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Political polarization: uncertainty and the neurobiology of why we’re so divided

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https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/pol...o-divided/

EXCERPT: . . . The first finding of this study demonstrated that pairs of participants with similar ideologies (among both conservatives and liberals) showed neural synchrony when viewing the debate clip, no similarity when viewing the nature video, and activity localized to only one brain region during the news segment on abortion. These data suggest that “like-minded” individuals have synchronized brain activity when receiving polarized information, a persistent finding among both liberals and conservatives.

Participants also took a validated assessment to measure Intolerance of Uncertainty (IUS). Individuals with strong IUS and left or right political ideology exhibited enhanced neural synchrony in areas of the brain associated with values, emotion, and visual processing. They showed even more similarity in their imaging patterns while watching the political debate video clip than when watching a nature video or a neutrally worded news segment. This, too, was seen among both conservatives and liberals.

While previous studies have outlined structural and psychological differences between liberals and conservatives, this study revealed shared neurological processing that underlies polarization and demonstrates how it is exacerbated by perceived uncertainty.

As technology continues to grow and change rapidly, the level of uncertainty in the world is not likely to wane. FeldmanHall’s results suggest that increasing uncertainty could further divide society. A new quarterly measuring system, the World Uncertainty Index, has demonstrated an upward trend.

This index captures economic and political events over the past 60 years in 143 countries, including Brexit, the occupation and withdrawal from Afghanistan, Korean tensions, etc. The index utilizes text mining for the word “uncertainty” in country-specific policies gathered by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Given that polarization can contribute to democratic instability, distrust of scientific evidence, and support for authoritarianism, the level of uncertainty we might experience is, well… uncertain. Thus, it might be helpful to find ways to increase our tolerance for it... (MORE - missing details)
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