Are Liberals and Conservatives Different Species? The Answer is Yes

If men are from Mars and women from Venus, where do liberals and conservatives come from? They are so befuddled by each other that it is tempting to say different galaxies--or, to employ a biological metaphor, that they are different species. It turns out that the biological metaphor might be surprisingly close to the truth.

Some background: I was trained as an ecologist and have studied real species throughout my career. Go outdoors and you will see hundreds of different species, even in a city environment. Crudely speaking, they coexist by surviving and reproducing in different ways. Each species has a strategy that works in some environments and fails in others. The environmental conditions that enable a given species to survive are crudely described as its niche.

Humanity is a single species in the sense that we can all interbreed with each other (not all at once, please), but we are highly diverse in how we behave. Might human behavioral diversity be understood in the same way as biological diversity? When we crudely refer to different cultures, might they be like different species that survive and reproduce in different ways?

This idea has been kicked around for decades but is achieving new plausibility based on burgeoning interest in human genetic and cultural evolution. The big picture is obvious in retrospect. A lovely article published in the scientific journal Nature titled "Cultural Wealth of Nations" reminds us that when our ancestors left Africa, they diversified culturally to become the equivalent of hundreds of species, inhabiting all climatic zones and eating everything from seeds to whales. There is even a latitudinal gradient of human cultures, with more in the tropics than in the temperate zones, just like a comparable gradient of biological diversity.

OK, maybe Laplanders and New Guinea Highlanders count as separate cultural species, but modern-day conservatives and liberals? You bet, and we don't need to speculate because I'm the kind of ecologist who likes to roll up my sleeves and get dirty with the data. For years I wanted to study people in the same way that I am accustomed to studying beetles and fish--not just in the laboratory, but also "in the field" as they go about their everyday lives. I finally found my chance when I met Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the famous psychologist who is best known for his work on peak psychological experience (Flow) and who pioneered something called the experience sampling method (ESM).

The ESM is simplicity itself. People are outfitted with devices that beep at random times during the day, prompting them to fill out a short questionnaire recording where they are, what they are doing, who they are with, and a checklist of psychological states on a numerical scale. Each beep is like a flash bulb that captures a snapshot of the individual's experience. Mihaly and others have used the ESM on thousands of people to study a variety of subjects. When I met him at a conference and began talking with him about the ESM, I immediately realized that it was the equivalent of field studies on other species. I therefore teamed up with Mihaly to use some of his past studies to ask questions inspired by ecological and evolutionary theory.

We began with a multi-million dollar project that Mihaly had conducted with sociologist Barbara Schneider to examine how young people prepare to enter the work force. Thousands of American high school students had participated nationwide by providing extensive background information and being beeped for a week, for roughly 50 snapshots of their individual experience.

With this as our "field study," we began to think about altruism and other do-good behaviors as a strategy that can succeed in some environments but not others. That story is recounted in a chapter titled "The Ecology of Good and Evil" in my book Evolution for Everyone. Then, with my graduate student Ingrid Storm, we decided to make an even finer comparison between youth belonging to liberal and conservative Protestant denominations.

Get this: Everyone in our sample was an American, a teenager, and belonged to the same major religious tradition of Protestantism. In these respects they were culturally uniform. But some belonged to conservative denominations such as Pentecostal and others to liberal denominations such as Episcopalian. As Ingrid combed through the data, which involved tedious hours in front of the computer, the differences that began to emerge were astounding. It was as if these conservative and liberal religious youth were--different species.

For example, two questions that were asked as part of the background information were "Do you think of yourself as a religious person?" and "In your family, do you express opinions even when they differ?" The more liberals agreed with the first question, the more they agreed with the second. The more conservatives agreed with the first question, the less they agreed with the second. Their religions were pulling them in completely different directions.

Or how about these two items: "In my family, I am the one to decide which friends I can spend time with" and "Do you usually feel stressed?" The liberal kids were stressed when they couldn't make their own decisions and became less so when provided with elbow room. Even at their most mellow, however, the liberals were more stressed than conservatives, who evidently didn't care about having elbow room!

The differences became even more interesting when Ingrid began to analyze the moment-by-moment experience provided by the beeper data. We might be the only people on earth who can report time budgets for liberal and conservative religious youth. Liberals spent about 10% more time alone than conservatives, which is a lot when you consider that these are high-schoolers without a lot of discretionary time on their hands. Even more amazing, the positive mood of conservatives depended upon being in the presence of others. They consistently reported being bored, self-conscious, and lonely when alone and turned on in the presence of others. In stark contrast, the liberals maintained the same mood in the presence and absence of others and even preferred to be alone! Ingrid has kindly allowed me to make her thesis available on my website for those who, like me, enjoy delving into the details.

These kids obviously belonged to the same biological species but their cultures transformed them into different creatures as far as their response to their environment was concerned. The next step toward thinking like an ecologist is not to regard one culture as better than the other, but to regard each as a strategy for survival and reproduction that succeeds under some conditions but not others. What are the niches of liberalism and conservatism, in either their religious or non-religious manifestations?

Liberals place a high value on individual autonomy and decision-making. Individuals are expected to internalize the norms of their culture and do the right thing on a case-by-case basis after thinking about it. This strategy can be highly successful but can also be costly in the time required for information processing, in making mistakes, and in ignoring successful behaviors winnowed by tradition that work without anyone knowing why they work. Conservatives place a high value on obedience to authority. This strategy might stifle creativity but has a number of advantages, such as easing the burden of information processing, retaining successful behaviors winnowed by tradition, and coordinated action. Even liberals sheepishly acknowledge that they are like cats when it comes to herding.

These are just cartoons of cultural species and their niches, but they illustrate the value of thinking of humanity as more like an ecosystem than a single species, thanks to cultural diversification--not only worldwide, but in our midst. Lest this idea be interpreted as a recipe for conflict, every ecologist knows that species exhibit the full range of relationships, from extreme conflict to cozy mutualism. It's even possible that conservatives and liberals need each other, even if they regard each other in adversarial terms.

Who would have thought that my years studying beetles and fish would give me something to say about the human bestiary? It's a jungle out there.

Comments

[1will]

I have found that most liberals lack a good argument for what they believe. They base their debates on feelings instead of facts. When they start to loose an argument you can count on two reactions. You will be called a Nazi (No.1 favourite), retard, facist, racist, homophobe or some penis comment will be made. The other reaction is the famous "It's for the children" statement.
There are some libs that make persuasive well reasoned arguments but I've found they are in the minority. Most lack facts and use made up "Junk Science" like the anti gun crowd seems to love.
On the other hand Conservatives seem to think more with their heads than with their hearts and base their arguments on facts, logic and statistics. I'll give you an example. When debating the cause of Global Warming a liberal is likely to bring up drowning Polar Bears while the Conservative will mention the broken "Hockey Stick" graph, the link between Global Warming and Solar Flares (the graphs are almost identical) and past climate change.
When debating gun control a lib will usually loose the argument but end with "We have to do something." The Conservative will give you numbers and statistics. You might even get an open borders argument about how the US cannot stop the flow of drugs and illegal aliens into the country so how could we stop illegal guns if they were banned?
I have no doubt Libs and Conservatives think differently. It's probaly like comparing the thought processes of artists vs accountants. I do doubt that most of you libs are as well rounded, well adjusted and superior as you believe.

[Bateman]

I'm skeptical of 'conservative-liberal' psychological theories. There is little agreement on definitions of liberal and conservatives or on the psychosocial associations of these identifiers.

(And are social groups organisms or species? Or are both of these metaphors inadequate?)

Randy Thornhill
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9184287

John Jost
http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/070524_ideological_leaning.html

Bora Zivkovic
http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2006/10/regressives.php

Iron Shrink
http://www.ironshrink.com/articles.php?artID=070116_jost_conservative_study_methodology

[nowaterboardUSA]

Personally I've always thought of conservatives as a kick by a steel boot to the head and liberals as those who will give you crumbs from the king's table. Both situations suck, but I'd rather have the crumbs than the brain bashing!

[cognate]

Whether they say they are Liberals or Conservatives, most people are conservative: they hate change.

[Dap]

Dear Dr. Wilson,

Thanks for sharing your research with us, and an eloquent essay/post. This stuff it quite wonderous, fits the concept of the yin and yang of things well.

How schemata are formed is of great interest for me. And so many questions are flooding through my head. Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for sharing. Agape.

[1will]

Interesting column but I kind of doubt your research. I don't believe most High School kids know enough about current events and politics to even classify their opinions as 'Liberal' or 'Conservative.'
I know adults that call themselves 'Liberals' who do not even know the issues their side is supposed to support. One Democratic woman I know recently told me the Left is more pro military and tougher on crime. Now no one wants to believe in coddling criminals and not supporting our military but most would have to agree that being tough on crime and supporting our troops are pretty far down the left wing list of importance. You might not agree with me on these two issues but it's always the Liberal judge that sets some child molester free on a rediculas technicality and it's the Liberal colleges that ban the ROTC and recruiters from campus.
This woman's opinion I mentioned above can amusingly be compared to Righties claiming to be more enviromental and pro affirmative action. The Left gets a few and the Right gets a few. Most kids don't know which column the issues fall in.
Then there's the Rebel stereotype. No one wants to be known as a conformist yet I believe many of these young men and women mistakingly do just that. If you call yourself a 'Lefty' or 'Liberal' you can imagine that you're bucking the system when in reality you're just going along with all of the other kids, teachers and professors. This is especially true among college students where the only real 'Rebels' left on campus are the College Republicans.

[HeevenSteven]

Are liberals more capable of introspection than conservatives?

[LeftRight]

Thank you for the post David, makes ya think. I think that I've seen this in my own life. I find myself to be more liberal (though every time I realize that I'm surprised, I don't think I'm liberal) However, I got into an argument once with my brother-in-law over the FISA issue. I couldn't win the argument, not because he had better arguments, he didn't, but because he had faster arguments. I had to think abd work out every time I said something, and he was able to spout the right-wing talking points instantly.

[veracitatus]

Extremely intriguing post.

I have written on the notion of assortative mating among humans leading to a tendency to concentrate heritable traits in personality and thinking styles, etc. (Sternberg). My speculation has been that this process has increased in the last hundred years or so due to increased mobility and our mating rituals of dating allowing for multiple samples to be taken before settling into child rearing mode.

Such concentration of genetic factors would be amplified by the sub-cultural milieu. People with those tendencies would be encouraged to develop them more overtly.

Essentially, we are tending to fragment the biological species into multiple dimensioned 'races' of personality-types due to cultural pressures. I think this may also hold for intelligence, creativity and sapience (wisdom potential).

Were it not for major disruptions in our cultural tendencies, e.g. climate change and declining energy resources, we would eventually find ourselves in 'gated communities' of like kind (we're actually almost there!) Eventually we might have evolved into the Eli, Morlocks, and who knows what else.

What is most distressing to me about a liberal/conservative split is that all of life is always a trade-off between exploration to find new opportunities and exploitation - using tried and true procedures/resources to grow and reproduce. If an environment (niche) is relatively stable over time, the conservative/exploitative strategy may be favored. If, on the other hand, the environment is undergoing change it makes sense to be adaptable and explore new possibilities.

V.

[wiseferret]

I'm a little confused here. In any social society it requires a few leaders and many followers. An intrinsic requirement for leaders is that they are NOT influenced as much by followers (Hence, they are the "liberals"). Followers can't be constantly challenging leaders so therefor will be happy conforming to the current social structure ("conservatives"). Too many leaders and everyone goes their individual ways, too many followers and society stagnants in indecision.
I think you've only measured a long understood truth- Humans are social animals.
Speciation would mean they'd NOT be interdependent.

[Quaoar]

Good post, but it would seem to me that there are a lot of hybrids and subspecies out there, like the non-religious conservative who supports abortion and gay rights or the devout Christian liberal who owns guns and is against illegal immigration. There are clearly a lot of people who don't neatly fit into the liberal/conservative dichotomy. It would be interesting to see further study in this area.

[sorenmeetsdylan]

The statement "Liberals place a high value on individual autonomy" is, to anyone with even a tiny dose of critical sense, flat out hooey, as the liberal solution to everything is to appeal to this or that group or to some outright evil sense of collective purpose. It would be hard to imagine a statement more completely at odds with reality.

[SamThornton]

Having recently reread a few of Marvin Harris's works I was looking for exactly this kind of analysis. Just order your latest from Amazon. Thanks.

[Squirtapotamus]

What is it that distinguishes a Liberal from a Conservative? What difference is there between progressive and fundamentalist?

I believe the difference is measured by degrees of an emotion called empathy.

Conservative empathy is reserved for those who look and talk the same.
Liberals have too much empathy distorting often into guilt.

Conservatives know they are right.
Liberals know they have been wronged.

Entire worldviews constructed on one simple emotion. Empathy.

Where are you on this scale?

[BillZBubb]

Very interesting post! Anecdotally, my experience mirrors your results. My conservative acquaintances really are averse to digging into the details on issues--in fact most of the time they will totally dismiss details contrary to their beliefs. They love the simple, dogmatic answers. My liberal acquaintances on the other hand get into the minutiae of issues trying to sort out the optimum position.

Each of us must be born with a prediliction for conservatism/liberalism, but culture apparently makes a huge impact on our philosophy.