Swaying the swingers: how neuroscience influences voting behaviour

Abstract

Politicians use many different techniques aimed at holding their traditional voters as well as widening their appeal. It is not surprising that, as we learn more about how the human brain works, political campaigners are also trying to benefit from that knowledge. The Political Brain by Drew Westen, an American clinical and political psychologist and Professor in the Department of Psychology and Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences at Emory University, is based on a brain scanning study of 15 committed Democrats and 15 committed Republicans in the final heated month of the 2004 Presidential election campaign. Each was shown slides of their favoured candidate, respectively John Kerry and George W. Bush, contradicting the other. Subjects were able to detect contradictions made by the rival party candidate and those of neutral figures but were not able to recognize when their own candidate was either lying or misrepresenting the facts. In essence, the author's conclusion from the brain scanning results is that ‘the political brain is an emotional brain. It is not a dispassionate calculating machine, objectively searching for the right facts, figures and policies to make a reasoned decision.’ He builds on this formulation by analysing political TV advertisements (adverts) that, whilst banned in the UK, are widely used in the US. Indeed, they are the major budget item on which candidates spend millions of dollars. Westen concludes that ‘Republicans understand what the philosopher, David Hume, recognized three centuries ago: that reason is a slave to emotion, not the other way around. With the exception of the Clinton era, Democratic strategists for the last three decades have instead clung tenaciously to the dispassionate view of the mind and to the campaign strategy that logically follows from it, namely one that focuses on facts, figures, policy statements, costs and benefits, and appeals to …