Predisposed ─ Liberals, Conservatives, and the Biology of Political Differences

"Predisposed presents evidence that people differ politically not just because they grew up in different cultures or were presented with different information. All these factors certainly play their role but people also differ politically because they have diverse psychological, physiological and genetic traits. This biologically-based, physio-cognitive machinery influences much of what makes people who they are, including their personalities, preferences for occupation and leisure pursuits, tastes in art and music, strategies for child rearing and, yes, orientations to politics. In short, this machinery predisposes people to see and understand the world in different ways. These predispositions are in turn responsible for a significant portion of the political conflict that marks human history"--

John R. Hibbing is the Foundation Regents University Professor of political science and psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He has been named a Guggenheim Fellow, a NATO Fellow in Science, a Senior Fulbright Fellow, and a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Kevin B. Smith is a professor of political science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is an award winning teacher and author of nine previous books, including The Ideology of Education: The Market, The Commonwealth, and America’s Schools and Analyzing American Democracy.

John R. Alford is an associate professor of political science at Rice University. He has published in areas as diverse as coal mine safety, pro-natalist policies in Eastern Europe, and congressional elections. He has also been active as a consultant and expert witness in the area of redistricting and election law.

Together they are leaders in a growing group of political scientists and psychologists who are utilizing biological techniques to better understand the reasons people’s political views are so diverse and often held so intensely. In 2007 they established the Political Physiology Lab at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the first such lab dedicated exclusively to the analysis of politics. Their articles connecting biology and politics have appeared in scholarly outlets such as Behavioral and Brain Sciences, the American Political Science Review, and Science and their research has attracted the attention of media outlets ranging from NPR to Fox News, from Spain’s Tiempo magazine to Japan’s Asahi Shimbun, and from the New York Times to The Daily Show.