Readers might find this discussion interesting:
The Neurocritic: Liberals Are Conflicted and Conservatives Are Afraid
"Feilden then asks a question that is unanswerable from studying brain structure in adults: "Are political beliefs learnt, the product of experiences in our environment, or 'hard wired' in the brain?" Since a comparison of n=1 liberal versus n=1 conservative is not scientifically valid, Rees went back to a database of MRI scans from UCL students and asked these participants about their political beliefs. Feilden then discussed the results before the paper had been formally submitted for publication
[according to the journal website, the paper was received by Current Biology on 11 January, 2011]. Briefly, he said that the gray matter of the
anterior cingulate cortex was thicker among the liberal or left wing participants while the
amygdala was much larger in those who identified as conservative or right wing.
"But is it cause and effect?" asks an interviewer. Rightfully so.
Correlation does not equal causation. Then there's the claim that the structural brain variation means the political differences are "hard wired". The observed anatomical differences prove no such thing. Any experience will change the brain in some way, and repeated patterns of behavior, whether it's
learning to juggle or voting conservative due to a certain set of core beliefs, can alter the brain..."
...
"Although liberals did indeed show larger ERN waves than conservatives when making mistakes, so do individuals with clinical diagnoses such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (
Gehring et al., 2000) or major depressive disorder (
Chiu & Deldin, 2007).
So we can't dismiss the possibility that the liberals might have been more depressed or obsessive compulsive than the conservatives."
Anyway, I do tend to be prone to bouts of depression if not anxiety attacks.