Dr. Daniel Lieberman and Michael Long have written a thought-provoking book, The Molecule of More. The authors do a deep dive into the neurochemical dopamine and the impact it has on your life. The authors write that “understanding dopamine turns out to be the key to explaining and even predicting behavior across a spectacular range of human behaviors”.

One chapter in the book delves into the topic of the role that dopamine plays in your political affiliation. The authors “noticed that certain personality traits were associated with liberals and others with conservatives”. The characteristics, according to research, associated with liberals are “risk-taking, sensation-seeking, impulsivity and authoritarianism” that are the “characteristics of elevated dopamine”. Liberals refer to themselves as progressives – “idealists who use dopamine to imagine a world far better than the one we live in today”.

“The word conservative, on the other hand, implies maintaining the best of what we have inherited from those who came before us. Conservatives are often suspicious of change…Conservatives distrust the idealism of progressives, criticizing it as an impossible effort to build a perfect utopia, an effort that is more likely to lead to totalitarianism in which the elite dominate all aspects of public and private life”.

Some links between dopamine and liberalism:

  • Silicon Valley – “Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, and the people who work for them, tend to be quite dopaminergic. They are tough-minded, risk-taking and practical – personality features associated with liberals”.
  • Hollywood – “Hollywood is the mecca of American creativity, as well as the model of dopaminergic excess. Our highest-profile celebrities feverishly pursue more: more money, more drugs, more sex and whatever happens to be the latest fashion”.
  • Academia – “Academia is a temple of dopamine. Academics are described as living in an ivory tower (as opposed to an earthen hut, for example). They devote their lives to the immaterial, abstract world of ideas. And they are very liberal…the enforcement of liberal orthodoxy is more widespread on university campuses than in any other setting”.

The authors ask the question – Are Liberals smarter? A research study in England concluded that “Adults who described themselves as very liberal had higher intelligence scores compared to those who described themselves as simply liberal…When circumstances change, liberals do a better job of rapidly activating neural circuits and adjusting their responses to meet a new challenge”.

Lieberman and Long write about the advantages conservatives have over liberals. “While conservatives on average may lack some of the virtuoso talents of the dopaminergic left, they are more likely to enjoy the advantages of a strong Here and Now system”. Here and Now chemicals (oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins) are focused on the present. These advantages include “empathy and altruism – particularly in the form of charitable giving – and the ability to establish long-term, monogamous relationships”. It also appears that “conservatives are happier than liberals. A Gallup poll conducted from 2005 to 2007 found that 66 percent of Republicans were very satisfied with their lives compared to 53 percent of Democrats”.

“The big picture might look something like this: On average, liberals are more likely to be forward thinking, cerebral, inconstant, creative, intelligent and dissatisfied. Conservatives, by contrast, are more likely to be comfortable with emotions, reliable, stable, conventional, less intellectual and happy”.

The Molecule of More explains a lot about human behavior, including the political spectrum.