The Political Brain The Role Of Emotion In Deciding The Fate Of The Nation

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Garza, G., & Smith, A. F. (2009). Beyond neurobiological reductionism. Theory & Psychology, 19(4), 519–544. The association with President Kennedy was instrumental to the emotional appeal of the ad. Kennedy was an American icon, whose brief tenure in the White House is widely remembered as a time in which America's hopes soared along with its space programme. Careful dissection of the sequence of visual images shows how brilliantly the ad was crafted.

Clearly, a central goal of the ad was to establish Clinton as presidential, particularly in light of the rumours about his sexual escapades during the bruising primary season (which may actually have been turned to his advantage through the associations with Kennedy, who himself was linked with tales of infidelities but was none the less revered). In a race against an incumbent president, who needed only to stand in front of a podium with the seal of the presidency to appear presidential, the Clinton ad seized every opportunity to show what Bill Clinton would look like as president, with the image of him raising his right hand to accept the oath of office (as governor of Arkansas, but from a visual point of view, literally showing what Clinton would look like in his swearing-in ceremony as president) followed by a photo of him working tirelessly at his desk, signing bills (itself reminiscent of photos of Kennedy). What matters most in politics - facts and logic, or stories and feelings? Drew Westen says it's emotion that counts - and shows how Bill Clinton and George W Bush understood this, while John Kerry and Al Gore never got it. Here we print extracts from his new book, The Political Brain - which is essential summer reading from Washington to Westminster After partisans read the first two slides, which presented them with a clear contradiction, the third slide simply gave them some time to stew on it, asking them to consider whether the two statements were inconsistent. The fourth slide then asked them to rate the extent to which they agreed that the candidate’s words and deeds were contradictory, from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). Bush supporters faced similar dilemmas, such as the following: In The Political Brain Drew Westen, professor of psychology and psychiatry at Emory University, examines the role of emotion in determining national politics. Westen looks at how politicians capture the hearts and minds of the electorate and suggests ways in which they might better appeal to voters' brains.Kashima Y, Perfors A, Ferdinand V, Pattenden E. Kashima Y, et al. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2021 Apr 12;376(1822):20200133. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0133. Epub 2021 Feb 22. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2021. PMID: 33612005 Free PMC article. Hachette Book Group is a leading book publisher based in New York and a division of Hachette Livre, the third-largest publisher in the world. Social Media

The vision of the mind that has captured the imagination of philosophers, cognitive scientists, economists and political scientists since the 18th century - a dispassionate mind that makes decisions by weighing the evidence and reasoning to the most valid conclusions - bears no relation to how the mind and brain actually work. writes: “the problem that Dennett does not resolve is that of the very form of narrative—where does the subject’s capacity to organize its contingent experience into the form of narrative (or to recognize in a series of events the form of narrative) come from?” (Žižek, 1998, p. 255). A growing interest in the study of ‘the political brain’ over the past few years can be noted ( Knutson et al., 2006; Westen et al., 2006; Amodio et al., 2007; Kaplan et al., 2007; Zamboni et al., 2009). Kaplan et al. (2007), for example, reported an increase in brain activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) when an opposing candidate was presented (i.e. as opposed to one’s own candidate). This result suggests that people regulate their emotional reactions to opposing candidates by activating cognitive control networks.Theodoridis AG, Nelson AJ. 2012Of BOLD claims and excessive fears: a call for caution and patience regarding political neuroscience. Polit. Psychol. 33, 27-43. (10.1111/j.1467-9221.2011.00860.x)