than the extroverts. They were also more likely to accept the coexistence of God and the Theory of Evolution, which implies they are less likely to literally interpret religious scriptures. This is generally true of introverts regardless of political affiliation.
Male introverts were less religious than extroverts. In the graph below, we see the percentages of males that reported they were Not Religious.
Percentage of Non-Religious Males by Political CohortAs we see, the male introverts (in blue) are less religious than their extroverted counterparts (in red) across all political cohorts. However, there was little difference between female introverts and extroverts with regards to the rates of non-religious beliefs.
Political Variations
The extroverts give indications of being more competitive, as their participation in high school sports is substantially elevated across all gender-political cohorts. However, the collaborative aspect of team sports make it difficult to isolate the cooperative component from the competitive component. A more appropriate distinction may be that extroverts enjoy being part of a team competing against other teams.
This is an important behavioral attribute as it relates to Conservatives and Liberals, as the evolutionary value of a group of people working together for a common goal is quite high. As we see in the graph below, not only do Conservatives, Moderates, and Liberals have different propensities to engage in organized sports, but the introverts have a lower propensity when compared to extroverts across all political cohorts.
Percentage of Males Participating in High School SportsThe above graph is revealing something fundamental in how Conservative, Moderate and Liberal males organize themselves into groups. Further, the impact of introversion is significant in reducing this tendency within each political cohort.
On the female side, we do not see a distinctive elevation for any political cohort. The Liberal females, overall, had the highest average rate of participation in high school sports at 35.5%, with Conservatives at 29.6%, and Moderates at 33%. When broken out into extroverts and introverts, we see the graph below.
Percentage of Females Participating in High School SportsIntroversion has a more negative impact on female organized sports participation than it does with males, on average.
But the tendency of the introverts to withdraw from organizing into groups may be indicative of a more socially-independent cognitive style. Introverts, on average, seem to be less likely to give as much weight to what other people are thinking as the extroverts do. The extroverts are more likely to align their beliefs to be consistent with the rest of the group.
In our Winter 2006 survey, we asked our participants to judge the relative beauty of six national flags, one of which was the United States flag. The extroverts judged the United States flag to be more beautiful than the introverts, across every political-gender cohort. In the graph below, we see the percentage of females selecting the U.S. flag.
Percentage of Females Preferring the U.S. FlagSocial conditioning would tend to favor the selection of the United States flag among the Americans, and indeed, the Conservatives exhibited a very strong tendency in that direction. But the introverts of all political cohorts were less likely to select the U.S. flag than the extroverts.
The males exhibited a remarkably similar pattern, as seen below:
Percentage of Males Preferring the U.S. FlagAgain, the introverts were less likely to select the more socially acceptable answer, across all political cohorts.
The introverts were generally less likely to support their party's platforms than the extroverts. For females, this tendency was pronounced, except for the Conservatives.
Percentage of Females that Support Their Party's PlatformsAs we see, among females, the Liberals and especially the Moderates have a lower rate of supporting their political party's platforms. The introverts are even less supportive than the extroverts. The Conservatives are the only exception.
Males, as shown below, exhibit an analogous pattern.
Percentage of Males that Support Their Party's PlatformsAgain, the male introverts are less likely to support their respective party's platforms. Again, the Moderates have the lowest ratings, followed by the Liberals. The Conservatives are much more inclined towards party platform support, with a small drop-off for the introverts.
Discussion
We have so far avoided an obvious question--what is the definition of extroversion and introversion? We let our respondents decide whether they were introverted or extroverted, but how did they make this assessment? We will continue with this topic and how it relates to political preferences in next month's issue.
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