Truth: Solutions We Love
- This Is Your Brain on Truth
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This Is Your Brain on Truth
The more we learn about people, cultures, and environments different from our own, the more empathy we have for the experiences of others—and the more our moral compasses veer toward fairness. Truth and learning go hand in hand with justice.
College campuses in the United States are considered bastions of progressive politics, and those who graduate skew liberal across political issues.
But the type of education matters. A 2023 study found that alumni from U.K. private schools were twice as likely to vote conservative as public school alumni, even after accounting for the fact that wealthier, more conservative people tend to choose private schools.
A 2005 paper found that students with more experiences with diversity—especially through diversity classes and positive interactions with diverse peers—are more likely to think critically (and confidently).
Even those who believe ideas like critical race theory are “indoctrination” agree that learning about social justice—formally or informally—leads people to understand that systemic inequities are the cause of most socioeconomic differences. In 2023, social scientists from the conservative Manhattan Institute found that students taught that the Black–white pay gap is mainly due to discrimination were 14 percentage points more likely to agree with affirmative action policies in hiring.
Exposure to multiple perspectives is also valuable in media consumption. Viewers who rely on networks known for misleading coverage—like Fox News—tend to take in fewer outside sources, while viewers on the liberal end of the spectrum tend to value a multiplicity of press sources.
Exposing people to more truthful news sources can push their values to be more progressive. Sociologists found that hundreds of Fox News viewers, mostly Trump supporters, became measurably more progressive after being paid $15 an hour to watch up to seven hours of CNN a week for four weeks in 2020.
While truth fosters justice, it turns out that justice also fosters truth. In a 2024 paper, researchers found that children and adolescents with cognitive empathy—who could imagine themselves in another’s shoes—were less likely to deceive others for their own benefit.
The truth can set us free.