While I keep my mind open to the idea that science might have new results in this area, there's a certain degree of ideology that goes into coming up with these

While I keep my mind open to the idea that science might have new results in this area, there's a certain degree of ideology that goes into coming up with these studies in the first place. If this study had come out at a different point in history, its significance would be less important. However, because of the breaking down of the political order in the United States, people (and especially liberals) are scrambling to explain it. Why are they different from us? How could they believe something different? While people do have varying anxieties, knowledge, and reactivity to aversive stimuli, there's a stronger prior that political beliefs are based on a few different things. 1) Class Position: People with money or whom believe they are likely to ascend classes trivialize the struggles of others and ascribe problems to individual character rather than systemic design flaws. If an airplane crashes, do we blame the pilots? 2) Culture / Milieu: What ideas are floating around? What do people whom you speak to on a regular basis believe? 3) Personal Experience: Have you had a powerful experience that confirms or contradicts the broader culture? 4) (often but not always most importantly) What will personally benefit you or people you care about? There's a few other things you could throw in there as well, but Marxists would say to liberals that the reason they are different from you is: 1) They aren't that different from you. You both believe in the integrity of the capitalist system. 2) Often they are from dominant racial or economic castes. 3) There's an intentional campaign on the part of the elites to divide the working class against each other, and one way is via scapegoating minorities and women. Everyone likes to say "No matter how bad it is, at least I'm not X". 4) There is an intentional campaign waged on the part of elites to tie American national identity to its military campaigns overseas. 5) There is an intentional campaign on the part of elites to use race and religion as a wedge issue to divide the people so they do not blame the people causing their problems. That's not a scientific explanation, but my strong prior is that there's variation amongst people, but we're basically all the same and we're mentally flexible enough to think through adversity and come to our own conclusions.