We like to think that we have developed our political ideology through choice. We have looked at the options: gun rights or gun control, pro choice or pro life, higher taxes or lower taxes and chose to support one or other based on our values and facts. There's a growing body of evidence, however, that suggests that our political views are in our genes as much as they are in our head or heart if not more.
Here's a novel idea, if you're interested in other people you're likely a progressive
James Fowler, University of California, matched genetic information on 2,000 Add Health participants with “maps” of their social networks. He found that those with a specific variant of the DRD4 gene were more likely to be liberal as adults.
Fowler has hypothesized that people with the novelty-seeking gene variant are more interested in other peoples and, therefore, are exposed to a greater variety of social norms and lifestyles than people without DRD4.
Twins have the same political views
Rice University professor, John Alford, is a big figure in political physiology. One of his interesting studies found that identical twins are more likely to agree on political issues than were fraternal twins. By looking at twins, Alford was able to control for environmental and other factors to isolate the impact of genetics.
These twins had the same parents, grew in the same town, had the same religion, skin color, and were otherwise similar except some sets of twins had more genetically in common with each other than other sets of twins that Alford studied. The study's results show that genetic factors play a big part in your political ideology.
"What we found was that it probably is going to take more than a persuasive television ad to change someone's mind on a certain political position or attitude," said Alford. "Individual genes for behaviors do not exist and no one denies that humans have the capacity to act against genetic predispositions. But predictably dissimilar correlations of social and political attitudes among people with greater and lesser shared genotypes suggest that behaviors are often shaped by forces of which the person themselves are not consciously aware."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/...
Liberals and Conservatives process things differently
John Hibbing, a political scientist at the University of Nebraska, measured physiological responses to threatening stimuli, and found that participants’ threat-responses correlated strongly to political positions.
When confronted by a threat, conservatives tend to react more strongly than Liberals. No wonder conservatives support capital punishment, higher defense spending, and gun rights. Liberals are the opposite. Liberals tend to support gun control, aid to foreign countries, and loose immigration regulations because genetically, they don't react as strongly to outside threats.
How we respond to fear is genetic, so the correlation between responses to fear and political views means that genes help determine whether we are progressive or conservative.
Concluding Ramblings
Trying to convince someone that their belief is wrong and they should hold a different one is tough, really tough. There are a ton of reasons for this including a psychological desire to be consistent, that people seek out information that reinforces their already beliefs making them all the more entrenched, and, apparently, people are genetically predisposed to hold certain political views.
Also, I'd like to believe that Republicans are evil or stupid but that's not the case. Instead, caveman conservatives just freaked out when the sabre tooth tiger snuck up on them and we decided to play it cool in hopes that the tiger wouldn't see us. These same divergent responses to fear still play out today in our political ideology.