Health
Ideology May Not Be What You Think but How You’re Wired
So sharp are partisan divisions these days that it can seem as if people are experiencing entirely different realities. Maybe they actually are, according to Leor Zmigrod, a neuroscientist and political psychologist at Cambridge University. In a new book, “The Ideological Brain: The Radical Science of Flexible Thinking,” Dr. Zmigrod explores the emerging evidence that brain physiology and biology help explain not just why people are prone to ideology but how they perceive and share information.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
What is ideology?
It’s a narrative about how the world works and how it should work. This potentially could be the social world or the natural world. But it’s not just a story: It has really rigid prescriptions for how we should think, how we should act, how we should interact with other people. An ideology condemns any deviation from its prescribed rules.
You write that rigid thinking can be tempting. Why is that?
Ideologies satisfy the need to try to understand the world, to explain it. And they satisfy our need for connection, for community, for just a sense that we belong to something.
There’s also a resource question. Exploring the world is really cognitively expensive, and just exploiting known patterns and rules can seem to be the most efficient strategy. Also, many people argue — and many ideologies will try to tell you — that adhering to rules is the only good way to live and to live morally.
I actually come at it from a different perspective: Ideologies numb our direct experience of the world. They narrow our capacity to adapt to the world, to understand evidence, to distinguish between credible evidence and not credible evidence. Ideologies are rarely, if ever, good.
Q: In the book, you describe research showing that ideological thinkers can be less reliable narrators. Can you explain?
Remarkably, we can observe this effect in children. In the 1940s, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, interviewed hundreds of children and tested their levels of prejudice and authoritarianism, like whether they championed conformity and obedience or play and imagination. When children were told a story about new pupils at a fictional school and asked to recount the story later, there were significant differences in what the most prejudiced children remembered, as opposed to the most liberal children.
Liberal children tended to recall more accurately the ratio of desirable and undesirable traits in the characters of the story; their memories possessed greater fidelity to the story as it was originally told. In contrast, children who scored highly on prejudice strayed from the story; they highlighted or invented undesirable traits for the characters from ethnic minority backgrounds.
So, the memories of the most ideologically-minded children incorporated fictions that confirmed their pre-existing biases. At the same time, there was also a tendency to occasionally parrot single phrases and details, rigidly mimicking the storyteller.
So by “liberal” you mean flexible in thought rather than politically liberal, yes?
Right. The work with children is about prejudice rather than conservatism. Ideologues are strong partisans either to the left or right. Psychological rigidity is linked to ideological extremity regardless of the mission of the ideology.
Are people who are prone to ideology taking in less information? Are they processing it differently?
The people most prone to ideological thinking tend to resist change or nuance of any kind. We can test this with visual and linguistic puzzles. For instance, in one test, we ask them to sort playing cards by various rules, like suit or color. But suddenly they apply the rule and it doesn’t work. That’s because, unbeknownst to them, we changed the rule.
The people who tend to resist ideological thinking are adaptable, and so when there’s evidence the rules have changed, they change their behavior. Ideological thinkers, when they encounter the change, they resist it. They try to apply the old rule even though it doesn’t work anymore.
In one study you conducted, you found that ideologues and nonideologues appear to have fundamental differences in their brains’ reward circuitry. Can you describe your findings?
In my experiments I’ve found that the most rigid thinkers have genetic dispositions related to how dopamine is distributed in their brains.
Rigid thinkers tend to have lower levels of dopamine in their prefrontal cortex and higher levels of dopamine in their striatum, a key midbrain structure in our reward system that controls our rapid instincts. So our psychological vulnerabilities to rigid ideologies may be grounded in biological differences.
In fact, we find that people with different ideologies have differences in the physical structure and function of their brains. This is especially pronounced in brain networks responsible for reward, emotion processing, and monitoring when we make errors.
For instance, the size of our amygdala — the almond-shaped structure that governs the processing of emotions, especially negatively tinged emotions such as fear, anger, disgust, danger and threat — is linked to whether we hold more conservative ideologies that justify traditions and the status quo.
What do you make of this?
Some scientists have interpreted these findings as reflecting a natural affinity between the function of the amygdala and the function of conservative ideologies. Both revolve around vigilant reactions to threats and the fear of being overpowered.
But why is the amygdala larger in conservatives? Do people with a larger amygdala gravitate toward more conservative ideologies because their amygdala is already structured in a way that is more receptive to the negative emotions that conservatism elicits? Or can immersion in a certain ideology alter our emotional biochemistry in a way that leads to structural brain changes?
The ambiguity around these results reflects a chicken-and-egg problem: Do our brains determine our politics, or can ideologies change our brains?
If we’re wired a certain way, can we change?
You have agency to choose how passionately you adopt these ideologies or what you reject or what you don’t.
I think we all can shift in terms of our flexibility. It’s obviously harder for people who have genetic or biological vulnerabilities toward rigid thinking, but that doesn’t mean that it’s predetermined or impossible to change.
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Comedy icon Damon Wayans has gone from spreading laughter to spreading awareness about diabetes risk.
The actor, best known for his roles in “In Living Color,” “Major Payne” and “My Wife and Kids,” has lived several years with his own case of type 2 diabetes, which runs in his family.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Wayans, 65, shared the moment he realized the condition should be taken seriously.
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“It was like 2017 and I just remember going to the bathroom and peeing so much that I thought maybe my blood was draining out, too,” he described. “And it kept happening and I’m just like – I’m not even drinking that much water.”
Comedy icon Damon Wayans has gone from spreading laughter to spreading awareness about diabetes risk. Wayans is pictured here in a scene from the 1995 film “Major Payne.” (Universal Pictures/Getty Images)
This frequent urination was followed by pain in his feet, numbness in his toes, delirium and blurry vision.
“My sister Kim made me go to the doctor because I probably wouldn’t have gone,” Wayans said.
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After the doctor revealed that Wayans’ blood sugar reading was at a critically high 535 mg/dL, he was “scared straight” into making some “serious” lifestyle changes.
“I used to drink wine, love wine. I don’t drink wine [anymore],” he said. “It’s a much healthier life I’m living, and I’m aware of all the joys that I have now that I just took for granted back when I wasn’t taking care of myself.”
Damon Wayans, right, and his son Damon Wayans Jr. appear on “The Jennifer Hudson Show” in October 2024. The actor has lived several years with type 2 diabetes. (Chris Haston/WBTV/Getty Images)
Wayans said he stays “disciplined” with a healthy diet and works out every morning, involving a mix of weightlifting strength training using his own body weight, like burpees and yoga.
“I also wear a glucose monitor, so I know what exercise does to me [and] to my blood sugar,” he said. “I know if I lift weights, I feel better, and also I’m burning [calories] for the rest of the day.”
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While Wayans feels he has his routine under control, the risk of long-term diabetes complications still looms.
The entertainer recently teamed up with biotech company Genentech’s “All Eye on DME” campaign, a movement to spread awareness of diabetes-related vision loss.
Damon Wayans performs a stand-up set at an “All Eyes on DME” awareness event in New York City on April 23, 2026. (Genentech)
Diabetic macular edema (DME) is a complication of diabetes that can lead to vision loss, according to Genentech.
Although Wayans does not have DME himself, he continuously monitors his own symptoms, including depth perception issues, admitting he “needs to get [his] eyes checked.”
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“Sometimes God talks to you, and maybe this is something I needed to hear and be a part of in order to keep myself from going blind,” he added.
What to know about DME
The condition occurs when fluid leaks from weakened or damaged blood vessels (called retinopathy), causing buildup in the macula, a small area in the middle of the retina that is responsible for clear vision.
If left untreated, the buildup can lead to partial or complete vision loss, according to Genentech.
DME can be diagnosed by an eye doctor via a visual acuity test, eye exam or optical imaging. (iStock)
DME, which can occur in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes patients, is the leading cause of vision loss in “working-age” diabetics.
The condition occurs in about 750,000 diabetics in the U.S., disproportionately affecting Black and Hispanic populations, research shows.
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Some symptoms of DME include blurry or doubled vision, floaters or dark spots, difficulty seeing colors or objects when there’s a glare, seeing straight lines as curved or bent, or seeing objects as a different size when one eye is closed.
The condition can be diagnosed by an eye doctor via a visual acuity test, eye exam or optical imaging.
Actor Damon Wayans attends the FOX Fall Party at Catch LA in West Hollywood, California, on Sept. 25, 2017. Wayans’ biggest piece of advice for diabetes patients is “don’t be afraid to see a doctor.” (Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic)
Wayans’ biggest piece of advice for diabetes patients is “don’t be afraid to see a doctor.”
“You’d be surprised at how simple the treatments are, but you can’t treat it if you don’t know what it is [and] if you never get diagnosed,” he said.
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“It’s important that we let our guard down and let our egos down and go conquer the fear, because the fear is all in your head.”
Wayans – a member of the iconic Wayans comedy family, including brothers Keenen Ivory Wayans, Marlon Wayans and Shawn Wayans, along with son Damon Wayans Jr. – said he hopes that doing his part to spread awareness for DME will help his family talk more openly about health.
Actors Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Damon Wayans and director Keenen Ivory Wayans pose at the premiere of “White Chicks” at the Village Theatre in Los Angeles, California, on June 16, 2004. Although Wayans does not have DME himself, he continuously monitors his own symptoms. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
“If they see that I’m not afraid, then maybe they’ll be less afraid,” he said. “And if I can go home and actually talk in-depth about treatments… especially if I got it done myself, I think they’ll be more receptive to it.”
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Wayans acknowledged how cost and access obstacles can hold people back from seeking medical help.
“Even if you have to spend a little money now to get it under control, it’s worth it,” he said. “Because there’s so much life to live, unless you do nothing.”
“Our brains are so pharmaceutically inclined,” he said. “This fits into the model of pills.”
At the same time, tDCS could also challenge the current, pill-centric paradigm, by pushing psychiatrists to go beyond old notions of serotonin deficiencies and chemical imbalances, and to think more broadly about getting the brain unstuck. The two treatments together, research suggests may work together to nudge the brain toward a more plastic, activated state to help people overcome old patterns.
For instance, Dr. Somayya Kajee, a psychiatrist in Norwich, England, has found that tDCS helped some of her patients taper off an antidepressant or avoid having to start on another one. She added she has successfully used Flow to treat her neurodivergent patients who were taking medication for A.D.H.D. or autism, and who did not want to add on an S.S.R.I.
Ms. Davies started tDCS a few weeks after increasing her Prozac dosage. When she first put the headset on for 30 minutes, the recommended interval, she recalled feeling only a slight tingling — a “spicy sensation,” similar to having your hair bleached, as a participant in a clinical trial put it.
But within a few days, something shifted for Ms. Davies. She felt clearer, she said. The harsh voice in her head quieted. It was as if the world was in color again.
She said she could not say for sure what made the difference — the tDCS, delayed effects of the antidepressant, the passage of time or some combination — but “whatever it was helped to make me think, ‘Actually, maybe I can do this,’” she said. For the first time, she looked forward to giving her baby a bath.
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