This is an article from the June 2025 Civitas Examiner (Volume 2, No. 3) and was written by one of our students, Owen F. The opinions expressed herein do not reflect those of Civitas other than respect for the value of open dialogue. To read more Civitas Examiner stories or to submit your own, click here.
In a world of growing polarization, the question of why we believe, not just what we believe, has never been more urgent. Political ideologies no longer operate as abstract positions; they shape identities, emotions, and relationships. However, neuroscientist and political psychologist Dr. Leor Zmigrod proposes something radical: What if ideology is not primarily about belief systems, but rather how flexible or rigid our minds are?
Her research, which spans cognitive psychology, neurobiology, and political behavior, culminated in her book, “The Ideological Brain,” along with a body of public lectures, and media discussion. These works offer a picture of belief as an embodied psychological process tied to how the brain handles complexity, threat, and uncertainty.
The main idea behind Zmigrod’s work is disarmingly simple: Ideology is not just about content. It is about cognitive style. Some people process the world through a flexible, adaptive lens. They can update their beliefs in light of new evidence, tolerate ambiguity, and engage with competing viewpoints. This viewpoint is associated through the concept of neuroplasticity and other adaptive functions. Studies and other readings by Zmigrod (see at end of article) demonstrate that people with greater neural flexibility are better at adjusting beliefs in dynamic environments. Others, by contrast, crave certainty, coherence, and structure. Their thinking tends to be more rigid, emotionally reactive, and resistant to change.
Zmigrod’s experiments, such as the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and the Alternative Uses Test objectively measure this flexibility. The former tracks how participants respond when the rules of a game change suddenly; the latter asks them to generate creative uses for an everyday object. Those who struggle with these exercises tend to exhibit more dogmatic political and moral thinking. This pattern cuts across ideological lines: rigidity appears on the far left and right.
While many associate extremism with the political right, Zmigrod’s findings show that cognitive rigidity, not ideology itself, leads to inflexible, intolerant worldviews. This reframing shifts the debate: the real issue isn’t who is “right” or “wrong” politically; it’s how people process information and how much they’re willing to question their narratives.
Zmigrod does not stop at behavioral studies. She dives into the brain itself. Right-wing individuals, on average, tend to have larger amygdalae, the brain structure associated with fear and threat detection. Conversely, Those with more flexible thinking show greater sensitivity in the prefrontal cortex, a region tied to error correction, self-monitoring, and adapting behavior. While these findings are not deterministic, they show that ideological tendencies are at least partly embodied and tied to the brain’s anatomy.
Importantly, Zmigrod does not suggest that biology is destiny. Instead, she argues that brains and beliefs exist in a feedback loop. People with threat-sensitive neural profiles may be drawn to worldviews promising safety and clarity. Over time, immersion in those worldviews reinforces rigid patterns of thought. The result is a narrowing of mental horizons, a cognitive trap disguised as ideological certainty.
Moreover, this is not limited to outliers. At a Cambridge event, Zmigrod emphasized that every person exists on the rigidity-flexibility spectrum and may move along it throughout life. Under economic, emotional, or existential stress, even flexible individuals can become rigid. During times of social crisis, rigidity spikes across the population, making societies more vulnerable to authoritarianism, tribalism, and extremism. Rigid minds can become more flexible when they no longer feel any stress or threats to certain triggers. Ideological stubbornness may reflect not just belief, but an attempt to gain control in an environment that is perceived as a threat. To encourage openness it is important to address the emotional aspect, not just argue with the content of belief.
Zmigrod also explores how family dynamics and early socialization shape rigidity through the process of Political Socialization, in which someone develops their political beliefs mostly from parental influence. Children raised in authoritarian households, where strict hierarchies dominate, often develop binary thinking. They idolize power and crave order, but paradoxically, they may also be fascinated by chaos. This duality of yearning for control while fetishizing upheaval helps explain why some individuals support “law and order,” yet simultaneously revel in political disorder.
Ideological rigidity, then, is not a flaw. It is a coping mechanism. It offers belonging, clarity, and control in a complex, unpredictable world. Rigid ideologies simplify moral choices, divide the world into friends and enemies, good and evil, and wrap individual identity in a comforting myth of righteousness. Zmigrod explains that these systems meet certain psychological needs. Ideologies fulfill important psychological needs beyond certainty, coherence, and community. They also provide a sense of control, identity, moral clarity, and social status. These combined needs make ideologies deeply influencing and help explain why rigid attachment is so common and flexibility so difficult.
This explains why de-radicalization is so tricky. Rigid belief systems become habitual, even addictive. Media ecosystems and political movements reward and reinforce these habits, creating echo chambers that harden cognitive styles. Zmigrod argues that flexible cognition must be deliberately cultivated through education, social policy, and cultural norms that value creativity, openness, and humility.
Despite her message, Zmigrod’s work raises a challenging dilemma: Can a cognitively flexible mind resist moral catastrophe? Can it recognize and stand up to oppression, violence, or injustice? Or does its adaptability risk becoming too neutral, too accommodating?
She does not shy away from this question. In “The Ideological Brain,” Zmigrod distinguishes between flexibility and indifference. A flexible thinker is not apathetic. They are capable of conviction but reach conclusions through open-ended reasoning, not tribal loyalty. Her ideal is not a “centrist” mind but a curious, self-correcting one. Flexibility, in her view, is not a moral weakness. In a interview with Vox, Zmigrod states “There is a delicate path there where you can find a way to have a moral compass — maybe not the same absolutist moral clarity that ideologies try to convince you exists, but you can have a morality without having really dogmatic ideologies.” In other words, a belief that one can hold strong moral values while remaining open-minded, flexible, and humble.
In today’s polarized world, Zmigrod’s research reminds us that ideological rigidity isn’t just about beliefs, it’s also about how we think. True conviction doesn’t require dogma; it requires the courage to stay curious, revise when needed, and resist the comfort of certainty. Flexibility, far from weakness, may be the foundation of a healthier, freer mind.
This has pretty much everything from articles to research publications by the author for readers who want to learn more https://www.leorzmigrod.com.
