Political leanings vary with facial expression processing and psychosocial functioning

Abstract

Conservative, Republican sympathizers show heightened threat reactivity, but greater felt happiness than liberal, Democrat sympathizers. Recent evolutionary models interpret these findings in the context of broader perceptual and expressive proclivities for advertising cues of competency (Republicans) and trustworthiness (Democrats) to others, and in ways that facilitate the formation of distinct social networks, in coordination with individuals’ life histories. Consistent with this perspective, I found that Republican sympathizers were more likely to report larger social networks and interpret ambiguous facial stimuli as expressing more threatening emotions as compared to Democrat sympathizers, who also reported greater emotional distress, relationship dissatisfaction, and experiential hardships. The findings are discussed in the context of proximate and ultimate explanations of social cognition, relationship formation, and societal cohesion.

The political left rolls with the good and the political right confronts the bad: connecting physiology and cognition to preferences

“…A growing body of research finds that political orientations vary with an array of broader constructs such as personality traits [4 -7], moral foundations [8,9], core values [10 -16], baseline neural structures [17], neural activation in response to unexpected stimuli [18], self-reported sensitivity to threat [19], tendency to perceive threat in faces [20], physiological response to threat [21], sensitivity to disgust [22,23] and possibly even genetics [24,25].…”

Political Differences in Past, Present, and Future Life Satisfaction: Republicans Are More Sensitive than Democrats to Political Climate

“…For instance, compared to liberals, conservatives express greater personal agency, a more positive outlook, and stronger transcendent beliefs [5]. And, compared to Democrats, Republicans report fewer negative life events and crying episodes, and they report having more good friends and reliable social-support members [8]. Moreover, people with more good friends and better social support report being happier [9], [10].…”

The Right Look: Conservative Politicians Look Better and Their Voters Reward It

“…answer".) 19 The general approach of this research field is outlined in Fowler and Shreiber (2008) and Vigil (2010. 20 While this literature does not clarify any mechanism for a link from neurocognitive or psychological differences between left and right sympathizers to different weights awarded to different aspects of physical appearance, such as beauty, it does suggest the possibility of such a mechanism.…”