What do brains tell us about politics? Part 1: Polarization

What do propaganda posters have in common across nation and time, and how is that related to the medial prefrontal cortex? What is behind repeating cycles of societal polarization? What does any of this have to do with the American Civil War, hippies vs soldiers, border ruffians vs free-staters, hanging chads, Pearl Harbor, and why education can serve as an immune response to mind viruses?

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More Information:

Harris LT, Fiske ST. Dehumanizing the lowest of the low: Neuroimaging responses to extreme out-groups. Psychological science. 2006 Oct;17(10):847-53.

Harris LT, Fiske ST. Social neuroscience evidence for dehumanised perception. European review of social psychology. 2009 Feb 1;20(1):192-231.

Vaughn DA, Savjani RR, Cohen MS, Eagleman DM. Empathic neural responses predict group allegiance. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 2018 Jul 31;12:302.

De Dreu CK. Oxytocin modulates cooperation within and competition between groups: an integrative review and research agenda. Hormones and behavior. 2012 Mar 1;61(3):419-28.

Jonas T. Kaplan, Sarah I. Gimbel & Sam Harris (2016). Neural correlates of maintaining one’s political beliefs in the face of counterevidence

Hadley Rahrig et al (2025). Examining emotion reactivity to politically polarizing media in a randomized controlled trial of mindfulness training versus active coping training

Marcos-Prieto et al (2025). Dopaminergic and serotonergic genetic variants predict actions and expectations of cooperation and punishment. Scientific Reports. 2025 Jul 1;15(1):20641.

De Dreu CK, Kret ME. Oxytocin conditions intergroup relations through upregulated in-group empathy, cooperation, conformity, and defense. Biological psychiatry. 2016 Feb 1;79(3):165-73.

Inner Cosmos Episode 54: “Where do you end and others begin?”

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Wednesday is Indigo Blue

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The Runaway Species