Study Finds Possible Biological Basis for Political Positions

A unique and a bizarre kind of a study has concluded that biological predispositions are directly or indirectly linked to particular political positions that people may hold on to regarding various issues of importance.

The findings of the study suggest that those who respond in an erratic or startled way to threatening images or loud sounds appear to possess a biological predisposition to hold fast the conservative political positions on various burning issues.

People who are hyper responsive to indicators of visual or auditory threats tend to support an extremely defensive point of view on political subjects, like immigration, gun control, defense spending and patriotism.

In contrast, those who are not much affected by physical threats seem to be inclined to a liberal perspective towards political issues.

In addition to psychic factors, inherent physiological differences also determine the startle responses and political inclinations of different kinds of people, according to the study.

The study strives to explain the root cause of having a specific political stance. The hidden factors including physiological and psychological play a great role in forming people's political makeup.

Earlier studies have revealed that voters behave in a biased way towards a political party that is headed by attractive political candidates. Many other researches have found that there is a link between the subconscious attitude and the decision making process of a voter.

Co-author John Hibbing, a political scientist at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln stated that the study’s significant finding is that across various groups of people a link between sensitivity to physical threats and sensitivity to threats affecting social groups and social order has been established.

He added that the findings do not suggest that members of different political parties are unusually more or less sensitive to threats.

"From an evolutionary point of view, an organism needs to respond to a threat or it won't be around for very long. We are not saying one response is more normal than another," Hibbing said.

Co-author of the study, John R. Alford, a political scientist at Rice University pointed out that some kind of left-right orientation is omnipresent in global politics irrespective of the time or age. These differential orientations certainly have some “biological underpinnings."

The findings of the study were published in the journal Science.