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concrete. That’s an H&N function, and scientists call it low-level thinking.
Abstract thinking is called high-level. A group of scientists wondered if
people who tended to think concretely would be more hostile to groups
who were different from themselves—people they perceived as threat-
ening the stability of their way of life—such as gays, lesbians, Muslims,
and atheists.
Research volunteers were given two descriptions of events, such
as ringing a doorbell. They had to choose which description was best.
One was concrete (ringing a doorbell is moving a finger), and the other
was abstract (ringing a doorbell is seeing if anyone is home). Next they
asked them to rate their feelings of liking and warmth for gays, lesbi-
ans, Muslims, and atheists. They found a direct relationship between
choosing concrete descriptions and reporting lower levels of liking and
warmth.
The next step was to see if these feelings could be manipulated by
stimulating the participants to think abstractly. They chose the subject
of exercise, a topic completely unrelated to the acceptance of poten-
tially threatening groups. The researchers began by asking the partici-
pants to think about maintaining good physical health. Then half were
asked to describe how they would do it (concrete) and the other half
were asked to describe why it’s important (abstract). Describing how had
no effect on attitudes, but describing why raised the conservative partic-
ipants’ feelings of liking and warmth for the unfamiliar groups to the
point where there was no significant difference between their attitudes
and the attitudes of liberals.
Activating dopamine pathways is one way to make conservatives
think more like liberals. But we can do something similar by exploiting
the very circuits that make conservatives act conservatively: the H&N
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POLITICS
circuits, specifically those that allow us to experience empathy. This
approach uses strengths that are quintessentially conservative to gener-
ate greater acceptance of people who threaten change.
Let’s go back to the apparent contradiction of conservatives advo-
cating for deportation of illegal immigrants as a group while provid-
ing individuals with food, water, and toys. H&N conservatives may be
hostile to the idea of immigration, but they have an innate ability to
connect on an empathic basis to actual immigrants. This ability—one
might even call it an unconscious impulse—has been used by Holly-
wood writers to increase acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgender (LGBT) people. They do it through the power of story.
We develop emotional relationships with characters in stories. If
it’s a well-written story, the feelings we have for the characters may be
very similar to the feelings we have for real people. The Gay & Les-
bian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) notes, “TV hasn’t merely
reflected the changes in social attitudes; it has also had an important
role in bringing them about. Time and again, it’s been shown that per-
sonally knowing an LGBT person is one of the most influential factors
in shifting one’s views on LGBT issues, but in the absence of that, many
viewers have first gotten to know us as television characters.”
According to GLAAD’s annual report on the diversity of prime-
time TV, the number of regular characters identified as gay, lesbian, or
bisexual has been steadily growing. In the most recent poll, conducted
in 2015, it was 4 percent. That’s about the same as the 3.8 percent of
Americans who identified as LGBT in a recent Gallup poll. The net-
work with the highest percentage was Fox Network, where 6.5 percent
of regular primetime characters were LGBT.
These fictional characters have a real influence on viewer attitudes.
A poll conducted by The Hollywood Reporter found that 27 percent of
respondents said LGBT-inclusive TV made them stronger advocates
for same-sex marriage. When the results were analyzed based on how
viewers voted in the 2012 presidential election, 13 percent of Romney
voters said that watching the shows made them more supportive of
same-sex marriage. Transforming abstract groups into concrete indi-
viduals is a good way to activate H&N empathy circuits.
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THE MOLECULE OF MORE
A NATION GOVERNED BY IDEAS (VIA BIOLOGY)
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