Wasn't Expecting This! (slightly Political)

[Luann]

I did not mean to capitalize "political".

So, I was reading about the connection between sensitivity to disgust and which political side a person supports. People who display stronger brain activity when shown a gross picture are more likely to be conservative, even when controlling for other personality traits.

I was reading on what other influences and connections disgust has with a person's health status and personality. I saw this in an NY Times article:

"Daniel Fessler, an anthropologist at the Center for Behavior, Evolution and Culture at the University of California, Los Angeles, investigated with his colleagues why pregnant women were more sensitive to disgust. What they found was that as progesterone levels went up, so did sensitivity to disgust."

"In very recent work, Dr. Fessler said, the researchers found that even in women who weren’t pregnant and were not suffering nausea, disgust increased with the levels of progesterone."

Here's the original study. The article is from 2012; here is the "very recent work" he references.

 

[Blossom]

I did not mean to capitalize "political".

So, I was reading about the connection between sensitivity to disgust and which political side a person supports. People who display stronger brain activity when shown a gross picture are more likely to be conservative, even when controlling for other personality traits.

I was reading on what other influences and connections disgust has with a person's health status and personality. I saw this in an NY Times article:

"Daniel Fessler, an anthropologist at the Center for Behavior, Evolution and Culture at the University of California, Los Angeles, investigated with his colleagues why pregnant women were more sensitive to disgust. What they found was that as progesterone levels went up, so did sensitivity to disgust."

"In very recent work, Dr. Fessler said, the researchers found that even in women who weren’t pregnant and were not suffering nausea, disgust increased with the levels of progesterone."

Here's the original study. The article is from 2012; here is the "very recent work" he references.

That’s very interesting, thanks @Liubo.

 

[lampofred]

This would probably change with time periods... We will probably see an uptick in conservatives on here because of the association with progesterone, but in other decades, being liberal would have probably been more associated with good health than being conservative.

Conservatism is in the middle whereas open mindedness is either poor health or optimal health, the current left is in the poor health category as opposed to the optimal health category.

Don't really have anything to back this up, so please take with grain of salt

 

[sunraiser]

I have no idea how much weight can be put behind this idea or the conclusions found, but it's an interesting concept nonetheless.

Taking exogenous hormones is obviously going to have a direct impact on how you view the world and fellow human beings, but the idea is scary when you think of the hormonal side effects of things like SSRIs and amphetamines or benzos that are regularly prescribed to people in positions of power and influence over others.

Like with Trump supposedly taking finasteride and lord knows what other drugs while being in control of a nuclear arsenal

 

[Luann]

Sure, that makes sense @lampofred, conservative / liberal are just reactions to whatever issues are current. "Healthy" minded people can fall under different labels depending in the issue, although I do not see the (far) left as being very open-minded at this point in history actually.

It totally is scary @sunraiser, and so many people and Americans are on those drugs! (And yes it is based on just two or three studies so not super in-depth.)

Something I noted was the study saying that people with high progesterone are more susceptible to some infections, and a quick Google search seemed to support this in some cases. Everything in balance, I guess.

thanks @Blossom!

 

[michael94]

Similar thing with aversion to gore