Neural Representations of Attitude Polarization and Open-Mindedness

When individuals see the world differently, the divide between their subjective construals manifests in differential neural responses. Research on neural polarization has found that individuals who share similar viewpoints tend to synchronize their brain responses and those with different viewpoints show distinguishable brain responses. In this dissertation, I attempt to build upon and extend this nascent literature on neural polarization by demonstrating two novel ways in which neural synchrony analyses can shed light on people’s viewpoints. This research utilizes a cost-effective and portable neuroimaging tool called functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), which is optimized for measuring brain responses in the mentalizing network. In Chapter 2, I demonstrate that a classification technique called the ‘neural reference groups’ approach can be used to predict individuals' political viewpoints at an above-chance level from the prefrontal cortex. In Chapter 3, I explore how the neural reference groups approach can also be used to detect whether an open-mindedness intervention has impacted individuals’ subjective construal processes. In Chapter 4, I provide a comprehensive review of open-mindedness interventions that have been developed in order to provide a roadmap for researchers who may be interested in applying the neural reference groups approach to other interventions