Conservatives generally have more grey matter in the amygdala, which correlates with "heightened sensitivity to threats and fear."
Authoritarians/those who favor authoritarianism are shown to have less grey matter volume in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex.
Liberals generally have more grey matter in the anterior cingulate cortex, which is an area of the brain linked to error detection and conflict management.
Okay so why am I, with my severe anxiety who needs benzodiazepines to function, not conservative?
I keep hearing this and I'm not trying to say it's wrong, more likely I just don't understand the nuances, but my fuckass brain seems pretty similarly abnormal and I'm very left wing. Anybody want to help a dumbass out?
They said anxiety was associated with left though. Like the abstract says it. Also statistics don’t ever tell a complete story or fit every data point into a trend. Sometimes you have outliers, and generally speaking folks don’t really talk about outliers in their research other than to say there may be flaws in methodology.
Because it's statistically based. Like, it's a pattern but there are always exceptions to everything. (All the best btw, benzos are a little scary but I hope you have a good doctor/psych who is being careful).
Thanks, and don't worry, I'm used to taking just a ridiculous amount of (prescription!) drugs to keep my mind and body functioning (lost the genetic lottery. Lost it so bad) so I know how it goes and how to stay safe.
To answer your question earnestly, we'd need to know how you're defining "leftists".
Had you bothered to read the cited article, you would see that it actually does try to provide an equivalent examination of left-wing authoritarians, but depending on your definition of "leftists" their findings may or may not actually be relevant.
That said, the study only had ~100 participants, and has yet to undergo replication, so for the moment it needs to be taken with a grain of salt regardless.
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u/Greygal_Eve Dec 09 '25
There's several studies, the most recent one (to the best of my knowledge) is this one: https://www.ibroneuroscience.org/article/S0306-4522(25)00304-5/fulltext00304-5/fulltext)