History in the making, for realsies

And yet, there will still be some undecided voters who will make their choice on the way to the voting booth. I’m willing to bet that some of these people, especially those who will cast those critical swing-state votes, will enter their preferred candidate’s name with seemingly no sense of the democratic responsibility and power their vote yields, as evidenced by this political cartoon.

Undecided voters, rejoice! I am here to help you explore the depths of all the questions weighing down your weary mind:

• Were the ancient inventors of democracy wrong?
• Are Barack Obama and Mitt Romney all that different?
• Is my liberal or conservative philosphy determined by genes?
• How does the Electoral College work?
• What is human nature anyway?
• What are the moral and epistemological implications of indecision?
• Does my vote truly matter?

Well maybe not all your questions...

But the most befuddling question in every conversation before, during, and after the Election is this: how and why do people vote?

To answer this question, we might need some ideas from an unexpected source. Let’s investigate some recent research in neuroscience to figure out how people vote.

The act of decision-making is central to the voting process. Whether you make a snap, “gut-reaction” judgment between the Republican and Democratic candidates or take the time to consider their policies rationally, many of the same brain regions are active in decision-making. One of these regions is the amygdala, principal in the functions of memory and emotion. Whether we realize it or not, part of our relation to the candidates in this year’s election is dependent on emotion; while most of us have not met either candidate, we have developed a bias for the political party they represent. According to research published in Political Psychology, we may grow to identify with a certain party based on our parents’ moral leanings, social environment, and socioeconomic class, all the same way we develop our own personal identities. In painful contrast to what we once believed as teenagers, we still inherit much of our parents’ moral and political beliefs.

Moreover, negative emotion seems to play a larger part in our decision-making and motivation than does “positive” emotion. In a 1991 study (Quarterly Journal of Economics), people were more motivated by avoiding pain than by seeking pleasure. Do we unconsciously pretend to like the more popular candidate to avoid potential embarrassment in our social circle?

Thus, are the reasons we vote for one political party versus another based solely on our upbringing and emotional responses?

This view does little to provide optimism for the freethinking, voting populace we believe ourselves to be. Indeed, according to a 2012 Science study, our decisions are quite frequently based on automatic associations instead of the conscious consideration we believe them to be. In a paradigm implicating undecided decision-makers (read: undecided voters), subjects were given photos of two women and asked which they preferred and to state the reasons why. Sounds simple enough, but the twist was that the pictures were sometimes switched, and the subjects were actually given the picture of the woman they did not like initially. Subjects still provided an answer for the photograph, even if it wasn’t the one they chose! Once made to give a choice between the two women (read: candidates), the initially undecided voters found a way to unconsciously derive a reason for their choice.

The typical undecided voter

So, we may have an answer to the almost-Sartrean question poised in the title: how should a person vote? The answer is completely up to you. In a matter of hours, you will (hopefully) cast your vote for the next President of the United States. Maybe you chose your candidate according to what your friends or parents told you about their beliefs. Maybe you made your decision based on fear of losing, even if it is by proxy of your political party.

My advice is this: as we have seen in the studies cited in this article, your unconscious, emotional side plays a large factor in your decision-making ability. If you are still undecided, please sit down and think about what is at stake in this election. Take the time to think for yourself, and you will know how a person should vote.

References:

Automatic Mental Associations Predict Future Choices of Undecided Decision-Makers - Science

Loss Aversion in Riskless Choice: A Reference-Dependent Model – The Quarterly Journal of Economics

Dominance, Politics, and Physiology: Voters’ Testosterone Changes on the Night of the 2008 United States Presidential Election -PLoS ONE

Rational Constraint in Mass Belief Systems: The Role of Developmental Moral Stages in the Structure of Political Beliefs - International Society of Political Psychology

According to a recent study, there are at least two neural correlates for decision-making in the brain.

If you’re the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz who yearns for a brain, you have neither of these correlates. However, if you are someone who has frontal lobe damage to the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), you have one functional neural correlate: for action value comparisons. You can make optimal decisions about how to get a brain (…although you obviously would already have one). Alternatively, you could have suffered damage to the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) - in which case you would be able to make stimulus value comparisons and choose which objects are optimal, such as the wittiest or the most creative brain, but not how to get the chosen object.

These findings on stimulus and action value comparisons came from the study conducted by Camille et al. at McGill University. The authors tested human subjects with frontal lobe damage to either the OFC or dACC compared to controls. The behavioral tests were computerized value-driven learning tasks that were given on two different occasions. By comparing the overlap of lesions from the brain scans of patients, they suggested that damage in certain areas either altered stimulus or action value comparisons, both of which have been known to be important in the decision-making process.

Dr. Lesley Fellows, a neurologist and research scientist at The Neuro – or the Montréal Neurological Institute and Hospital, was the principal investigator. She says, “The surprising and novel finding is that in fact these two mechanisms of choice are independent of one another. There are distinct processes in the brain by which value information guides decisions, depending on whether the choice is between objects or between actions… This finding gives me more insight into what is happening in the brain of my patients, and may lead to new treatments and new ways to care for them and manage their symptoms.”

Certainly understanding more about the decision-making process in terms of the neural correlates is important in creating and deciding on treatments for patients, as well as providing more information, coping strategies, therapy, and better care to those who suffer brain damage affecting their decision-making abilities. Not only that, but this understanding also provides a clearer perspective on frontal lobe dysfunction and other disorders that may include symptoms like indecision or risky behavior.

Decision-Making: What You Want Vs. How You Get It – Science Daily

Double Dissociation of Stimulus-Value and Action-Value Learning in Humans With Orbitofrontal or Anterior Cingulate Cortex Damage – Nathalie Camille et al.

They can’t stop talking about her. “Look at how popular and successful she is!” “Look at how stupid and ditsy she is!” “What has she done to be so famous?” … Well, I don’t care if she’s smart or stupid, rich or poor. The only things I see when she’s on the screen are those voluptuous curves. Regardless of what you think of her, Kim Kardashian has what most men dream of. Since this is a nerds’ blog, we’re going to take the moment to examine why we men like those curves so much.

Men like women with large curves because these provide an adaptive advantage, increasing the likelihood of the propagation of genes. Wide hips are adaptive because they make child birthing easier (more successful); large breasts may provide more nutrition during nursing. The men who go for the curves are more likely to make successful offspring; those offspring incidentally share the same instinct for curves and eventually make more progeny; and the cycle continues.

Now, Kim Kardashian is what you call a supernormal stimulus. She has everything that normally elicits a positive response but exaggerated. “Supernormal stimulus,” by the way, is attributed to the famous ethologist Niko Timbergen, who found that substituting a mamma-seagull’s white beak with its one red spot for a stick with three red spots made the chicks way more excited for food. Many more such examples have been described in a variety of animals.

But anyway, I am a male and my primitive brain can’t help but to love Kim Kardashian. One could say the male brain is predisposed or hard-wired to love curves like Kim’s. Actually, some folks are still amazed to hear that there are neural correlates of this or that (you see this in the news all the time – “scientists now found the brain mechanisms behind gambling,” social anxiety, or enhanced hearing in the blind. The list goes on). There won’t be any behavior, feeling, thought, etc without neural correlates. I dare you to show otherwise.

In an article on love and the brain, Psychology Today columnist Marnia Robinson describes the neural mechanisms that make prairie voles (similar to mice) pair bond, or stay as a couple for at least one round of mating). It has to do with the distribution of oxytocin receptors, which makes the vole associate its mate with the dopamine reward pathways, meaning that a couple stays together (“in love”) long enough to raise some pups. Marnia notes that we, like the voles, are “programmed to pair bond—just as we’re programmed to add notches to our belts.” In another post in her column, she drives the point home:

“Pair bonding is not simply a learned behavior. If there weren’t neural correlates behind this behavior, there would not be so much falling in love and pairing up across so many cultures. The pair-bonding urge is built-in and waiting to be activated… The vital point is that our pair bonding penchant arises from physiological events, not mere social conditioning… So, even though many Westerners appear to be caught up in a chaotic hook-up culture for the moment, it doesn’t mean that we humans are, by nature, as promiscuous as bonobo chimps or that pair-bonding inclinations are superficial cultural constructs.”

What Marnia means is that committed relationships (perhaps marriage, too) are natural, and therefore you don’t have to worry that everyone you know is only interested in hooking up because they should prefer committed relationships; eventually they’ll all settle down and all will be right in the world. I hope you will forgive me for interpreting Marnia’s writing as a promotion of marriage and an attack on hook-up culture (after all, the title of her post is “Committed Relationship: Like It Or Not, You’re Wired For It”). Humans have a genetically-based neural system that enables them to fall in love and pair bond (again, it shouldn’t be surprising that we have a neural system for this; the only question is what roles do genes and environment play on it). But just because it is there doesn’t mean it is 100% deterministic.

It’s true, in some species the best strategy for gene propagation is for the couple to share the responsibility of child rearing. Evolution favors individuals with the monogamy instinct and it just so happens that monogamous relationships feel good to them. What Marnia is driving at is that you don’t have a choice but to end up in a committed relationship because your brain is “wired for it”.

Is that really true? Decision-making can be described as synaptic integration of relevant inputs based on their weights or importance. Unless you are a cocaine addict running on empty, the factors going into most decision have fairly weighted synaptic representation (i.e. a crack-head’s brain won’t allow factors other than crack to have a big vote in the decision-making congress). Just because a brain is predisposed toward some trait or behavior doesn’t mean that that trait is 100% deterministic. This idea of relative cognitive liberty here doesn’t even invoke free will; the decisions you make are based on the brain’s wiring, your previous experiences, probability, etc – not some soul that does what it wants.

And why does it matter that monogamy is the “natural” thing to do? Who cares what we are by nature? Last I checked, by nature dudes can be expected to throw themselves at every cake, cookie, jar of peanut butter and sexy lady they see. Haven’t witnessed that recently at the local Shaw’s… And it wouldn’t matter if “society” were “making” us do that – we control society! We choose what’s acceptable. If I want to sleep around instead of getting married, that’s my choice! (isn’t it ironic how it’s the conservative right that always worries about threats to personal freedoms and tries to deny personal freedoms in the name of traditional values?).

That doesn’t mean we can ignore our nature; we do have innate mechanisms that pull or push us in different directions – I don’t love Kim Kardashian because I chose to, but because as a man I have certain preferences built in. But here’s the catch: just because I think Kim is attractive doesn’t mean I’m going to ditch my girlfriend and hop on the next plane to Hollywood. I can control myself and stay in a meaningful relationship; I can inhibit this reptilian instinct. Likewise, not every man prefers Kim to someone with a flatter topology. We do have innate preferences, but they all have different impact on what we do or how we feel. Next time you see a headline about the genetic basis or experience-driven neuroplasticity of some trait or other, be wary: not everything is as intensely deterministic as the neuropundits will have you believe. For now stay content that you can enjoy Kim Kardashian’s curves without committing any social faux pas.

Nigel Barber. The evolutionary psychology of physical attractiveness: Sexual selection and human morphology. Ethology and Sociobiology. Volume 16, Issue 5, 1995, 395-424

Decision Making in Recurrent Neuronal Circuits
Xiao-Jing Wang. Neuron. 60, (2) 215-234.

Committed Relationship: Like It Or Not, You’re Wired For It

Human Brains Are Built to Fall in Love