A recent study in Israel used brain scans to explore the differences in empathy between political liberals and conservatives. The researchers found that when imagining other people suffering, liberals showed stronger brain reactions associated with empathy compared to conservatives. This pattern of brain activity was linked to participants’ self-reported political beliefs and their acceptance of right-wing values. The study was published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. …
What if they scan the feelings of a liberal for a conservative? It would give the same result?
People are people. You care about people or you don’t. It isn’t a sports match where you root for a team.
The last six years of the internet suggests you are incorrect.
That’s obviously and completely wrong. Everyone cares about different people to different degrees, depending on how close and well known they are. It’s not at all binary. If it were, you would by flying around the world to sit at the bed side of every kid with cancer you’ve ever heard of, as if they were your own child.
I would hesitantly say it probably would. They didn’t include that in the scan, but did in the self reporting questions. And found no real difference in either groups self reported empathy toward the other group.
That combined with the starkly increased measured of empathy for others generally, which was more pronounced than self reporting showed. It would make sense that the same pattern continued, even for the opposite associated group. I would expect rightists to be less empathetic to leftists than self-reported, and leftists to be more empathetic to rightists than self-reported.