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. …
What a surprise.
Actually science shows that I’m the goodest person.
You may be the goodest person, but my doggo is the goodest boy.
Nah, it’s me. Empirically proven.
No banana, though.
Why do you equate empathy with goodness?
Are you… okay?
Heck, I sure hope you’re not “Christian”, because oh man do both Old Testament God and Jesus have words for you.
Do you not? And if not, why?
If course I do. I was sarcastically replying to his insinuation that it wasn’t the case and that this research is flawed.
But based on the votes I’m guessing I was too subtle.
Heh. Noted. Shit happens.
If you have to ask…
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.
I found the Trumper!
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.
Would you back shitty facts if they follow your political leaning?
I would if I was a Trump supporter, since its functionally a requirement.
Bro, if you can’t even discuss a scientific study seriously I don’t even know what we are doing anymore
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.
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
I agree, and you responded to someone being an ass-clown. I was just putting a few cents in.
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.
What facts
The size of the study and the bias of the students themselves. Plus the type of person that would participate in the study might be more empathetic to begin with. Meaning the result could skewed just a bit higher percentage than an average.
Oh yeah that yes
This isn’t reddit
It doesn’t have to be but suuuure people are doing their darndest to make it similar
Is that you XxCenksButtBoy69xX ?
Politics for me reduces to how much and to what degree you want to not hurt people or for people to hurt. It’s kinda simple even when the choices I’m front of us are complex.
Rightwingers like to punish and hurt as a means of control.
Listen to any liberal and that much is obvious since it is literally their entire stance.
Overlooking how reductionist and incorrect that statement is: why is a political stance based around empathy a bad thing?
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.
I read your statement completely contrary to your intent, that’s how it’s a bad thing!
My oops
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.
In other news, water is wet.
Now do socialists.
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.
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.
Leftists are just liberals who are bad at math, so it probably would scale them about the same
It’s liberals who keep insisting that trickle down economics is good for the economy actually.
I knew conservatism was a physiological brain defect. I knew it.
Facts do not care about conservatives’ feelings. 😘
@remindme@mstdn.social in 1 week
There’s a fedi remind me bot?
Yeah, works for Lemmy, but not sure if it works with Mastodon, etc…
We needed a full on study to know this? I guess now we know.
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.
What if they scan the feelings of a liberal for a conservative? It would give the same result?
People are people. You care about people or you don’t. It isn’t a sports match where you root for a team.
The last six years of the internet suggests you are incorrect.
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.
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.
And also a significantly higher percentage of mental illnesses.
Edit: Uh oh, lol. The conformist hive mind got upset at facts. Again, actual scientific facts, not my opinion.
I would argue lack of empathy is mental illness.
I’ll remove the downvote if you cite the facts.
I don’t disagree or disbelieve, but you can’t make that claim without backing it up without being a part of the problem.
at least post doi when stating such claim
Ask torontoans how’s that empathy going for them. Lmao, shithole of a city
Imagine arguing empathy is bad.
people do it. No one want to take the stance that there normal is the bad kind of normal
Quite decent actually. Have some of the lowest crime rates in Canada while the people saying we are falling apart have way higher crime rates, way less jobs, and has never actually been to our city.
Congrats, you realized things happen when you have a fifth of the country’s population. Now go learn how per capita works.
and Toronto, Ont. with a 6.63 safety index came in as the fourth safest city in the country
A few questions if you don’t mind:
What exactly do you think is happening in Toronto?
Do you also believe Portland was burned to the ground?
What size is your cowboy hat?
None of this answers any of my very simple questions. You are not into conversation, just shitting on everything you don’t like. As such… Blocked.
You right-wingers love capitalism. Property values, aka how many people want to live there relative to supply, in the places you guys call shitholes demonstrate how nonsensical your views are by your own metric.
People want to live in places like Toronto and LA. That’s why they’re expensive to buy and rent in or near. With the exception of Texas sitting on oil like the Saudis, no one wants to live in conservative states that cut taxes to the bone starving the commons like infrastructure and education. Few want to live in the ignorant dirt when civilization exists.
