Neuroscientists have started looking at what’s happening in the brain when subjects are confronted with facts that present a problem for their political beliefs, and when they’re offered justifications that help to resolve the problem. Drew Westen et al. used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which images brain activity, while challenging subjects with neutral information and information problematic for their political affiliation. They found that subjects used different parts of their brains in these two situations.
