Posted on 04/08/2025 4:06:56 PM PDT by aimhigh
People’s political affiliation can be shown in their brain activity when they carry out mundane chores such as buying food, a new study shows.
How the brain reacts to food purchasing decisions can be used to determine people’s political affiliation with almost 80 per cent accuracy, researchers have found. Although buying eggs and milk can lack emotional potency and political content, understanding how the neural systems lead people to make indistinguishable choices may help to explain the broader mechanisms of partisanship.
Experts from Iowa State University, the University of Kansas Medical Center, Oklahoma State University, and the University of Exeter measured the brain activity of adult Republicans and Democrats via MRI while they made the food choices. The two groups didn’t make significantly different decisions about food purchases, but the way their brains activated as they made decisions differed according to their party affiliation.
Republicans showed greater neural activity than Democrats in specific regions of the brain, and Democrats had greater neural activity than Republicans in other regions. The findings suggest that political orientation might be partially rooted in basic neurocognitive mechanisms that occur even when the choices are non-political. This may help to explain the broader mechanisms of partisanship.
Professor John Crespi, from the Iowa State University, said: “You cannot tell whether someone is a Democrat or a Republican when you see them buy free-range eggs, but if you were to examine their brain activity, you would see that they are using different parts of their brains in that decision. The brain activity predicts the party, not the purchase.”
Dr Darren Schreiber, from the University of Exeter, said: “We know from studies of twins that about 50% of your political ideology is biologically heritable and that data from your parents allows us to infer your political party with 69% accuracy. So, it is pretty amazing that just the signal from the brain while you’re buying eggs and milk enables us to correctly classify your political party about 80 per cent of the time.”
The fMRI scanner recorded activity in several areas of the brain including the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which is associated with decision making. Professor Crespi said: “We can discern your likelihood of being in one party or another from how those brain regions react to what you are choosing even if the choices end up being exactly the same as someone in a different party. I think that is what is intriguing—we can’t tell if you’re a Democrat by the eggs you buy, but by the parts of the brain you use to buy the eggs. “We gave the subjects $50 but they were told that one of the products they selected would be given to them at the end of the study and its price would be deducted from their $50. So, they went home with either a jug of milk or a carton of eggs and whatever money they had left after the purchase.”
The researchers chose to use milk and eggs in the study because they wanted common grocery items that were indistinguishable by brand, as branding can make purchasing decisions more personal and changes the way we think about them. Professor Crespi said: “I would be amazed to find that the results do not hold up with other product choices—the parts of your brain that are active when buying a carton of eggs are active when other decisions are made.
“Darren Schreiber’s work was some of the first in this area showing differences seem to be there. There are so few studies on politics and purchasing decisions that also look at brain activity that I’m kind of excited to say this is really a first. There are a few other studies that are in the same spirit, and our predictions hold up when compared with theirs although they did not look at the food choices like we did. The brain is still very much a mystery and papers like this are just like dipping our toes into a very big ocean.”
BS.
What if I only eat zee bugs?
THIS IS THE KIND OF CRAP DEMS LOVE THROWING $$$$ AT.
But the study was flawed. 80% of the leftists showed not enough brain activity to register.
Another study supposedly “proving” we’re “born that way” and “there’s no such thing as free will”.
What is this nonsense about milk and eggs not being branded? I only buy Mayfield’s dairy products (they really are better, to my taste) and Vital Farms pastured eggs (which I think are best). I don’t even have to think about it. Just grab the Mayfield’s and the VF.
I myself prefer free range eggplant.
they were in non branded cartons
It’s kinda obvious who is a leftist when you go to Trader Joes...
The lobotomy scars are another good indicator of liberalism.
This sounds like a project funded by USAID.
Stalking them in their natural habitat is a mental and physical challenge....
I purchased a small cluster of Tomatoes On the Vine recently.
There were five tomatoes on that one vine, and each individual tomato had some kind of sticker on it showing a Bar Code. I don’t want to be bothered pulling itty bitty tags off my fresh produce. Will grocery stores ever go back to not slapping a paper label on every piece?
I thought this was already established with Birkenstocks?
I was surprised to learn that Democrats have any brain activity.
The person who buys red meat versus a person who buys tofu might indicate political leaning.
I read the opening, started thinking about it in that part of my noodle that I call “the lower 40.” It will think about anything, indiscriminately, and go hmmm.
Then I wondered, when I shop, can I tell who’s a conservative and who’s a liberal? Pictured some folks — sloppy Walmartians, tattooed persons, old ladies, people cussing, people with little kids, people with support animals...
Nope, can’t really sort them out politically.
Finally the higher points of my IQ kicked in, and hollered, “Who cares?”
So, how much funding did this bunch get for their silly investigation? And what can anyone do with the information? Birth another algorithm, perhaps?
We found that when making non-hypothetical, economic decisions about food, Republicans show greater neural activity than Democrats in specific regions of the brain, and Democrats have greater neural activity than Republicans in other regions, yet the ultimate food decisions are not significantly different between the two groups. There is no specific conservative, liberal, Republican, or Democrat “grocery shopping” region of the brain, which means political decisions, economic decisions, and day-to-day decisions such as food choices must be made using the available decision “hardware.”
I can't make sense of any of this. They say there are differences then they say there aren't differences.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-the-life-sciences/article/differential-brain-activations-between-democrats-and-republicans-when-considering-food-purchases/1A50B5BC2181458FE465EA6B1B28DE98
Wrong. I’m eating Trader Joe’s dark chocolate orange sticks now. We go every once in a while, I’m a Patriot.
It sorta sounds like conservatives use the rational, male part of their brains to choose which item to buy, while lefties use the more emotional, feminine part of their fevered noggins.
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