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Science 19 September 2008:
Vol. 321. no. 5896, pp. 1667 - 1670
DOI: 10.1126/science.1157627
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Reports

Political Attitudes Vary with Physiological Traits

Douglas R. Oxley,1* Kevin B. Smith,1* John R. Alford,2 Matthew V. Hibbing,3 Jennifer L. Miller,1 Mario Scalora,4 Peter K. Hatemi,5 John R. Hibbing1{dagger}

Although political views have been thought to arise largely from individuals' experiences, recent research suggests that they may have a biological basis. We present evidence that variations in political attitudes correlate with physiological traits. In a group of 46 adult participants with strong political beliefs, individuals with measurably lower physical sensitivities to sudden noises and threatening visual images were more likely to support foreign aid, liberal immigration policies, pacifism, and gun control, whereas individuals displaying measurably higher physiological reactions to those same stimuli were more likely to favor defense spending, capital punishment, patriotism, and the Iraq War. Thus, the degree to which individuals are physiologically responsive to threat appears to indicate the degree to which they advocate policies that protect the existing social structure from both external (outgroup) and internal (norm-violator) threats.

1 Department of Political Science, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA.
2 Department of Political Science, Rice University, Houston, TX 77251, USA.
3 Department of Political Science, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
4 Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA.
5 Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Richmond, VA 23298, USA.

* These authors contributed equally to this work.

{dagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jhibbing{at}unl.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)