A recent study in Israel used brain scans to explore the differences in empathy between political liberals and conservatives. The researchers found that when imagining other people suffering, liberals showed stronger brain reactions associated with empathy compared to conservatives. This pattern of brain activity was linked to participants’ self-reported political beliefs and their acceptance of right-wing values. The study was published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. …

  • PatFusty@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Small sample size of 55 participants that were gathered online and all from Israel. They are all ~25 yrs old and were split up based on what newspaper they read. The participants were free to label themselves but it was backed by asking questions of how they feel about their current administration policies. Kind of odd study.

      • iturnedintoanewt@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Well he’s not wrong. Would you back shitty facts if they follow your political leaning? I prefer real facts you can stand on that something that can be easily debunked later on.

        • PoliticalAgitator@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Would you back shitty facts if they follow your political leaning?

          I would if I was a Trump supporter, since its functionally a requirement.

        • somethingsnappy@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I hate to say this. Really. But as a scientist (in vaccine development), the broader public may never be able to have real discussions of science. I don’t ask my neighbor’s opinion about the surgery my Hopkins trained doctor recommended. That isn’t how science works in the public discourse. I wish it was closer to reality that we were all educated enough that it would be productive.

          • Shardikprime@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Yeah well we all were born uneducated and someone cared enough to cram data into our skulls. Not your responsibility, fair enough, just saying not take everything in the worst possible way if you know you are willing to not correct the other person

      • Notyou@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        He (maybe she judging by username) brings up a good point with the study though. It is important to look at all the data and factors. I am biased toward the results. Meaning I agree with them, but it is a small study. We should be able to discuss these facts without it being a big deal.

  • Orphie Baby@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    That’s what defines “conservative”. They are sheltered and are afraid of everything that’s different, so they’re trying to conserve some distorted ideal of what they alone think is “normal”. That’s why they’re racists, gender bigots, and hate other religions. That’s why most conservatives live in rural areas, while most people who live in cities are liberal— because exposure to a variety of people and experiences creates empathy.

    I’m surprised not more people have caught onto this by now.

    • stringere@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Overlooking how reductionist and incorrect that statement is: why is a political stance based around empathy a bad thing?

      • exohuman@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        Who said it was a bad thing and why would you assume it was? And it’s not incorrect: you can prove it in the liberal stance on social issues. All of those stances require empathy. The same is not true of conservative stances which are based around ideology to the point that it allows human suffering.

        • stringere@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I read your statement completely contrary to your intent, that’s how it’s a bad thing!

          My oops

    • h34d@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Both the popular article linked in the op as well as the actual paper seem to use the terms “liberal/conservative” and “leftist/rightist” interchangeably. Quote from the paper:

      It is necessary to note that, first, similar to previous studies on this topic that consider the left–right dimension equivalent to the liberal–conservative dimension (Fuchs and Klingemann, 1990; Hasson et al., 2018), throughout this paper, the terms leftist and liberal (and similarly, rightist and conservative) were used interchangeably. The liberal–conservative dimension is often used in the United States, whereas the left–right dimension is commonly used in Europe and Israel (Hasson et al., 2018).

      There were “only” 55 participants, but I assume that if some of them identified as socialist, they would already be included under “leftist/liberal” for the purpose of the study.

      • Serdan@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I’d be interested in seeing if there’s any difference between liberals and actual leftists. I’d assume so because liberals aren’t egalitarian, but there may not be a measurable difference.

        • SCB@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Leftists are just liberals who are bad at math, so it probably would scale them about the same

          • Serdan@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            It’s liberals who keep insisting that trickle down economics is good for the economy actually.

    • axtualdave@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Maybe not “need”, but yes, a fully peer reviewed study confirming or rejecting seemingly obvious conclusions is an important part of the scientific method. It’s how we gain confidence in what we (think we) know.

    • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      People are people. You care about people or you don’t. It isn’t a sports match where you root for a team.

      • Steve@compuverse.uk
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        1 year ago

        You care about people or you don’t.

        That’s obviously and completely wrong. Everyone cares about different people to different degrees, depending on how close and well known they are. It’s not at all binary. If it were, you would by flying around the world to sit at the bed side of every kid with cancer you’ve ever heard of, as if they were your own child.

    • Steve@compuverse.uk
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      1 year ago

      I would hesitantly say it probably would. They didn’t include that in the scan, but did in the self reporting questions. And found no real difference in either groups self reported empathy toward the other group.

      Furthermore, at the self-reported level, we assessed inter-group empathy levels (toward rightists vs leftists), and our results did not reveal any significant difference between the two groups, and rather moderate levels of empathy toward each other.

      That combined with the starkly increased measured of empathy for others generally, which was more pronounced than self reporting showed. It would make sense that the same pattern continued, even for the opposite associated group. I would expect rightists to be less empathetic to leftists than self-reported, and leftists to be more empathetic to rightists than self-reported.