A fascinating study has discovered the possibility to change a person’s beliefs by targeting their brain with magnets.
Dr Keise Izuma from the University of York, together with Dr Colin Holbrook from the University of California, recruited 38 participants with strong religious beliefs for the study. The participants also held moderate to conservative political beliefs, which was important for the study since their conservative viewpoints were likely to include conservative stances on immigration.
The research team used a transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) on the participants, which temporarily shut down the part of their brains associated with detecting and solving problems.
The TMS targeted the front part of the brain, called the posterior medial frontal cortex (pMFC) which is located near the surface and roughly a few inches up from the forehead.
The astonishing result was a drop by a third in the participant’s belief in God after the magnetic stimulation, while there was a 28.5 percent increase in positive feelings towards immigrants. A control group which received a fake procedure reported no difference in religious beliefs nor feelings towards immigrants.
The research team concluded that the reduction in religious beliefs and prejudice shows how much such views are influenced by the part of the brain involved with detecting threats.
Since the religious beliefs diminished as the tolerance towards immigration increased in a similar percentage, 32.8 percent vs. 28.5 percent, there is likely a very strong correlation between how a person’s religious beliefs influences their view on immigrants, and vice versa.
Turbulent times of of mass migration can be perceived as threatening and problematic, while religion offers comfort and solace. As Dr Izuma put it:
“People often turn to ideology when they are confronted by problems.”
Dr Holbrook explained how the regions of the brain that have evolved to deal with perceived threats (immigration), have found an additional purpose in producing ideological reactions (religion). He noted,
“The most striking finding was that the shifts in ideology did not appear driven by shifts in emotion. […] We observed a decrease in emotionally positive beliefs in God, and an increase in acceptance of an emotionally negative, harsh critic of the participants’ national groups.”
The findings were first published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.
Featured image by Waiting For The World on Flickr. Permission to use under Creative Commons.
