Egalitarianism: The doctrine that all people are equal and deserve equal human rights.

Research suggests that individual differences in political views, including those potentially related to egalitarianism, can correlate with differences in brain structure and activity patterns in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), insula, and other regions. For example, a larger anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) volume has been associated with greater tolerance for uncertainty, cognitive flexibility, and creative curiosity, which is hypothesized to allow individuals to accept more egalitarian views.  (equal human rights)

Active Listening: This communication process, when perceived, has been shown to activate the listener’s reward system and can influence emotional appraisal processes in the speaker. Perceiving active listening can enhance activity in the right insula, which might represent an emotional reappraisal process based on reward-related information, suggesting that this practice can modulate activity in key emotional brain regions.

Active Listening expands empathy and calms the amygdala by using the brain’s prefrontal cortex to regulate emotional responses. Expanding empathy happens because active listening involves understanding and reflecting the speaker’s verbal message of what’s alive in them, which deepens connection. Calming the amygdala occurs when you put your feelings into words (affect labeling), which engages the frontal lobe, and this increased activity counterbalances the amygdala’s fear and reptilian stress reflex response.

How active listening expands empathy

It involves understanding emotions: Active listening is not just about hearing words, but about grasping the underlying feelings and needs of the speaker.

Validating feelings: By repeating or paraphrasing the speaker’s expressed feelings and meanings back to them, you are confirming that you have heard and understood their unique perspective. This makes the speaker feel heard, respected, and supported.

Checking for understanding: The goal is to comprehend the speaker’s message accurately. Using a gentle request for clarification (e.g., “What I’m hearing is…” or “Sounds like you are saying…”) helps ensure your interpretation is correct.

Avoiding assumptions: The listener should not “invent new feelings or thoughts the speaker has not verbalized.” The listener’s role is to focus solely on what the speaker has communicated, both verbally and nonverbally, and reflect only that back to them for confirmation.

The listener’s primary objective is to create a safe space for the speaker to feel fully understood without judgment or analysis.

It fosters connection: This deeper understanding and validation create a more open and honest communication environment, strengthening your connection with the speaker.

Our perception of another person’s feelings can result more from what we are feeling, are afraid of, or are wishing for than from the other person’s words, tone, gestures, facial expression, etc. If we feel guilty, we may perceive others as angry or accusing toward us. Our inferences about other people’s feelings can be, and often are, inaccurate. Thus, it is important to check them out for good interpersonal communication.

How active listening calms the amygdala

It utilizes “affect labeling”: A component of active listening is identifying and putting into words your own emotions, a process called “affect labeling”.

It engages the frontal lobe: This act of labeling emotions activates the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain responsible for processing emotions.

It dampens the amygdala: The frontal lobe communicates with the amygdala, and increased frontal lobe activity helps to calm the amygdala by dampening its activity.

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It creates a feedback loop:

There is an inverse relationship between the amygdala and the frontal lobe—as frontal lobe activity increases, amygdala activity decreases.

Empathy, or Disgust, choose one, you can’t serve both.

define hypocrisy

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Practicing Active Listening typically enhances empathy; however, in individuals with an authoritarian bias, the same brain regions may activate for a different purpose rooted in the Fundamental Attribution Error. This could potentially lead to unrealistic delusions of superiority and the habituation of disgust feelings projected onto others. The idea that active listening might trigger disgust in those with authoritarian leanings is a plausible interpretation based on research suggesting their brains process social information differently, including emotions like empathy and disgust.

Studies have identified correlations between authoritarian personality traits and differences in brain structure, such as reduced gray matter volume in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC). The dmPFC is a crucial region involved in social cognition, empathy, and perspective-taking. Research indicates a link between greater gray matter volume in this area and reduced fear, alongside an improved capacity to actively listen to diverse perspectives during conflict resolution. Conversely, other findings suggest that lower dmPFC gray matter volume might be associated with higher cognitive empathy, possibly due to a process of cognitive pruning.

Empathy involving another’s pain or distress frequently activates specific neural areas, notably the anterior insula (AI) and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC). The AI, in particular, is consistently associated with processing disgust, encompassing both core physical and socio-moral forms.

Active Listening aims to foster understanding and reduce defensiveness, a process reliant on emotional processing and empathy. For an authoritarian-leaning brain, where disgust responses are often more readily triggered by perceived norm violations or threats to established order, active listening—particularly to challenging viewpoints—might elicit a neural response akin to disgust because it is processed as an aversive social stimulus rather than an opportunity for connection.

The core distinction lies in the interpretation of the social interaction. While one person’s brain views the situation as an opportunity for empathic connection through active listening, an authoritarian-leaning brain might perceive the same interaction as a challenge or violation of social boundaries, triggering a disgust response using overlapping neural circuitry within the insula. Recent brain imaging studies indicate that individuals with authoritarian attitudes exhibit differences in brain structures related to social reasoning and emotional regulation. This aligns with a tendency for impulsive actions under stress, including psychological projection of shame or guilt, finger-pointing, and scapegoating, often concealed behind a veil of power.

Research highlights specific brain structural differences linked to authoritarianism.

Authoritarians exhibit higher levels of “negative urgency,” indicating a propensity for impulsive actions in emotionally charged situations, correlated with higher trait anxiety. They also show higher autonomic reactivity to stress and slower recovery, suggesting a physiological pathway connecting stress response to political beliefs. This anxiety can drive people toward impulsive behaviors aimed at quickly reducing discomfort and regaining a sense of control through domination. Studies using the Big Five personality traits found that authoritarian followers often score higher on conscientiousness. In essence, a conscientious person is reliable and follows through on cultural commitments, which supports a reliable relationship where loyalty is paramount. However, conscientiousness is about responsibility and order, while loyalty is about devotion and allegiance, and one can have a conflict between their personal conscience/principles and a demand for loyalty.

Control: Individuals who feel vulnerable due to anxiety may seek to regain a sense of control by dominating others, viewing it as a way to reduce discomfort and manage their fear/safety.

Performance and Social anxiety: Some studies have found a correlation between social anxiety and a need for dominance, suggesting that aggressive or controlling behaviors can be a coping mechanism for social anxiety-related distress.

Authoritarianism: While not the same as anxiety, authoritarian attitudes are linked to higher stress reactivity and can involve a desire for control, which can be amplified by underlying anxiety.

Research has identified a “psychological signature” for authoritarians who are more susceptible to extreme ideologies, which includes a blend of unconscious suspicion and impulsive personality traits like sensation-seeking and risk-taking. Difficulties with complex mental processing may subconsciously push individuals toward extreme doctrines that provide simplified, “story-book” explanations for human cultures. The neurobiological underpinnings remain an emerging field, but research suggests that specific brain functions related to social processing and emotion regulation, within the limbic system and prefrontal cortex, are implicated in the adoption of extremist ideologies.

Authoritarian messaging may be intrinsically rewarding at a neurochemical level, fostering a psychological addiction.  Research indicates that individuals with authoritarian tendencies may exhibit specific structural differences in brain regions associated with emotional regulation and social reasoning. These variations, such as altered gray matter volume in the prefrontal cortex or reduced cortical thickness in the insula, may reflect established cognitive and emotional patterns that influence a preference for structure, order, and strong authority. 

Individuals prone to anxiety or impulsive reactions under stress might be more inclined toward authoritarian ideologies, which can provide a seemingly clear and ordered view in perceived threatening situations. These findings contribute to understanding potential neurobiological factors in extremist beliefs and behaviors, suggesting a complex interplay between psychological predispositions, stress responses, and cognitive styles that can make individuals more vulnerable to the appeal of authoritarianism. 

Researchers emphasize that these brain differences are not the sole cause of authoritarian beliefs, but rather biological predispositions that interact complexly with social, cultural, and environmental factors.

“Have you noticed some people see suffering and feel empathy and others see it and feel disgust?

Turns out that difference isn’t just moral, it’s neural.

Brain imaging shows that when people high in egalitarian values witness someone’s pain, their insula lights up. That’s the region tied to empathy and self-awareness. It literally links your body’s emotions to another person’s.

But in more authoritarian-leaning brains, the same region fires for a different reason, disgust. The same system that helps you recoil from spoiled food also kicks in when they see someone who feels different. So instead of compassion, their nervous system reads contamination. That’s why messages about care or equality don’t land. The body’s already in defense mode. They’re not processing strategy. They’re processing purity.

Fun fact, the (brain) wiring can change. The more we expose ourselves to differences (integration), the more flexible (healthy) the insula becomes. So maybe the real culture war is empathy versus avoidance.  And only one side’s brain is trying to evolve.

Erika Jordan holds a BA in Sociology from UC Irvine, a Master’s in Counseling Psychology from the University of San Francisco, and is also a certified NLP Practitioner. She is currently a part-time faculty member at the University of San Francisco and has worked with marginalized communities for nearly a decade.  https://www.youtube.com/@ErikaJordanSociologist