ELECTION-YEAR politics could be summed up by the following statement made by a prominent Democrat-leaning liberal: He would rather vote for President Joe Biden’s “head in a jar of blue liquid” over backing Donald Trump in November. I’m sure Republican-leaning conservatives said the same thing about supporting Trump and never Biden. (As Trump himself would put it, we all hope in jest: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”)
In his book “Political Brain,” clinical psychologist Drew Westen said there is no such thing as a “dispassionate mind that makes decisions by weighing evidence and reasoning to the most valid conclusions.” That’s not how the mind and brain actually work, especially in politics, said Westen, a consultant to Democrats and progressives. Whenever data clashes with desire, he said, the political brain will somehow “reason” its way to the desired conclusion. He added, “[W]hat passes for reasoning in politics is more often rationalization, motivated by efforts to reason to emotionally satisfying conclusions.”
This explains the usual reaction of many partisans to their chosen candidates’ pronouncements, policy decisions, legal troubles, gaffes and, yes, debate performances.
A lot of us, in short, are prone to what cognitive psychologist Peter Wason called “confirmation bias.” In another excellent book, “The Righteous Mind,” Jonathan Haidt said confirmation basis is “the tendency to seek out and interpret new evidence in ways that confirm what you already think. People are quite good at challenging statements made by other people, but if it’s your belief, then it’s your possession — your child, almost — and you want to protect it, not challenge it and risk losing it.” Now, he said, if “thinking is confirmatory rather than exploratory…then what chance is there that people will think in an open-minded, exploratory way when self-interest, social identity, and strong emotions make them want or even need to reach a preordained conclusion?” (Incidentally, Haidt said he studied political psychology “in order to help the Democratic Party win more elections.” He now describes himself as a centrist who wants to “help bridge the political divide and reduce political polarization in the United States.” Good luck with that.)
In “Political Brain,” Westen recounted how he and his colleagues “put together a research team to study what happens in the brain as political partisans — who constitute about 80 percent of the electorate — wrestle with new political information.” This was in 2004, during the “final, heated months of the…presidential election….” The research team studied the brains of 15 committed Democrats and 15 confirmed Republicans.
“We scanned their brains for activity as they read a series of slides. Our goal was to present them with reasoning tasks that would lead a ‘dispassionate’ observer to an obvious logical conclusion, but would be in direct conflict with the conclusion a partisan Democrat or Republican would want to reach about his party’s candidate…. What we hoped to learn was how, in real time, the brain negotiates conflicts between data and desire.”
The partisans viewed a series of slides, Westen said, “The first slide…presented an initial statement, typically a quote from the candidate. The second slide provided a contradictory statement, also frequently taken from the candidate, which suggested a clear inconsistency that would be threatening to a partisan.”
So how did the partisans respond?
“They didn’t disappoint us,” Westen said. “They had no trouble seeing the contradictions for the opposition candidate, rating his inconsistencies close to a 4 on the four-point rating scale. For their own candidate, however, ratings averaged closer to 2, indicating minimal contradiction….” The results showed that when partisans face threatening information, they are likely to “reason” to emotionally biased conclusions, Westen said.
The other candidate is a liar; my candidate is open-minded.
Westen said the brain scans showed that “[w]hen confronted with potentially troubling political information, a network of neurons becomes active that produces distress…. The brain registers the conflict between data and desire and begins to search for ways to turn off the spigot of unpleasant emotion…. Not only did the brain manage to shut down distress through faulty reasoning, but it did so quickly.” However, the “partisan brain didn’t seem satisfied in just feeling better. It worked overtime to feel good, activating reward circuits that give partisans a jolt of positive reinforcement for their biased reasoning. These reward circuits overlap substantially with those activated when drug addicts get their ‘fix,’ giving new meaning to the term political junkie.”
This reminds me of the final scene in “Some Like it Hot.” Jerry, in drag, had to turn down the marriage proposal of an ardent admirer, Osgood, who thought Jerry was a woman.
JERRY: “Osgood, I can’t get married in your mother’s dress. She and I, we are not built the same way.”
OSGOOD: “We can have it altered.”
JERRY: “Osgood, I’m gonna level with you. We can’t get married at all.”
OSGOOD: “Why not?”
JERRY: “Well, in the first place, I’m not a natural blonde.”
OSGOOD: “Doesn’t matter.”
JERRY: “I smoke. I smoke all the time.”
OSGOOD: “I don’t care.”
JERRY: “I have a terrible past. For three years I’ve been living with a saxophone player.”
OSGOOD: “I forgive you.”
JERRY: “I can never have children.”
OSGOOD: “We can adopt some.”
JERRY: “You don’t understand, Osgood.” Jerry takes off his wig. “I’m a man.”
OSGOOD: “Well, nobody’s perfect.”
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