Reply #21: The human mind is not logical

[robbob]

One of the most interesting things I've leaned in the last few years is that our minds do not work consistently when confronted with our various biases. I was reading about an experiment conducted around 2004 using the Kerry/Bush campaign as a stimulus to mind activity (sorry, I can't remember the name of the study).

Participants were screened according to political ideology and then hooked up to brain activity monitors. They were then asked to read articles from across the political spectrum regarding the two candidates. The interesting thing is, when the subjects read articles supportive of their candidate, or critical of the other candidate, the highest brain activity was in the logical side of the brain (the right side? can never keep it straight), but when they read articles critical of their guy or supportive of the other it was the emotional response which was triggered.

So if you were a Bush supporter and you were reading what we call right wing propaganda your logical mind is nodding along in agreement and noting the "logical" talking points, but if I stick an article critical of Bush in front of you, no matter how factual and well reasoned it may be, the emotional mind takes over and starts ranting and raving and denouncing it as lies.

We have all seen this kind of cognitive dissonance at work among the freeper set, but make no mistake (as Obama likes to put it); we are ALL susceptible to this built in brain bias. This study has really made me examine my own knee-jerk reactions to information that I come across. Whenever I read about some new policy that the Democratic party is putting into place I ask myself how I would feel about it if it had happened at the initiation of the Republican party during the Bush years.

Not to equate Bush and the rethugs to Obama and the Dems., just observing the way my brain biases work.

<edited for clarity>