What does this study say about NeoCons and Freepers?

[TalkingDog]

http://www.umich.edu/news/?Releases/2005/Feb05/r020105


Positive emotions like joy and humor help people "get the big picture," virtually eliminating the own-race bias that makes many people think members of other races "all look alike," according to new University of Michigan research.

"Negative emotions create a tunnel vision," said U-M psychology researcher Kareem Johnson. "Negative emotions like fear or anger are useful for short-term survival when there's an immediate danger like being chased by a dangerous animal. Positive emotions like joy and happiness are for long-term survival and promote big picture thinking, make you more inclusive and notice more details, make you think in terms of 'us' instead of 'them.'"

>snip

Subjects who watched the comedy tested for having much higher positive emotions, while those who saw the horror video had far more "negative" emotions. In a testing phase, more images flashed by and they were asked to push buttons to indicate whether they'd seen the pictures earlier. Those in a positive mood had a far greater ability to recognize members of another race, while their ability to recognize members of their own race stayed the same.

The researchers conclude that positive emotions bring with them a "broadening effect" that helps people see a bigger, broader picture of the world around them.

[firebee]

1. Yes... freepers are angry narrow minded idiots. I thought we knew this.

[TalkingDog]

4. You are missing my point....

I was trying to ask, since I don't know any hardcore Neos or Freeps what kind of images and ideas they subject themselves to.

The Vengeful God idea being a given, but for instance, do they buy and play more violent video games than more liberal folks?

They make the claims of wanting family friendly fare for their kids to watch. But that means if they practice what they preach (and maybe I'm answering my own question here) their children should be broader and more liberal than they tend to be.

I guess I'm trying to get real world info on how this study applies to certain sub-sets of our culture.

[bryant69]

2. Interesting

So be as happy as possible, I guess.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Gman]

3. In a boader sense

Neocons, freepers, fundies and the right wing in general seem to cling to the Old Testament of the Bible. To me, the Old Testament is about as negative a document as has ever been written. It's all about these horrible things that will happen if you do all these things deemed evil and about the wrath of this terrible and vengeful God.

On the contrary, the New Testament is about a new way, and about a lot of wonderful and great things of a loving God from a very positive perspective. And, as we all know, the right wing intentionally ignores what they don't like in the New Testament and twists the meaning of the rest. The right wing will tell you, "Well, the Old Testament is the Bible too and it came first." in order to justify their ignoring of the New Testament.

Therefore, since the right wing is so rooted in the negative Old Testament, yes, they will remain negative and that's the way they ar going to be.

[ComerPerro]

5. Good point. And to answer that, I always say, "well, aren't you Christian?

The defining difference (suppoedly) between them and two other major religious is the New Testament.

[tcoursen]

6. I don't get it

I don't see how this applies to the political party of the subject.

To me this seems like common sense. Show somebody something funny and lighthearted and they will be in a good mood and more relaxed and open minded.

Show somebody a scary horror video and they will react to that. They will narrow their focus and tense up.

Does this really suprise anybody?

But how does this apply to political party? neocons and freepers are probably perfectly happy in the little bubbles that they live in. Their view of things is going to be differant. So what they see has "happy" will be differant and have the same effect on them. Same goes for Democrats.

You may say that neocons and freepers are full of negative emotions aimed at gays, the poor, etc. But freepers would argue that liberals are full of negative emotions aimed at them and negative feelings about the economy and the state of the country. Read a lot of the posts here. People are afraid to get sick, afraid of getting drafted, afraid of losing their job, etc. etc. That is negative emotion is it not? Both sides have negative emotions.