Neural Nonpartisans

• In Event: Poster Session: Political Psychology

Abstract

While affective conflict between partisans is driving much of modern politics, it is also driving increasing numbers to eschew partisan labels. A dominant theory is that these self-proclaimed independents are merely covert partisans. In the largest functional brain imaging study of neuropolitics to date, we find differences between partisans and nonpartisans in the posterior medial cortices, a portion of the brain’s Default Mode Network implicated in both our sense of self as well social cognition. These results suggest that rather than being mere covert partisans, nonpartisans process the world in a way that is distinct from their partisan counterparts.

Author

• Darren Schreiber, University of Exeter