Conservatives As Cowards

The news reports a new scientific study showing that conservatives startle easier than liberals. This study was by John Hibbing, in the Political Science Department at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, and others. Michael Greinecker has a more complete citation.

This is not an isolated study. Here's the abstract of another:

"Political scientists and psychologists have noted that, on average, conservatives show more structured and persistent cognitive styles, whereas liberals are more responsive to informational complexity, ambiguity and novelty. We tested the hypothesis that these profiles relate to differences in general neurocognitive functioning using event-related potentials, and found that greater liberalism was associated with stronger conflict-related anterior cingulate activity, suggesting greater neurocognitive sensitivity to cues for altering a habitual response pattern." -- David M. Amodio, John T. Jost, Sarah L. Master, and Cindy M. Lee (2007) "Neurocognitive Correlates of Liberalism and Conservatism" Nature Neuroscience, published online 9 September

And another:

"Analyzing political conservatism as motivated social cognition integrates theories of personality (authoritarianism, dogmatism—intolerance of ambiguity), epistemic and existential needs (for closure, regulatory focus, terror management), and ideological rationalization (social dominance, system justification). A meta-analysis (88 samples, 12 countries, 22,818 cases)confirms that several psychological variables predict political conservatism: death anxiety (weighted mean r = .50); system instability (.47); dogmatism—intolerance of ambiguity (.34); openness to experience (—.32); uncertainty tolerance (—.27); needs for order, structure, and closure (.26); integrative complexity (—.20); fear of threat and loss (.18); and self-esteem (—.09). The core ideology of conservatism stresses resistance to change and justification of inequality and is motivated by needs that vary situationally and dispositionally to manage uncertainty and threat." -- John J. Jost, Jack Glaser, Arie W. Kruglanski, and Frank J. Sulloway (2003) "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition", Psychological Bulletin, V. 129, N. 3: 339-375