The politics of insight

Abstract

Previous studies showed that liberals and conservatives differ in cognitive style. Liberals are more flexible, and tolerant of complexity and novelty, whereas conservatives are more rigid, are more resistant to change, and prefer clear answers. We administered a set of compound remote associate problems, a task extensively used to differentiate problem-solving styles (via insight or analysis). Using this task, several researches have proven that self-reports, which differentiate between insight and analytic problem-solving, are reliable and are associated with two different neural circuits. In our research we found that participants self-identifying with distinct political orientations demonstrated differences in problem-solving strategy. Liberals solved significantly more problems via insight instead of in a step-by-step analytic fashion. Our findings extend previous observations that self-identified political orientations reflect differences in cognitive styles. More specifically, we show that type of political orientation is associated with problem-solving strategy. The data converge with previous neurobehavioural and cognitive studies indicating a link between cognitive style and the psychological mechanisms that mediate political beliefs.

Keywords:

• Problem-solving
• Political orientation
• Insight
• Creativity

Notes

¹The same result was obtained considering the whole sample of 79 liberals and 22 conservatives. Overall, participants solved 41.3% (SD = ±11.5%, 95% CI [39.1, 43.4]) of problems, solving more problems by insight (23.8%, SD = ±11%; 95% CI [21.6, 25.9]) than by analysis (17.7%, SD = ±9%; 95% CI [15.8, 19.4]). Planned paired comparisons revealed that liberal participants solved more problems by insight (24.5%, SD = ±11.4%; 95% CI [22.4, 27.27]) than by analysis (17.6%, SD = ±11, 95% CI [15.57, 19.89]), t(78) = 3.5, p < .001, d = 0.61), whereas conservative participants showed no preference for problem-solving style: Insight solutions were 21% (SD = ±19.5%; CI [17.17, 24.80] compared to 17.9% (SD = ±20.3, 95% CI [14.2, 22.3]) for solutions via analysis.

²We abstained from further defining a “liberal” or “conservative” outside of participant self-reports. We also acknowledge that young participants, especially in a formative and new idea-rich environment such as a university, may change their beliefs and even self-reported political identity as, for example, new peers and professors come to influence them. Therefore, participants were determined to be a “liberal” and “conservative” only by self-report.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by NIH under grant No T32 NS047987 to CS.