November 11, 2007
Op-Ed Contributors
This Is Your Brain on Politics
This article was written by Marco Iacoboni, Joshua Freedman and
Jonas Kaplan of the University of California, Los Angeles, Semel Institute for
Neuroscience; Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at
the University of Pennsylvania; and Tom Freedman, Bill Knapp and Kathryn
Fitzgerald of FKF Applied Research.
IN anticipation of the 2008 presidential election, we used
functional magnetic resonance imaging to watch the brains of a group of swing
voters as they responded to the leading presidential candidates. Our results
reveal some voter impressions on which this election may well turn.
Our 20 subjects — registered voters who stated that they
were open to choosing a candidate from either party next November —
included 10 men and 10 women. In late summer, we asked them to answer a list of
questions about their political preferences, then observed their brain activity
for nearly an hour in the scanner at the Ahmanson Lovelace Brain Mapping Center
at the University of California, Los Angeles. Afterward, each subject filled
out a second questionnaire.
While in the scanner, the subjects viewed political pictures
through a pair of special goggles; first a series of still photos of each
candidate was presented in random order, then video excerpts from speeches.
Then we showed them the set of still photos again. On the before and after
questionnaires, subjects were asked to rate the candidates on the kind of 0-10
thermometer scale frequently used in polling, ranging from Òvery unfavorableÓ
to Òvery favorable.Ó
We then compared the questionnaire responses with the brain data,
and hereÕs what we found:
1. Voters sense both peril and promise in party brands. When we
showed subjects the words ÒDemocrat,Ó ÒRepublicanÓ and Òindependent,Ó they
exhibited high levels of activity in the part of the brain called the amygdala,
indicating anxiety. The two areas in the brain associated with anxiety and
disgust — the amygdala and the insula — were especially active when
men viewed ÒRepublican.Ó But all three labels also elicited some activity in
the brain area associated with reward, the ventral striatum, as well as other
regions related to desire and feeling connected. There was only one exception:
men showed little response, positive or negative, when viewing Òindependent.Ó
2. Emotions about Hillary Clinton are mixed. Voters who rated Mrs.
Clinton unfavorably on their questionnaire appeared not entirely comfortable
with their assessment. When viewing images of her, these voters exhibited
significant activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, an emotional center of
the brain that is aroused when a person feels compelled to act in two different
ways but must choose one. It looked as if they were battling unacknowledged
impulses to like Mrs. Clinton.
Subjects who rated her more favorably, in contrast, showed very
little activity in this brain area when they viewed pictures of her.
This phenomenon, not found for any other candidate, suggests that
Mrs. Clinton may be able to gather support from some swing voters who oppose
her if she manages to soften their negative responses to her. But she may be
vulnerable to attacks that seek to reinforce those negative associations.
3. Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani are on opposite sides of the
gender divide. We found indications that Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Giuliani
represent two sides of the same coin: Men show little interest in Mrs. Clinton
initially but after watching her video they react positively. Women respond to
her strongly at first, but their interest wanes after they watch her video.
With Mr. Giuliani, the reactions are reversed. Men respond strongly
to his initial still photos, but this fades after they see his video. Women
grow more engaged after watching his video.
This is evidence that swing votersÕ responses change when they see
these two candidates in action. For men, Mrs. Clinton is a pleasant surprise.
For women, Mr. Giuliani has unexpected appeal.
4. The gender gap may be closing. In recent presidential
elections, Democrats have done better with female voters, while Republicans
have appealed more to men. So far this time, male swing voters seem to be
looking more closely at the Democrats. After viewing all the candidate videos,
our male subjects, when viewing still photos of the Democrats, showed
significantly higher activity in the medial orbital prefrontal cortex, an area
that is activated by rewarding stimuli, than they did while looking at pictures
of the Republicans.
Women did not display such a one-party skew, but rather tended to
react to individual candidates. So the traditional gender pattern of party
preference may not be as prominent this year, particularly among men, and that
may be good news for Democrats.
5. Mitt Romney shows potential. Of all the candidatesÕ speech
excerpts, Mr. RomneyÕs sparked the greatest amount of brain activity,
especially among the men we observed. His still photos prompted a significant
amount of activity in the amygdala, indicating voter anxiety, but when the
subjects saw him and heard his video, their anxiety died down. Perhaps voters
will become more comfortable with Mr. Romney as they see more of him.
6. In Rudy Giuliani versus Fred Thompson, the latter evokes more
empathy. There is much discussion this year about Òauthenticity,Ó as
politicians strive to be credible and real. On this front, Mr. Thompson may
have an advantage over Mr. Giuliani. When our subjects viewed photos of Mr.
Thompson, we saw activity in the superior temporal sulcus and the inferior
frontal cortex, both areas involved in empathy. When subjects viewed photos of
Mr. Giuliani, these areas were relatively quiet.
Our subjects also exhibited a much stronger empathetic response to
a minute-long excerpt from a stump speech by Mr. Thompson than they did to an
excerpt of a Giuliani speech. This connectedness toward Mr. Thompson did not
show up in the swing votersÕ answers on the questionnaires, but it suggests
that if swing voters see more of both candidates, Mr. Thompson may gain an
advantage over Mr. Giuliani.
7. John Edwards has promise — and a problem. When looking at
pictures of Mr. Edwards, subjects who had rated him low on the thermometer
scale showed activity in the insula, an area associated with disgust and other
negative feelings. This suggests that swing votersÕ negative emotions toward
Mr. Edwards can be quite powerful.
The good news for Mr. Edwards is that the swing voters who did not
give him low ratings, when looking at still photos of him, showed significant
activation in areas of the brain containing mirror neurons — cells that
are activated when people feel empathy. And that suggests these voters feel
some connection to him. So Mr. Edwards has a strong effect on swing voters
— both those who like him and those who donÕt.
8. Barack Obama and John McCain have work to do. The scans taken
while subjects viewed the first set of photos and the videos of Mr. McCain and
Mr. Obama indicated a notable lack of any powerful reactions, positive or
negative. The male subjects showed some interest in Mr. McCain while looking at
still photos, but their engagement fell off after they watched him on
videotape. Women remained unengaged throughout the session.
Mr. Obama was rated relatively high on the pre-scan questionnaire,
yet both men and women exhibited less brain activity while viewing the
pre-video set of still pictures of Mr. Obama than they did while looking at any
of the other candidates. Among the male subjects, the video of Mr. Obama provoked
increased activity in some regions of the brain associated with positive
feeling, but in women it elicited little change.
Our findings suggest that Mr. Obama has yet to create an impression on some swing voters. While his speech resonated with the men in our study, it failed to engage the women. Since we did our scans, Mr. Obama has altered his tone somewhat, and it will be interesting to see if that makes a difference.