The mainstream media, which is financially dependent on the power elite, play up things like police shootings of African-Americans, while mostly ignoring police shootings of Caucasians. African-Americans often react with demonstrating, sometimes with violence. Of course, news articles to these protests draws more viewers/readers, so the profit motive can be a motive. But also, protests that include violence, serves the purpose of the power elite by increasing conservative feelings, which can mean the conservatives, who serve the power elite, get additional votes.
https://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-differences-between-conservatives-and-liberals-2018-2
Hilary Brueck and Canela López
Oct 27, 2020, 12:51 PM
- Liberals and conservatives don't just differ politically. According
to scientific research, people on different ends of the political
spectrum differ psychologically too.
- Fear is linked more often to leaning conservative, whereas feeling safer can lead people to lean more liberal.
- Liberals and conservatives also tend to show compassion to different groups of people.
- The following are of the 15 biggest psychological differences
academics have found between liberals and conservatives around the
globe.
•••••
Being scared can make you more conservative.
Decades of research have shown that people get more conservative when they feel threatened and afraid.
•••••
A conservative brain is more active in different areas than a liberal one.
Brain scans show that people who self-identify as conservative have larger and more active right amygdalas, an area of the brain that's associated with expressing and processing fear. This aligns with the idea that feeling afraid makes people lean more to the right.
One 2013 study showed conservative brains tend to have more activity in their right amygdalas when they're taking risks than liberals do.
•••••
On the other hand, feeling safe and endowed with strength might make you lean a little more liberal than you otherwise would.
Groundbreaking research that Yale psychologists published in 2017 revealed that helping people imagine they're completely safe from harm can make them (temporarily) hold more liberal views on social issues.
•••••
Conservatives tend to display more ordered thinking patterns, whereas liberals have more "aha" moments.
A 2016 study at Northwestern University found that when conservative and liberal college students were given word problems to solve, both groups managed to arrive at some correct answers through gradual, analytical analysis.
But when feeling stuck on a problem, liberals were much more likely to draw upon a sudden burst of insight — an 'aha' moment, like a lightbulb turning on in the brain.
•••••
Holding conservative views seems to make people more resistant to change and help them explain inequality.
A 2003 review of decades of research on conservative people suggested that their social views can help satisfy "psychological needs" to make sense of the world and manage uncertainty and fear.
"People embrace political conservatism (at least in part) because it serves to reduce fear, anxiety, and uncertainty; to avoid change, disruption, and ambiguity; and to explain, order, and justify inequality among groups and individuals," the researchers said.
•••••
Liberals are more likely to describe themselves as compassionate and optimistic, while conservatives are more likely to say they're people of honor and religion.
A 1980 study of US high school students found that conservative students at that time were more likely to describe themselves as "responsible," "organized," "successful," and "ambitious," while liberal students might describe themselves as "loving," "tender," or "mellow."
Surveys suggest that today's adults aren't much different than those 80s kids. A Pew Research Center study from 2014 showed that liberals were more likely than social conservatives to describe themselves as compassionate, trusting, upbeat, and optimistic, while conservatives were more likely to say they were people of honor, duty, religion, and proud to be American.
[From my personal experience with conservatives, I don't find them to be people of honor, even though they might choose to see themselves that way.]
•••••
Conservatives believe they have more self-control.
•••••
