TEACHERS DISCUSSION FORUM
View Thread · Previous · Next Return to Index › Biological explanation as to why trump supporters are trump supporters
BeenThere - 2017-05-02

Fascinating! According to this study published yesterday in the American Political Science Review, some of the posters on this board who oppose immigration (even when they, themselves, live in foreign countries) would be "biologically motivated": People are conservative, not because of ideas or adherence to theories, but because they are physically disgusted by people who look different. That's an evolutionary mechanism meant to protect against infections brought by "the others". The study calls this trait the “behavioral immune system". It's inherited. My conclusion: Don't approach immigration foes with arguments, approach them with a bottle of Pepto Bismol.

Open immigration foes biologically motivated by racial, ethnic aversion, study says


Those especially fearful of infections and prone to disgust are most likely to oppose immigration by those of a different race or color.


This aversion is the result of a purported evolutionary mechanism that unconsciously steers people away from things that are different and perhaps threatening, the study said. It does so by making those things appear disgusting.


Moreover, the study says people hold conservative views because that defensive mechanism acts especially strongly in them, not because they have rationally adopted those views.


Invoking a hypothesis called the “behavioral immune system,” the study authors said that mechanism explained why political conservatives tend to favor restricting immigration.


“Our results suggest that people high in disgust sensitivity are not opposed to immigration because they are conservative,” the study said. “More likely, these people tend to be conservative because their behavioral immune system propels them to oppose immigrants...”


Stronger aversion to disgusting things was expressed by those more likely to oppose immigration of those of Middle Eastern origin than others, the study found. Presumably, the opponents were turned off by “an immigrant who is different from the American majority in terms of physical and cultural appearance.”


The behavioral immune system is a supposedly inherited set of instincts by which over evolutionary time, humans were programmed through Darwinian natural selection to avoid things that were likely to cause diseases or otherwise harm them.


“Because pathogens can be lethal but extremely hard to detect, the behavioral immune system evolved to be hyper-vigilant against unfamiliar stimuli, including unfamiliar individuals,” the study’s early version stated.


“In the evolved mind, we argue, differences in appearance (such as the color of one’s skin) are intuitively interpreted as cues of infectious diseases,

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/biotech/sd-me-immune-immigrants-20170430-story.html
Tell a Friend REPLY View All - [To view all the posts in this thread at once click this link]
View Thread · Previous · Next Return to Index › Biological explanation as to why trump supporters are trump supporters





Go to another board -