People who startle easily in response to threatening images or loud sounds seem to have a biological predisposition to adopt conservative political positions on many hot-button issues, according to unusual new research published yesterday.

The finding suggests that people who are particularly sensitive to signals of visual or auditory threats also tend to adopt a more defensive stance on political issues, such as immigration, gun control, defense spending and patriotism. People who are less sensitive to potential threats, by contrast, seem predisposed to hold more liberal positions on those issues. 

Political Ideology as a Predictor for Startle Response
Graham Bettelman, et al.
University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Abstract
The authors examined the correlation in humans of ideations of political conservativism and strength of startle reactions to threat stimuli.  Subjects were exposed to three situations that included a perceived threat (visual, auditory, or imagined), and their reaction measured along parameters that included the amounts of eye blinking and palm sweat, and vertical distance jumped from a sitting position.  Results show conclusively that Republicans are just more jumpy.

Methods
Subjects were given questionnaires to determine political philosophy, and randomly grouped into one of three conditions (2x3 design): visual threat, auditory threat, and absence of threat.  Throughout the experiment, measurements of palm moistness and blinking rate were monitored (see Fig. 1).

Visual Threat. In the visual threat condition, subjects saw a short film clip of a young gay man expressing his enthusiasm over his plans to marry the subject’s son and move to San Francisco to open a vegan swingers’ restaurant. 
Auditory Threat. In the auditory threat condition, subjects were fitted with headphones, through which calming classical music was played at a moderate volume.  After a randomized period of time (10s-25s after the beginning of the music), a heavily accented voice would interrupt to proclaim a desire to join the Subject’s great country in order to work a below-minimum-wage job and establish a better future for his family.  The original, which design called for a variety of voices, proved too complex for this study’s simple 2x3 design, so we instead used the voice of a single Mexican-American male, aged 23.
Absence of Threat. In the absence of threat condition, subjects were instructed to imagine a utopian-type world: where wars are not waged to further political agendas; citizens are taxed fairly based on their ability to give; and all people have true freedom to worship, love, and make health decisions without government intervention.

Results
In all cases, subjects who had identified as more conservative on their questionaire reacted much more strongly to the threat stimuli, though contrary to our expectations, the greatest response came in the Absence of Threat condition. ...
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Tags: politics, science, republicans, immigration, gay marriage, vegan swingers restaurants, startlement

BOSTON (AP) — State lawmakers have voted to let gay couples from other states get married in Massachusetts as soon as Gov. Deval Patrick signs the bill into law.

The house voted Tuesday to repeal a 1913 law that had blocked gay marriages from out-of-state couples.

from The Boston Globe, June 17, 1913:

MASSACHUSETTS SAFE FROM PINK TERROR.
Senator is mocked for preposterous Notion that Massachusetts may harbour homo-sexuals.

By overwhelming margin, our Proud State Legislators yesterday passed into Law a Bill meant to eternally ensure that that Vicious Vice known Scientifically as Homo-sexuality & popularly as Manshafting or Chapbuggery, will never find a foothold on the shores of this, Our Most Esteemed & Beloved State of the Bay.

The Law makes clear that marriages of out-of-state like-gendered deviants will by no measure be accepted or tolerated within Massachusetts.

“We have passed this Law precisely in time” stated Sen. Chasworth P. Hollingschad, of the Prominent Beacon Hill Hollingschads.  “Any day now, one of those newer, immoral states could attempt to Legitimize the Sin of Homo-sexuality.  I am thinking specifically of those Paganic Polygamists in Utah.”

A minor hubbub was caused on the floor during discussion of the Bill, when Sen. Adamiah P. Dunster of the Dunstershire Dunsters pointed out that as written, the Law defends against only out-of-state homo-sexualism, & is moot on the subject of matrimony amongst homo-sexuals native to Massachusetts.  Upon making such a remark, Sen. Dunster was laughed quite nearly out of the Capitol building by his Colleagues.

“Our City on the Hill runs thick with Right Puritan Blood” explained Sen. Hollingschad with appropriate Smugness. “And even the Irish Papist mongrels that currently flood our city have more sense than to promote ladslamming.”

The Senator continued: “Suggesting that Massachusetts may someday have homo-sexuals amongst its own citizenry is like to suggesting that fair Harvard College will someday be anything other than an Ivory Bastion of our most Cherished Conservative Values. Or that a Papist could someday be President.

“Whether homo-sexuality is promoted by other states in One Year or One Hundred, rest Safe Assured that Massachusetts will not rank in that Godless number.

“At least, not as one of the very first states to legalize it, certainly.

“Also, we will never elect a Mormon as Governor. For the Record.

“Those are just not things that will ever happen.”

Tags: politics, homosexuality, gay marriage, old news, massachusetts, deval patrick, ladslamming