Conservatives and liberals pay attention to their environments differently, meaning the two sides of the political spectrum quite literally don’t see eye-to-eye, a recent study found, suggesting conservatives pay more attention to negative stimuli compared with liberals. The findings could suggest a biological basis for political views

“They’re essentially monitoring things that make them feel uncomfortable, which does feel fairly consistent with conservative policies, actually,” study researcher Mike Dodd, a psychologist at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, told LiveScience. “They tend to confront things head-on that they view as threats, things like immigration and so on.”