author chris moody is joining us he is author of the new book the republican
brain you can find out more at republican brain dot com chris great to
speak with you i want to start with what your book talks about in terms of the
different ways that liberals and conservatives process information when
they started analyzing whatever it may be news political information et cetera
you found that there is a there's a difference in how that happens in the
brain
yeah absolutely what i'm doing is is a journalist is a science reporter
is covering the really large body of research on liberal and conservative
differences
they had nothing obvious
to do and ideology but as it turns out they kind of sad ideology in motion
and you know
most simple of those and probably the best studied
personality differences
liberals her open a new experience new information this is one of the big five
personality traits
conservatives tend the score lower on that
that influences how you process for mation because if you're open to new
experiences new information
uh... what goes along with that is
more more comfort with abstract ideas of more tolerance of nuance and uncertainty
uh... rather than having to have your mind fixed have your mind
about soft
yelling just yesterday i was reading about a study that was done that look at
the behavior of one to two year old just when they were basically playing with
other kids
and then later checked in with these people later in life to see politically
where did they stand and that there was a very distinct friends that you can see
in the interactions of one and two year olds with whether they ended up being
political or or uh... rather liberal or conservative
which really suggest that there is that you know the really makes us think hard
about nature versus nurture doesn't
it does this is this is probably one of the studies that talk about in the book
it was i think done it berkeley
uh... and uh...
you also have another interesting study related to that that that that i didn't
go out about the book but
i think it came out later on this or something but it's actually about tom
liberals in his service playing video games and may pursue different
strategies and it's the similar kind of thing where the local the quote liberal
playing the video game goes out explore person tries different things in the
conservative about of more of a defensive strategy and that that's the
fiber recall correctly that's what they were seeing in the kids in the berkeley
study
was a sort of explore verses retreat out what scientists call an approach
avoidance
kind of uh...
got a distinction
understood and you know jim yesterday i i i checked out that had talked by
psychologist jonathan hey and he actually looked at some of the moral
values that
bandits here s to being left to right percent are
and is all great when you listen to him and we kind of taken overview we kind of
have this on the one hand on the other hand type
but what we actually look at a lot of studies we see time and time again that
american conservatives tend to believe is true a lot more things that are just
factually incorrect then do liberals so let's let's go past the kind of on the
one hand on the other hand stuff why is that that phenomenon seems seems to be
taking place
well that's what i set out to explain and it was
in that class that i stumbled upon all this research in impresario proceeded to
synthesize it
uh... as a journalist
because i wanted to understand how conservatives can be so wrong and that
artfully say that you know
part of this is what you would call environmental factors part of this is
in the growth of the movement you have the growth of conservative think tanks
that give the
on their own quote-unquote experts
you've got the growth of the fox news that feeds them information the kind of
things they want to hear so all that's real
beneath that we also have to look at the personality differences and the real
differences and who we are and how we view the world
and that stopped is the research is becoming pretty solid especially
when it comes a personality especially when it comes to a certain type of
conservative called a store terry in
who really doesn't want to have more pics police really does the the world in
in black-and-white ways without new laws
so explain some of that difference because we can identify kind of
confirmation bias in both liberals and republican conservatives right
the idea that your
the more either to accept information that confirms your existing belief and
reject information the challenges that
so where does the difference coming
uh... well there are certainly some studies that show more the you call a
confirmation bias
another another related term is selective exposure which means you
select into for receiving information that agrees with you for some
ideological reason
uh... and i talk about box news in the selective exposure studies
and there are some evidence that they've been yet we all do selected suppose
there's no doubt about that but the way conservatives do it might be more
intense based on a number of studies that i discussed including you know just
a basic selective exposure study where that their you know what is the the
studies generating headlines in its manipulating whether it's a it's a stock
c_n_n_
or b_b_c_ along with the headline and then you just choose what you wanna read
and conservatives are choosing fox overwhelmingly
in that experiment liberal boser khana bana like stocks their smattering their
interests around in different places
and his older saying if i understand that big casting the same headline
except thing
insert headline here verses b_b_c_ insert headline here
conservatives are more likely to believe it when it has the three letters f_ o_
x_ in front of it
or they like to just choose to read it
all i think i used to read it and so there was this a referendum on study
whether you know
they're getting different is headlines in their random on as a
uh... whether it's associated with different outlets in this scene when
there was a conservatives do
uh... there's another one uh... it's not just you know news information that talk
about uh...
as selfesteem fast you know where they gave
authoritarianism none of the returns a phony selfesteem test
and they were in the minds whether it said oh you're good self-esteem or yet
that selfesteem and in the real thing they were testing was whether the people
would want to opt to read information about whether the test was a good test
and it turned out that if you are not or cherian and yet
the low self esteem
you want to know about the past
and if you could put a really have low self esteem
you don't want to know about the past
so you know those kind of things really do market economy symmetry
i'm wondering what kind of uh... researcher what your thoughts would be
on something else we talked about last week we had jackson caps on the show
who's really an expert
in i doing training and research on
uh... is sexism and sexual abuse abuse and violence and we talked about
how rick sent our own out he's gone from the race but he managed to appeal to
republican women even though policy-wise
there was nothing more anti-woman than what rick santorum would have enacted
jackson taxes take was that he was able to get women to identify with his
experience in other words he had this stillborn child and he uh... but you
know but very tragic story which he recounted
and women that we're able to identify with the reproductive problems and
separated completely from the fact of how he would legislate
how does that play into some of the research in your book
well that makes sense but i would probably go farther
uh... you know in terms of again let's talk about the retainer them you can
have men or of a large area and you can have women over thirty
began and therefore higher are
going to have women who are are kal
what that means stand and in both those things are more associate with
conservatism out what that means is that you can easily have a woman i talk about
other in the book phyllis schlafly for instance who's the anti feminist restate
our
who you know while she was going around attacking the equal rights and then what
always starter speeches with the job i want to take my husband for allowing me
to come out tonight
you know that i i think that there were a lot of conservative women who actually
feel that it's natural
are that the method being control
so
i think it's i think it's more than just what you're talking about
interesting
uh... in the last minute so we have left here now than it looks more and more
like mitt romney's going to be the republican nominee and will have brocco
bomb on the democratic side
uh... howell do you think each side if if they're smart and they understand
what you're writing about about how different the political brains work how
will they mostly use that to get their advantage in the upcoming campaign
uh... well obama has got it
get the medal
and the way to do that is going to be
to parlay say things that appeal to non liberal brightens uh... iran the i is is
are you know our position because the reason sent arm wasn't so long
was that you know the real hardcore conservative didn't believe the romney
was one of them something that i kind of sense as well
whereas sent form really did take off all the boxes
in terms of really being psychological consider so how's he going to get those
people and then they'll he's going to be in a
he's in a minute tough place we will continue to follow it and i wish we had
more time we'll definitely have you back and talk board the website is republican
brain dot com we've been speaking with chris mooney who's the author of the
book the republican brain
great work chris and really a pleasure talking to you
good good it's up to two