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Book Review |
Swaying the swingers: how neuroscience influences voting behaviour
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Politicians use many different techniques aimed at holding their traditional voters as well as widening their appeal. It is not surprising that, as we learn more about how the human brain works, political campaigners are also trying to benefit from that knowledge.
The Political Brain by Drew Westen, an American clinical and political psychologist and Professor in the Department of Psychology and Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences at Emory University, is based on a brain scanning study of 15 committed Democrats and 15 committed Republicans in the final heated month of the 2004 Presidential election campaign. Each was shown slides of their favoured candidate, respectively John Kerry and George W. Bush, contradicting the other. Subjects were able to detect contradictions made by the rival party candidate and those of neutral figures but were not able to recognize when their own candidate was either lying or misrepresenting the facts.
In essence, the