Reply #44: I would argue that it fits the definition of dementia

[Motown_Johnny]

We already have scientific evidence that conservatives react more strongly to stimuli that elicit a fear response. We also have scientific evidence that Conservatives tend to believe false reports even when they are proven to be false. To me this fits the definition of a mild form of dementia.


http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/fearmongering-h/


^snip^

Deep-seated political differences aren’t simply moral and intellectual: They’re also biological.

In reflex tests of 46 political partisans, psychologists found that conservatives were more likely than liberals to be shocked by sudden threats.

Accompanying the physiological differences were deep differences on hot-button political issues: military expansion, the Iraq war, gun control, capital punishment, the Patriot act, warrantless searches, foreign aid, abortion rights, gay marriage, premarital sex and pornography.

"People are experiencing the world, experiencing threat, differently," said University of Nebraska political scientist John Hibbing. "We have very different physiological orientations."



http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/09/why_the_facts_dont_matter_in_p.php


^snip^


Why the Facts Don't Matter in Politics
Posted on: September 15, 2008 2:54 PM, by Jonah Lehrer

I think this experiment helps explains a rather disturbing amount of our political discourse. What it neatly demonstrates is that the main reason so many campaigns traffic in dishonest allegations and pseudofacts is that, when it comes to voters, the facts don't really matter. Most of us are just partisan hacks:

Political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler provided two groups of volunteers with the Bush administration's prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. One group was given a refutation -- the comprehensive 2004 Duelfer report that concluded that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before the United States invaded in 2003. Thirty-four percent of conservatives told only about the Bush administration's claims thought Iraq had hidden or destroyed its weapons before the U.S. invasion, but 64 percent of conservatives who heard both claim and refutation thought that Iraq really did have the weapons. The refutation, in other words, made the misinformation worse.
A similar "backfire effect" also influenced conservatives told about Bush administration assertions that tax cuts increase federal revenue. One group was offered a refutation by prominent economists that included current and former Bush administration officials. About 35 percent of conservatives told about the Bush claim believed it; 67 percent of those provided with both assertion and refutation believed that tax cuts increase revenue.





http://www.medicinenet.com/dementia/article.htm

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Dementia Facts Medically Edited by: Charles P. Davis, MD, PhD

Dementia is a term that describes a collection of symptoms that include decreased intellectual functioning that interferes with normal life functions and is usually used to describe people who have two or more major life functions impaired or lost such as memory, language, perception, judgment or reasoning; they may lose emotional and behavioral control, develop personality changes and have problem solving abilities reduced or lost.


There are different classification schemes for dementias roughly based (and with overlap) on observed problems; some frequently used are cortical (memory, language, thinking, social) , subcortical (emotions, movement, memory), progressive (cognitive abilities worsen over time), primary (results from a specific disease such as Alzheimer's disease and secondary (occurs because of disease or injury).