we looked at some very interesting
research that showed ways in which
scientists could actually manipulate
people's political beliefs and make them
either more conservative or more liberal
scientists yeah how ways that you would
be very surprised let me talk about ways
in which they were able to make liberal
people more conservative they took a
bunch of students and they have them
fill out these questionnaires looking at
their political ideology and they could
give them a score how liberal how
conservative they were they invited up
into two groups one group had it fill it
out and there was a hand sanitizer
nearby the presence of the hand
sanitizer made the more conservative the
presence of the hand sanitizer made them
all conservative that's right the other
group there's no hand sanitizer on
average this group filled out their
questionnaire in a more conservative way
than the other group did why is that the
reason is the hand sanitizer is a sign
of threat it reminds you that you are at
risk of becoming infected
it's a tiny subtle intervention but it
reflects a much larger intervention that
we all understand attack make the
country more conservative if there's an
election coming up and there's a attack
around the time of the election the
polls shift in favor of the
Conservatives because when you feel
under threat you say I need to protect
what I have it's when you feel safe you
say let's take some risks let's make the
world a better place
that's dopamine now it's funny is
election seasons in November who did
this study I can't remember
crazy to me now we can do it in the
other direction too so different group
of scientists very similar kind of
questionnaire and they told people
imagine that you have superpowers and
nothing can hurt you I just want you to
spend five seconds just imagining you
have superpowers and nothing can hurt
you
shifts people are more liberal because
it's the opposite you take the threat
away a lot of conservatives have fears
how are immigrants going to change
country how are people who are different
from me going to threaten my way of life
if you can lower those fears they will
become in subtle ways not formatic but
in subtle ways more liberal