AP31228

Prompt: Scientific Summary

A group of political scientists from Brown University, Penn State, and Virginia Commonwealth University conducted a study to discover if fear influenced political beliefs. The researchers tested approximately 29,682 kinships, including twins, non-twin siblings, and parents and their children. (Hatemi) They used related subjects to identify environmental and personal influences. Researchers discovered that some participants possessed a higher genetic disposition to baseline fear, meaning they reacted to fear greater in low levels of threat and provocation. The scientists wanted to figure out if fear was a genetic trait-a personal characteristic that is stable across situations and is used to describe or explain personality (Wood,359). The researchers assessed the participants tendency to fear using standardized clinically administered interviews. Next, the researchers asked the individuals about their attitudes on immigration and segregation. Participants were then ranked on a liberal-conservative partisan scale based on their self-assessed political beliefs. The researchers discovered that the participants who had a greater genetic predisposition to fear had a higher tendency to advocate anti-immigration and pro-segregation policies. (Hatemi) The political scientists also realized that most of the participants who had higher levels of fear considered themselves conservative and that most of the participants who were highly educated had pro-immigrant and anti-segregation attitudes This is not to say that every conservative has high levels of fear, is anti-immigration and pro-segregation, and less educated than their liberal counterparts. Also, further research is imperative to determine how genetic and developmental factors influence fear. These findings have an immense impact on the current state of politics because future politicians can use this study and others like it to guarantee electoral victories by manipulating their constituents' qualms and suspicions.

References:
 * Wood, Samuel E., Ellen R. Green. Wood, and Denise Roberts. Boyd. //Mastering the World of Psychology //. Fourth ed. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2011. Print
 * Hatemi, Peter K., Rose McDermott, and Lindon J. Eaves. "Fear as a Disposition and an Emotional State: A Genetic and Environmental Approach to Out-Group Political Preferences." //Wiley Online Library//. American Journal of Political Science, 28 Jan. 2013. Web. 25 July 2014.

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