Differences and data displays

Grim's recent post included a "heatmap" data plot showing the differences between what conservatives and liberals value (as measured in the Nature article.

It's pretty dramatic--it suggests political groups are living in almost completely different psychological worlds.

However, there are other ways to display the data, as seen in Figures 1 and 2 from the same article:

The heat map doesn't emphasize the commonality between groups. Even when the differences are huge, there's still a background love of the local or the distant in both.