When Fox News is bashing McCain, you know something's wrong. Looks like those flip-flop economic policies haven't been going so well with the conservative base. But hey, what do you expect from a system-shaking, bipartisan MAVERICK? Unfortunately for McCain, looks like no one told him what psychologists have know for a few years now: conservatives don't like change!
In a short and sweet experiment, Amodio and colleagues (2007) showed that liberals were more responsive to ambiguity and novelty, whereas conservatives preferred structure and persistence. Participants performed a Go/No-Go task (they had to press a key when "M" appeared on a screen, but had to withhold their response when a random "W" appeared), while error-related negativity (ERN) amplitudes were recorded.
Larger ERN = greater accuracy to the No-Go or "change" trials (in this case, the Ws)
Increased liberalism was correlated with larger ERNs, meaning liberals responded better to change than conservatives:
In a short and sweet experiment, Amodio and colleagues (2007) showed that liberals were more responsive to ambiguity and novelty, whereas conservatives preferred structure and persistence. Participants performed a Go/No-Go task (they had to press a key when "M" appeared on a screen, but had to withhold their response when a random "W" appeared), while error-related negativity (ERN) amplitudes were recorded.
Larger ERN = greater accuracy to the No-Go or "change" trials (in this case, the Ws)
Increased liberalism was correlated with larger ERNs, meaning liberals responded better to change than conservatives:
Jonathan Haidt also has a great talk on the psychology of liberalism and conservatism. He elaborates on people's affinity/aversion to change by examining personality factors and moral values. Watch it:
References
Amodio, D. M., Jost, J. T., Master, S. L., & Yee, C. M. (2007). Neurocognitive correlates of liberalism and conservatism. Nature Neuroscience, 10, 1246-1247.
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