Human minds abhor uncertainty. This is a problem for liberal democracy

When it comes to understanding the ups and downs of liberal democracy, conventional research focuses on factors such as economics, emotions, and education. But another field is just as crucial: neurology.

After all, liberal democracy challenges our brains in ways that other political systems don’t. Where dictatorships offer certainty about the future – just think of Adolf Hitler’s 1,000-year time horizon – liberal democracy offers almost none, with the exception of certain election dates. It presents the future as an open space that can be shaped by us and our choices, no more, no less.

Politically, it is a success. Cognitively, this can be terrifying. Until the arrival of liberal democracy, the future was in the hands of a privileged few. Preservation, not progress, was the status quo. Neurologically, the ambiguity and flexibility of the future that comes with liberal democracy can be challenging because it leads to uncertainty – something the human mind hates. Studies show that uncertainty is a more uncomfortable state of neurological tension than the certainty of receiving an electric shock, and history is littered with attempts to reduce uncertainty to more tolerable levels, from insurance to weather forecasting.

Your level of tolerance for uncertainty depends on a number of factors – such as culture, age and gender – but it also depends on how your brain is wired. Political neuroscience shows that the brains of people with conservative views prioritize safety and avoid open-ended solutions without clear closure. They tend to have increased volume in their amygdala, the region responsible for signaling threats. This means they feel more discomfort with novelty and surprise.

Liberal brains, in turn, have a greater tolerance for uncertainty and conflict because they have more gray matter volume in a brain area involved in processing ambiguity called the anterior cingulate cortex. Liberal democracy can accommodate both under less stressful circumstances, because even though conservatives and liberals may have different neural signatures regarding their preferences for the future, over the course of evolution each human can still engage in mental time travel and imagine different futures.

But when uncertainty levels increase – for example because several future trajectories are unclear, from the environment to technology and social norms – some brains might be pushed too far from their comfort zone. To remedy this state of tension, these people will be susceptible to the illusions of certainty provided by populist and authoritarian political actors who promise decisionism and a black-and-white worldview. Certainty, or its mirages, can be generated by the rejection of anything new – medicines, technologies – or foreign peoples, cultures and religions. This reduces uncertainty by closing out the future, erasing ambiguity and anxiety. It can soothe an anxious brain.

This doesn’t mean we’re stuck with illiberal brains. Liberal democracies instead need to communicate more honestly with their electorate that embracing liberalism may not be natural. The strategies we need to adopt in education, public discourse and civil society should be based on how to overcome illiberal mechanisms at the neurological level.

We must signal to our brains what can be gained through cooperation across identity and interest groups, and how, ultimately, the great global challenges of our time can only be overcome by overcoming the vulnerabilities of our brains together.

Florence Gaub is the author of The future: a manual (Hurst, 2026). Liya Yu is the author of Vulnerable Minds: The Neuropolitics of Divided Societies (Columbia UP).