Cultural Differences Between Liberals And Conservatives

Drew Weston explains how the way the brain works affects we think about, receive and use political information. For example, Weston explains how people react differently when viewing their own party’s candidates as opposed to those from the other party. When people see their party’s candidate, the part of their brain that is activated is the part that has been shown to be active when people see things related to themselves. When viewing images of the opposing party’s candidate, parts of the brain involved in negative reactions are activated. This information can be used to create campaigns that activate particular emotional responses in voters. Weston also describes how Republicans and Democrats tend to appeal to different parts of the brain.

The authors offer two forms of explanations as to why this occurs. One is that couples are actually not politically similar when they meet, but after several years of being together their thoughts and ideas merge into one, making them consequently have the same political views. The second explanation is that the circumstances that they met under and started dating under was probably due to the fact that they were from the same socio-demographics. Like for instance education, wealth, and age. This social homogony then leads to a similar political view. They also stated that even if the mating paired groups were narrowed and restricted, they would still be politically similar, this is then found to also be true across cultures (Hibbling et al.

Part of the conclusion outlined above confirmed that not only does ideology encompass the most politically inclined participants; ideology is evident in the responses given by those who have little interest in politics to begin with. This is an important connection that brings into focus that varying degrees of ideology exists within each and every one of us regardless of the level of interest one has towards politics. We each have our own views on the world in which we live in and what

The main political divisions in the United States are into two parties - the Republicans and the Democrats. A recent Pew Research study (Dimock et al. 2014) noticed a growth in ideological consistency within the parties, with the overlap in conservativeness and liberality shrinking between 1994 and 2014. This polarization of political views could have many effects on the politics of the nation - both in the upcoming (2016) presidential election and societal developments in the future.

Studies conclude that citizens who tend to classify themselves as either conservative or liberal tend to have opposing political and policy views (p. 571). This means that social opinions alone does not have a significant or resilient influence in elite or mass polarization. This leads us to our next variable, partisan elections.

She notes “a sizable and significant negative influence that stems from exposure to conflicting political views in one's personal network. Having friends and associates of differing political views makes it less likely that a person will vote” (Mutz 2002, p. 844). However, she summarizes further, writing, “the two processes of influence ... are tightly intertwined. Conflict aversion conditions people’s reactions to cross-cutting exposure directly, by discouraging participation, and indirectly, by encouraging greater ambivalence” (Mutz 2002, p. 849). She concludes by discussing how her findings challenge ordinary democratic ideals, the sense that a citizen is one who considers varying and conflicting positions on an issue before deciding for him or herself. If Mutz’s work is correct, then the issue is far more complicated. Exposure to political disagreement discourages taking sides as well as the concrete expression of this side-taking,

     Upon taking the “Worlds smallest Political quiz” online, the website told me that I was a Centrist. A Centrist is a person who favors selective political involvement and practical solutions to modern problems. A Centrist tends to keep an open mind on new issues and prefers capitalism to work out economic problems if at all possible. Although I was a centrist I was on the boarder line of being a right wing conservative who would like to see a capitalistic society and little government intervention. The next quiz was an ideology quiz. This quiz told me that I also tended towards the conservative side. I apparently also would like to see order in society instead of equality. These two tests showed similar results in that both said I was more closely related to a conservative than a liberal. The “Worlds smallest Political Quiz” showed the national results and percentages of those who have previously taken the test. The majority of people who take the quiz, 37.7% are liberals. The second most popular grouping is Centrist at 29 %. The ideology quiz stated that the average of all those who take this quiz are liberal as well.

Since its creation, America has always been a country that stands out from the rest. Whether it is the fact that it was one of the first “newly created” nations or the fact that we have grown into such a dominant world power, there has always been something that makes America truly exceptional. No matter which way you choose to look at things, it is hard to argue that America is not fundamentally different from many other nations and countries around the world. Even with the ups and downs that have plagued America’s history, today we remain a country unlike many others.

Different cultures all around the world have different culture values which shapes their cultural identity. For example, Islam’s second pillar states that muslims need to pray 5 times a day in a very specific way. Also, it is common for Muslims to carry around a prayer rug with them everywhere they go (Frey 97). This shows that the culture of Islam has a cultural identity of being disciplined towards their beliefs and being very close to God. Other cultures like the Japanese show devotion to their religion by doing other things. For example, in Ancient Japan to show devotion in the culture of Amida Buddhism followers repeated Amida Buddha over 70,00 times a day (Frey 247). This gives the Japanese a cultural identity of being persistent and

In terms of the trend of people forming into distinct, and often bitterly opposed, political groups, psychologists have argued that the typical liberal/conservative divide is based on two factors. Firstly, on differences in how individuals, generally speaking, construct their moral frameworks. And secondly, on personality differences between the individual members of the different groups, which may underlie the distinctness between liberal and conservative moral frameworks. Specifically, it is argued that those in the liberal camp construct their moral frameworks focusing on the psychological foundations of harm/care and fairness/reciprocity. Whereas, the moral frameworks of those in the conservative camp are founded on five psychological

When I first arrived in the US, I inadvertently joined the newcomers’ subculture. I sought the company of others who had recently arrived with whom to share the experience and newness of America. In this subculture, isolation is common because of the lack of relatability to others, but the passage of time increases immersion and learning English bridges the gap between groups. Gradually towards the end of high school, I was socializing with a second subculture, native English speakers and established immigrants. By my late 20s, with a few exceptions, my friends and peers were college educated middle-class professionals. The ideas we discussed and the opinions we shared often were in stark contrast to the views of those earlier social groups. However, comparing the three different groups, I find higher degrees of similarities than differences.

Through the course, I learned about several pairs of different communities: Germans and Austrians, Austrian and Hungarians, Hungarians and Yugoslavians, and Croatians and Serbians. These communities separated themselves from each other through various aspects, including language, religion, cultural practices, history, ethnicity. In all the communities I was most interested in the community division between constituent republics in Former Yugoslavia, especially the division between Serbs and Croats. Serbian and Croatian communities share many elements. They both live in the Balkan Peninsula. They are both Slavs. Also, the language difference is very small. Croatian and Serbian are more like two dialects within the same language. With all these

There are 196 countries around the world, Each one of those countries has their own culture. I’m a born Somalilander raised in Somaliland, coming from East Africa to the U.S was such experimental thing to do. I have experienced a lot of culture clashes and the most important thing I’ve had culture clash about was that in the U.S respecting teachers has different meaning compare to my country.

Leaving one's home and seeing different culture is a valuable opportunity to think back one's origin and one's own culture. In the last nine months after leaving my country, Japan, I found a number of cultural differences between the United States and Japan. Sometime, the differences fascinated me and gave me hard time to adopt the new environment. However, simultaneously, I discovered abundance of unique traditional Japanese culture which I had never thought they were special until I came to the United States. Itadakimasu and Gochisousama, phrases Japanese people use before and after eating, are one of the Japanese cultural practices I am proud of; furthermore, the phrases show Japanese nationality.

a.) Cultural Variation: I see laid back and a country persona when I look upon the town I reside. Country boots and Wrangler jeans are walking around the streets. If I look at the United States as a whole, it has changed over the years. We are now more accepting of people and their culture differences. We thrive on being individuals. However, if we go back in time a few years, we could see that the citizens were more narrow minded on new ideas. I feel that the United States has a core culture, but is also a very diverse place. It just varies from place to place, and honestly depends on where you live. There are conservative states, whereas there are liberal states as well. I know this from personal experience. I come from a very rural