????大家都知道，我們目前正身處超極分化的時代。如今美國人在政治立場方面的分歧遠甚于在種族或階級方面的分歧，而這正是皮尤研究中心（Pew Research Center）最近進行的一項調查向我們所揭示的一個新情況，雖屬意料之中，但也可謂是前所未有。

????現在我們已有證據表明，這些分歧嚴重蔓延到民主黨人和共和黨人喜歡吃的食物、喜歡看的東西以及喜歡開的汽車等領域。從事神經層面觀察的神經科學市場營銷研究公司Buyology為《財富》雜志（Fortune）獨家發布的一項最新調查結果顯示，在一系列產品與服務類別的200個品牌中，民主共和兩黨在大多數品牌的選擇上都存在分歧。

????其中有些分歧我們憑直覺就能理解：民主黨人喜歡觀看“動物星球”頻道（Animal Planet），而共和黨人則喜歡選擇歷史頻道（History Channel）。其他一些分歧則比較費解：民主黨人喜歡溫迪（Wendy's）快餐店以及美國橄欖球大聯盟（NFL），而共和黨人則喜歡賽百味（Subway）及美國職業棒球大聯盟（Major League Baseball）。

????Buyology首席執行官蓋瑞?辛格設想，理解這些分歧的一個通用線索是：消費者是否寧愿把決策權交給一個中央權威機構（這是民主黨的一個傾向），還是務求權力分散（也就是共和黨偏愛的做法）。

????以連鎖餐廳為例。在溫迪，所有菜單選項都預先組合成各種套餐，客戶通常按照套餐編號點餐。而另一方面，賽百味的顧客實際上是被迫自行定制各自的套餐，因為他們得通過一條“制作線”來定制各自的三明治。“民主黨人的反應是，某些聰明人會替他們做出明智的選擇，從而使他們的生活更加美好、更加便利；而從根本上說，共和黨的反應則是認為，個體自己有能力作出個性化的選擇，”辛格說。

????他認為，在選擇所喜歡的專業體育運動方面也有同樣的動因在起作用。共和黨人之所以更加喜歡棒球運動，不僅僅是因為它是“地道的美式體育運動，”而且還因為該項體育運動的中央管理機構更趨向于采取不干涉的立場，允許球員薪酬之間出現巨大差異，從而導致諸如紐約洋基隊（Yankees）、費城人隊（Phillies）及波斯頓紅襪隊（Red Sox）等超級強隊相繼崛起。而相比之下，NFL“更加民主，更加遵從法定程序，更加趨向于由中央管理機構集中控制。”

????這是一個具有煽動性的論點，辛格也承認這個論點純屬猜測。但他得到了科學依據來支持這個結論。Buyology的此項調查并不是第一個試圖對黨派立場在品牌偏好上的反映進行解讀的嘗試。比如，汽車調研機構——美國戰略視野公司（Strategic Vision）最近進行的一項調查發現，在選擇汽車方面，民主黨人關注燃油經濟型【他們的首選是：本田思域（Honda Civic）混合動力車】，而共和黨人則喜歡車型龐大而且馬力強勁的汽車【他們的首選是：福特野馬敞篷車（Ford Mustang）】。

????但辛格在調查中利用了神經營銷技術來探究受訪者的潛意識,因而具有開創性的意義。在辛格的此項調查中，研究人員認為，可以透過認知噪音來揭示人們的真實感受。這個方法需要要求4,000名受訪者迅速回答問題——就像加拿大科幻作家馬爾科姆?格拉德威爾所著的《眨眼之間》（Blink）那樣——然后剔除那些太慢或快得可疑的答復。在每個產品或服務類別中，受訪者在一對可能直接存在競爭品牌之間做出選擇，因此最終得出受訪者對每個品牌的喜好程度，并按照從最喜歡到最不喜歡進行排序。

????Everybody knows we're living in hyper-polarized times. The American people are more divided today by political affiliation than even race or class, an unprecedented if unsurprising development exposed by a recent Pew Research Center study.

????Now we've got proof those differences spill over heavily into what both Democrats and Republicans like to eat, watch, and drive. A new survey from the neuro-insight firm Buyology, released exclusively to Fortune, shows the two sides divided over a majority of 200 brands across a range of categories.

????Some of the splits make intuitive sense: Democrats like to watch Animal Planet, while Republicans click over to the History Channel. Others are tougher to figure: Democrats prefer Wendy's (WEN) and the NFL, Republicans go for Subway and Major League Baseball.

????A common thread, Buyology CEO Gary Singer posits, is whether consumers would rather cede decision-making power to a central authority -- a Democratic tendency -- or see that power distributed, the favored Republican approach.

????Take chain restaurants. At Wendy's, menu options are prepackaged into meals, and customers typically order by number; Subway patrons, on the other hand, are practically forced to customize their meals as they walk their sandwiches down an assembly line. "What Democrats are responding to is somebody smart making choices for them that makes their lives better and easier, and fundamentally what Republicans are responding to is the ability to make an individualized choice," Singer says.

????He sees the same dynamic at work when it comes to professional sports. Republicans have a deeper connection to baseball not simply because it's "as American as apple pie," but also because the sport's central authority is more hands-off, allowing huge payroll gaps that have engendered the rise of super-teams like the Yankees, Phillies and Red Sox. The NFL, by contrast, "is more democratic, more legislated, more centrally controlled."

????It's a provocative thesis, and Singer acknowledges its simply conjecture. But he's got science to back up the results. The Buyology study is not the first to try to decipher how partisan allegiance reflects on brand preference. A recent study by auto-research firm Strategic Vision, for example, found when it comes to cars, Democrats favor fuel-efficiency (their top pick: the Honda Civic Hybrid) while Republicans go for size and power (top pick: the Ford Mustang convertible).

????But Singer's effort breaks ground by using neuro-marketing techniques to plumb respondents' subconscious minds, where researchers believe they can see past cognitive noise to reveal people's true feelings. The method involved asking 4,000 respondents to answer quickly -- think Malcolm Gladwell's Blink -- and tossing replies that were either too slow or suspiciously fast. In each category, respondents chose between every possible head-to-head match-up of the included brands, so what emerged was a ranking of their connection to each, from first to last.