On September 10, 2024, US Vice President Kamala Harris and former US President Donald Trump met and engaged in a debate. It was just 56 days before the US presidential election, so it was assumed that this would likely be the first and only debate between the two.

Viewers across the country were exposed to continuous media coverage before, during and after the debate. Coverage included sound bites of politically conservative and politically liberal voters on the streets in various states. Politically unaffiliated voters were also invited to share their views. Media coverage was similar to that of America’s most popular sporting event, the Super Bowl.

Yet unlike professional sports, Harris and Trump have been introduced to the public through news media that vary in political ideology. Before the debate, they were presented as engaging in a historic, high-stakes face-off – a face-off which, according to various media outlets, was a confrontation between a “dangerously radical liberal” (Wallace, 2024) and a “criminal”. indicted narcissist” (Trepany, 2024), among other very varied characterizations.

It is known that the human brain does not perceive incoming information based on our biology alone. Culture, personality, and general life experiences influence how information received through the senses is processed to have emotional and cognitive meaning in the brain.

Personality: intolerance of uncertainty

Although they receive the same sensory inputs from afferent neurons (i.e. those that send information inward, from the senses to the brain), the information that the brain interprets and takes away from political debates can vary depending on individuals who see and hear the same sensory inputs. Potential voters’ conclusions about a widely covered national event like a U.S. presidential debate may be influenced by viewers’ personalities, despite the media message.

The most widely used self-assessment tool for assessing tolerance for uncertainty is the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (IUS). It measures an individual’s discomfort with uncertainty in various areas. This personality trait may partly explain why two potential voters can view the same media content and still come away determined to take completely opposite positions.

Neural synchronization during processing

To understand participants’ subjective interpretations of incoming social stimuli, researchers van Baar, Halpern, and Feldman Hall (2021) divided participants into pairs. Next, they measured the degree to which multiple areas of participants’ brains lit up in synchrony as each processed incoming information from political video narratives. The video stories varied in their degree of inflammatory or neutral content. All participants viewed all videos used in the research.

This methodology allowed researchers to better understand the underlying neural processes stimulated in participants by the incoming information they saw or heard. They assessed participants’ reactions by measuring their level of synchronized responses dependent on blood oxygen level via functional MRI (fMRI).

Researchers found that participants with higher aversion to uncertainty (measured by the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale-IUS) showed neural synchronization in their brains when watching video content that was politically aligned with their beliefs. opinions. This suggests that, for potential voters who have an aversion to uncertainty, this personality trait influences the brain’s processing of incoming political information.

Processing of political information

Because the researchers wanted to sample a variety of people across the political and ideological spectrum, they cross-referenced participants’ fMRI results with their political affiliation. They wanted to know whether personality or political affiliation mattered more in how participants interpreted what they saw. They then conducted an analysis to test possible interactive effects between people’s political ideology (conservative or liberal leaning) and their intolerance of uncertainty.

The primary research question was: “Do attitudes of uncertainty exacerbate political information processing in the brain to fuel the formation of polarized political attitudes?” The answer, according to the results, is yes: uncertainty does indeed have this influence on people, regardless of their political ideology.

Incendiary political content

The researchers showed participants the inflammatory content of a debate segment. The segment focused on police brutality and immigration and was taken from CNN’s 2016 vice presidential debate.

This is relevant to 2024, as the 2024 campaign ads also included inflammatory content. Indeed, during the last US presidential debate, Harris and Trump clashed verbally over immigration, abortion and accusations of using racist language.

Van Baar, Halpern, and Feldman Hall have suggested that provocative language used in campaign advertisements and during debates can shape the rise of polarized perceptions among committed supporters on both sides of the political aisle. Additionally, research suggests that polarization is exacerbated among potential voters who have a greater intolerance of uncertainty.

This explanation could help explain why some voters are more or less drawn to one side or another in the 2024 campaign. For example, Vice President Harris has sometimes been characterized as an uncertain or unknown candidate among some voters (Coster and Reid , 2024). Potential voters who see her this way And who have a strong intolerance to uncertainty may thus become more focused on it. Similarly, when campaign ads include inflammatory content or provocative language, they may further exacerbate polarized commitment to an ideological candidate known through intolerance of uncertainty (van Baar, Halpern, and FeldmanHill).

When some potential voters see and hear inflammatory content and provocative comments about Trump or Harris, it can have an emotional impact. Intolerance of uncertainty is relevant in media coverage that mentions possible surprises in candidates’ policies and actions.

Intolerance of uncertainty as a personality trait is relevant to some voters who watch media that speculate on national stability, danger, and economic insecurity; such media coverage in 2024 has used terms such as “volatility”, “ambiguity” and “complexity” specifically about Trump (Bennet, 2024). Such language might be particularly relevant for people who have an intolerance of uncertainty.

Conclusion

These research findings are revealing from a cultural neuroscience perspective because self-declared liberals and conservatives in the study watched the same videos, but their brains reacted differently to information that seemed more familiar than unfamiliar. This indicates that the two groups differed in how they subjectively interpreted uncertainty-based stimuli, thereby increasing the likelihood of increased polarization of political perspectives on the candidates.

Those with an uncertainty aversion personality do not draw “shades of gray” conclusions about candidates; in other words, these people tend to see things in black and white, either supporting a candidate they are confident about or not supporting a candidate when they are not confident in him or her. This is especially true when media coverage includes inflammatory and sensationalist political content about someone they are unsure about.

So, for political candidates seeking to convince voters on the opposing side, research suggests that they may be more likely to convince voters who have a higher tolerance for uncertainty in their lives.