According to a recent study conducted at Emory University in Atlanta, both Democrats and Republicans ignore facts when making their decisions.
Drew Westen, Director of Clinical Psychology was quoted as saying, "We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning.”
Test Subjects were given statements made by both George Bush and John Kerry that contradicted one another. Both Democrat and Republican test subjects ignored these contradictions for their own party but saw the contradictions made by the other side.
in seeing which party's affiliates engage in this self-deception more often. my guess would be republicans -- the democrats i know typically bash bush because of his myriad scandals, whereas most of the republicans i know can't criticize the man. on the issue of bill clinton, however, most democrats i know will acknowledge his flaws.
you are just asking for a 50 comment page now............there are so many issues that could be brought up for both democrats and republicans that they deny. And for you to pick out the few AND most current presidental issues just makes me laugh how you base your opinion on those few things. (btw i am dem.)
its hard because i believe its got a scientific base.. but soft because its just more about the bs of the human pschye, that none of us care to know about..
beacause duhh what fun is it knowing were all wrong anyway and screwed in the end..
i would think though that both the sides master minds wouldnt want the spotlight to be on this issue.
politics is more like puppets than pride and practice.
ALL HAIL TO THE GOD OF FILTH AND SODOMY! EHHHHH SLOW DAY I GUESS..
I'm of the opinion that if the Dems had been in power this last term, then we would be seeing abuses and scandals for them instead of the Reps.
Politicians are politicans, and when you find a honest one, that doesn't engage in the slightest in the illicit, underhanded or downright fakery - you let me know.
Politicians are politicans, and when you "find a honest one, [politician] that doesn't engage in the slightest in the illicit, underhanded or downright fakery - you let me know."
An honest politician? You don't want much do you? A truthful politician wouldn't stand a chance because 99% of people
a. would see the truth as unpatriotic/offensive b. wouldn't know what the truth was if they were beaten over the head with it c. a + b
I agree with you that we will never have an honest politician. First, if a politician started saying what they really mean, nobody would believe them. The press would play it off as another political trick.
Another reason is that most honest people in this country that could do some good if they were in the senate or the house, or even president see politics as a dirty field and wouldn't subject themselves to the abuse of being associated with the two-faced people that are currently in office.
I am refering to all politicians; dems, repubs, and even most of the independents out there.
Although what you say is true I wonder how different it would be if people actually paid attention to these scumbags. People are more informed then ever before (or at least have the ability to be) yet they don’t vote, don’t run for office and just don’t care.
In november when we were voting for our governor and some local offices I was talking to someone in line and they were bitching about our current district representative in the state senate. After we got through voting we continued to talk and he told me who he voted for; he voted to re-elect the same person he was just bitching about. He didn't even know the name of the person who was currently in office.
with that, how the hell can we expect a competent government when we don't have competent people voting??
There are a number of different psychological fators which would figure into this. Confirmation bias - you're more likely to note facts which confirm your beliefs and ignore those which do not. Ingroup bias - you're more likely to assist or oblige someone if you view them as a part of your social group. Several theories overlap where politics are concerned. One probably could have evidenced this hypothesis using a number of previous studies, even some done using political divisions. While we're on the topic of helping, did you know that helping behavior has been found to be different between Republican and Democrat households? I also found this story interesting because it mentions the difference between logic/fact and belief/emotion-based reasoning. So, this makes my reward centers light up: "We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning...What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts."
Anyway, this study is very interesting - good find.
