1 00:00:04,920 --> 00:00:08,560 Speaker 1: Why does your brain care more about some groups of 2 00:00:08,600 --> 00:00:12,559 Speaker 1: people than others? Why do we so naturally form in 3 00:00:12,600 --> 00:00:14,920 Speaker 1: groups and out groups? And what does any of that 4 00:00:15,080 --> 00:00:18,880 Speaker 1: have to do with George W. Bush's political commercials, or 5 00:00:18,960 --> 00:00:24,960 Speaker 1: the Greeks or psychopaths or syndrome E or propaganda posters 6 00:00:25,079 --> 00:00:32,080 Speaker 1: and how to develop immunity against them. Welcome to Inner 7 00:00:32,159 --> 00:00:36,440 Speaker 1: Cosmos with me David Eagleman. I'm a neuroscientist and an 8 00:00:36,479 --> 00:00:40,640 Speaker 1: author at Stanford and in these episodes we sail into 9 00:00:40,720 --> 00:00:44,440 Speaker 1: our three pound universe to understand why and how our 10 00:00:44,520 --> 00:00:46,320 Speaker 1: lives look the way they do. 11 00:00:55,680 --> 00:00:56,080 Speaker 2: Today. 12 00:00:56,440 --> 00:00:59,680 Speaker 1: We're going to talk about why we're so wired to 13 00:00:59,760 --> 00:01:04,200 Speaker 1: have in groups and out groups, and what the consequences are, 14 00:01:04,600 --> 00:01:07,840 Speaker 1: and how some knowledge on this goes a long way 15 00:01:08,240 --> 00:01:11,880 Speaker 1: to making us a little smarter in the face of propaganda. 16 00:01:12,560 --> 00:01:16,600 Speaker 1: This is a topic of enormous importance, in no small 17 00:01:16,640 --> 00:01:22,760 Speaker 1: part because repeatedly throughout history, groups of people have inflicted 18 00:01:22,959 --> 00:01:27,280 Speaker 1: violence on other members of their population. Think of the 19 00:01:27,400 --> 00:01:31,280 Speaker 1: Nazis and they're killing of millions of people Jewish communities 20 00:01:31,319 --> 00:01:34,640 Speaker 1: and Gypsies and others based on religious and ethnic and 21 00:01:34,680 --> 00:01:38,480 Speaker 1: political affiliations. Or look at the Nanking massacre, in nineteen 22 00:01:38,520 --> 00:01:43,280 Speaker 1: thirty seven when the Japanese invaded China and killed hundreds 23 00:01:43,280 --> 00:01:48,560 Speaker 1: of thousands of unarmed civilians and systematically raped between eighty 24 00:01:48,600 --> 00:01:51,800 Speaker 1: and one hundred thousand people. And in nineteen fifteen there 25 00:01:51,880 --> 00:01:55,680 Speaker 1: was a systematic killing of the Armenian population by the 26 00:01:55,680 --> 00:02:00,280 Speaker 1: Ottoman Empire. It's estimated that about one million Armenians were 27 00:02:00,360 --> 00:02:04,320 Speaker 1: killed during this. And then in nineteen ninety four, in 28 00:02:04,360 --> 00:02:08,120 Speaker 1: a period of one hundred days, the Hutu in Rwanda 29 00:02:08,240 --> 00:02:12,600 Speaker 1: killed eight hundred thousand Tutsi and this was accomplished mostly 30 00:02:12,639 --> 00:02:15,520 Speaker 1: with machetes, and at the peak of this they were 31 00:02:15,560 --> 00:02:20,240 Speaker 1: actually achieving a higher killing rate with machetes than the 32 00:02:20,360 --> 00:02:24,359 Speaker 1: Nazis had accomplished with gas chambers. And so the question 33 00:02:24,520 --> 00:02:27,240 Speaker 1: is what is going on here? We see this kind 34 00:02:27,280 --> 00:02:30,520 Speaker 1: of thing over and over in history, and often people 35 00:02:30,560 --> 00:02:33,920 Speaker 1: will inflict this kind of violence in coordination with the 36 00:02:33,960 --> 00:02:38,360 Speaker 1: authorities and against groups of people in their society that 37 00:02:38,440 --> 00:02:42,639 Speaker 1: were no direct threat to them and were defenseless. So 38 00:02:42,720 --> 00:02:47,960 Speaker 1: how can we understand this characteristic of human behavior, Because 39 00:02:48,040 --> 00:02:51,400 Speaker 1: it's of deep importance for us to understand this if 40 00:02:51,400 --> 00:02:54,200 Speaker 1: we want to have any hope of preventing this in 41 00:02:54,240 --> 00:02:58,760 Speaker 1: the future. Now, historians look for explanations by digging into 42 00:02:58,800 --> 00:03:03,600 Speaker 1: issues of political and civil strife and economic troubles. But 43 00:03:03,639 --> 00:03:06,240 Speaker 1: the real issue is that the only way these events 44 00:03:06,280 --> 00:03:10,080 Speaker 1: can happen is when there's a distinct change in the 45 00:03:10,120 --> 00:03:15,040 Speaker 1: behavior of individuals, and how can we understand that change 46 00:03:15,120 --> 00:03:17,800 Speaker 1: in behavior. What I want to talk about today is 47 00:03:17,880 --> 00:03:22,079 Speaker 1: the science of what we understand about that about genocide. 48 00:03:22,120 --> 00:03:25,120 Speaker 1: I want to put together a new framework to see 49 00:03:25,480 --> 00:03:28,440 Speaker 1: how we can come to understand events like this, and 50 00:03:28,480 --> 00:03:31,000 Speaker 1: I'm going to end by saying what we can do 51 00:03:31,160 --> 00:03:35,160 Speaker 1: about it. So let's start in the distant past. When 52 00:03:35,160 --> 00:03:39,000 Speaker 1: we think about human evolution. The story we all know 53 00:03:39,200 --> 00:03:43,720 Speaker 1: about Darwinian evolution is that it's survival of the fittest. Right, 54 00:03:43,800 --> 00:03:47,720 Speaker 1: you have to be a strong competitor to survive and thrive, 55 00:03:48,360 --> 00:03:51,880 Speaker 1: and that's a pretty good framework. But people started realizing 56 00:03:51,960 --> 00:03:54,840 Speaker 1: there was a little bit of a problem because the 57 00:03:54,920 --> 00:03:59,000 Speaker 1: issue is altruism. That is, when you give your own 58 00:03:59,040 --> 00:04:03,160 Speaker 1: resources to help other people. How does the basic Darwinian 59 00:04:03,240 --> 00:04:07,040 Speaker 1: story of survival of the fittest explain why people help 60 00:04:07,080 --> 00:04:10,280 Speaker 1: each other out. You can't understand that just by thinking 61 00:04:10,280 --> 00:04:15,920 Speaker 1: about individual selection. And that got people thinking about kin selection, 62 00:04:16,680 --> 00:04:18,680 Speaker 1: So you may have heard of this notion of the 63 00:04:19,080 --> 00:04:22,440 Speaker 1: selfish gene. The idea is that if I share some 64 00:04:22,600 --> 00:04:26,320 Speaker 1: genetic material with my brother, then maybe that explains why 65 00:04:26,360 --> 00:04:30,120 Speaker 1: I want to help him out. The genes want to survive, 66 00:04:30,839 --> 00:04:33,599 Speaker 1: and I share a little bit less genetic material with 67 00:04:33,720 --> 00:04:37,200 Speaker 1: my cousins, and so all sacrifice for them, but maybe 68 00:04:37,240 --> 00:04:39,440 Speaker 1: a little bit less so and so on through my 69 00:04:39,880 --> 00:04:45,080 Speaker 1: family tree. The evolutionary biologist J. S. Haldane famously said 70 00:04:45,480 --> 00:04:48,080 Speaker 1: I would gladly jump in a river to save two 71 00:04:48,080 --> 00:04:51,600 Speaker 1: of my brothers or eight of my cousins. So this 72 00:04:51,680 --> 00:04:56,320 Speaker 1: is known as kin selection rather than individual selection. But 73 00:04:56,400 --> 00:04:59,720 Speaker 1: it turns out even that's not enough to explain the 74 00:04:59,760 --> 00:05:04,440 Speaker 1: world of humans, because in fact, what distinguishes our species 75 00:05:04,560 --> 00:05:10,400 Speaker 1: is that humans get together and cooperate irrespective of kinship. 76 00:05:11,040 --> 00:05:15,040 Speaker 1: So that led people to think about group selection, which 77 00:05:15,080 --> 00:05:18,440 Speaker 1: is to say, if you and your fellow tribe members 78 00:05:18,520 --> 00:05:22,640 Speaker 1: are the type who cooperate, then as a group you 79 00:05:22,920 --> 00:05:26,880 Speaker 1: all increase your chances of survival. Your tribe has a 80 00:05:26,880 --> 00:05:30,279 Speaker 1: better chance of surviving than the other tribe on the 81 00:05:30,320 --> 00:05:32,880 Speaker 1: other side of the mountain, who are not very cooperative 82 00:05:32,880 --> 00:05:35,760 Speaker 1: with each other, no matter how strong they may be 83 00:05:35,880 --> 00:05:40,880 Speaker 1: as individuals. So the term for this is you sociality 84 00:05:41,520 --> 00:05:46,720 Speaker 1: You you meaning good or positive. So if a species 85 00:05:46,960 --> 00:05:50,520 Speaker 1: is you social, then there's this glue that allows them 86 00:05:50,520 --> 00:05:55,479 Speaker 1: to build tribes and groups and nations irrespective of kinship. 87 00:05:55,880 --> 00:05:58,919 Speaker 1: My colleague Jonathan Hate gave a nice analogy for this. 88 00:05:59,080 --> 00:06:03,160 Speaker 1: He said, as a result of the evolutionary history of humans, 89 00:06:03,520 --> 00:06:07,840 Speaker 1: we're sort of ninety percent primate and ten percent honeybee. 90 00:06:08,240 --> 00:06:12,039 Speaker 1: By primates, he means we're mostly about individual competition, but 91 00:06:12,200 --> 00:06:16,240 Speaker 1: by honeybee he means sometimes we work together for the 92 00:06:16,279 --> 00:06:19,840 Speaker 1: good of the hive. So our strong youth social nature 93 00:06:20,000 --> 00:06:24,159 Speaker 1: can't be explained just by individual selection, but instead it 94 00:06:24,200 --> 00:06:28,480 Speaker 1: seems to require this selection for groups who want to work. 95 00:06:28,240 --> 00:06:28,920 Speaker 2: With one another. 96 00:06:29,279 --> 00:06:33,880 Speaker 1: Now, this massively social nature is what underlies our ability 97 00:06:33,960 --> 00:06:38,400 Speaker 1: to build and operate cities and industry and do science 98 00:06:38,480 --> 00:06:41,920 Speaker 1: and so on. Humans say, hey, let's link arms and 99 00:06:42,000 --> 00:06:45,680 Speaker 1: cooperate with one another and drive things forward together and 100 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:49,360 Speaker 1: enjoy all the benefits of that. This kind of thinking 101 00:06:49,560 --> 00:06:55,000 Speaker 1: allows organisms to operate as superorganisms. And by the way, 102 00:06:55,000 --> 00:06:58,800 Speaker 1: I should just note something about religion here. Some scholars 103 00:06:58,880 --> 00:07:04,159 Speaker 1: compare religion to a pathological virus that spreads across minds. 104 00:07:04,520 --> 00:07:07,080 Speaker 1: But that's probably not the optimal way to think about it. 105 00:07:07,400 --> 00:07:11,360 Speaker 1: From an evolutionary point of view, things are judged by 106 00:07:11,400 --> 00:07:15,160 Speaker 1: what they cause people to do, and what religions cause 107 00:07:15,440 --> 00:07:19,520 Speaker 1: is for people to group together, to be usocial. So 108 00:07:19,640 --> 00:07:22,840 Speaker 1: what happens with religions is you define a group, you 109 00:07:22,920 --> 00:07:26,280 Speaker 1: coordinate the behavior of the group, and you incentivize the 110 00:07:26,280 --> 00:07:31,000 Speaker 1: group to cooperate and work together. So, as one evolutionary 111 00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:35,040 Speaker 1: biologist in the late eighteen hundred said, religion is just 112 00:07:35,200 --> 00:07:40,040 Speaker 1: another weapon in the Darwinian struggle for survival. In other words, 113 00:07:40,080 --> 00:07:43,520 Speaker 1: if religion were maladaptive, it would have gone away. But 114 00:07:43,760 --> 00:07:47,800 Speaker 1: it usually is adaptive in the sense that it causes 115 00:07:47,880 --> 00:07:53,080 Speaker 1: groups to come together and work cooperatively. But one of 116 00:07:53,120 --> 00:07:57,800 Speaker 1: the costs of our usociality is that we get in 117 00:07:57,880 --> 00:08:01,960 Speaker 1: groups and outgroups. And today we're going to see what 118 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:06,640 Speaker 1: all of this has to do with the brain. Historically, traditionally, 119 00:08:06,720 --> 00:08:10,160 Speaker 1: we've always studied the brain by looking at individual parts 120 00:08:10,160 --> 00:08:12,440 Speaker 1: and regions of it. So you say, okay, well, this 121 00:08:12,520 --> 00:08:14,920 Speaker 1: is how vision works, and this is how hearing works, 122 00:08:14,920 --> 00:08:16,840 Speaker 1: and this is how decision making works and so on, 123 00:08:17,480 --> 00:08:20,320 Speaker 1: and it's only in recent years that people began to 124 00:08:20,400 --> 00:08:23,640 Speaker 1: appreciate that a lot of the circuitry of the brain 125 00:08:23,840 --> 00:08:27,000 Speaker 1: has to do with this youth sociality. A lot of 126 00:08:27,040 --> 00:08:29,440 Speaker 1: it has to do with how you interact with other 127 00:08:29,560 --> 00:08:33,920 Speaker 1: brains in terms of trust and reputation and allegiances. And 128 00:08:33,960 --> 00:08:36,560 Speaker 1: I talked a little bit about this in a previous episode. 129 00:08:36,720 --> 00:08:40,640 Speaker 1: And this has led to a new field called social neuroscience, 130 00:08:40,920 --> 00:08:42,800 Speaker 1: which studies this sort of thing. And that's what I'm 131 00:08:42,800 --> 00:08:46,080 Speaker 1: going to tell you about today, and how social neuroscience 132 00:08:46,440 --> 00:08:48,720 Speaker 1: can shed light on group behavior. 133 00:08:49,679 --> 00:08:50,600 Speaker 2: So I mentioned in. 134 00:08:50,559 --> 00:08:55,480 Speaker 1: This previous episode about this philosophical problem called the trolley dilemma, 135 00:08:55,800 --> 00:08:58,680 Speaker 1: And just as a reminder, there is a trolley barreling 136 00:08:58,720 --> 00:08:59,120 Speaker 1: down the. 137 00:08:59,120 --> 00:09:00,840 Speaker 2: Tracks full speed. 138 00:09:01,120 --> 00:09:03,800 Speaker 1: Its brakes are broken, and you see there are five 139 00:09:04,000 --> 00:09:07,600 Speaker 1: workmen farther down the track and they're going to get killed. 140 00:09:07,760 --> 00:09:09,760 Speaker 1: The trolley is going to run over them. But it 141 00:09:09,920 --> 00:09:12,320 Speaker 1: just so happens that you notice you're standing next to 142 00:09:12,440 --> 00:09:15,880 Speaker 1: a lever that can switch the track for the trolley, 143 00:09:16,080 --> 00:09:17,680 Speaker 1: and on this other track, you see. 144 00:09:17,559 --> 00:09:19,040 Speaker 2: There's only one workman there. 145 00:09:19,320 --> 00:09:22,280 Speaker 1: So the question is will you switch the track over 146 00:09:22,400 --> 00:09:26,120 Speaker 1: so it kills only one person instead of five? So 147 00:09:26,160 --> 00:09:28,920 Speaker 1: think about what you would do here. Now, here's scenario 148 00:09:29,040 --> 00:09:31,760 Speaker 1: number two. It's the same thing. The trolley is barreling 149 00:09:31,800 --> 00:09:34,080 Speaker 1: down the track. You see the five workmen. They're going 150 00:09:34,120 --> 00:09:37,360 Speaker 1: to get killed. But this time you're standing on a 151 00:09:37,360 --> 00:09:41,760 Speaker 1: little footbridge over the tracks, and you realize that there 152 00:09:41,880 --> 00:09:44,880 Speaker 1: is a man standing in front of you, and if 153 00:09:44,920 --> 00:09:47,400 Speaker 1: you push him over the edge of the tracks, his 154 00:09:47,520 --> 00:09:51,240 Speaker 1: weight will be sufficient to stop the trolley and save 155 00:09:51,320 --> 00:09:56,080 Speaker 1: the five men. So the question is do you push 156 00:09:56,160 --> 00:10:00,120 Speaker 1: the man or not? Now, in most cases people will 157 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:02,760 Speaker 1: do it. But the thing to notice is that it's 158 00:10:02,840 --> 00:10:06,640 Speaker 1: exactly the same question. In both cases, will you trade 159 00:10:07,360 --> 00:10:10,959 Speaker 1: one life for five lives or won't you Most people 160 00:10:10,960 --> 00:10:13,000 Speaker 1: will do that in the first case, but they won't 161 00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:15,320 Speaker 1: in the second case, which is interesting, right, it's the 162 00:10:15,400 --> 00:10:20,040 Speaker 1: same math. So my colleagues Joshua Green and Jonathan Cohen 163 00:10:20,080 --> 00:10:22,880 Speaker 1: got interested in this question some years ago and they 164 00:10:22,880 --> 00:10:25,160 Speaker 1: did neuro imaging on people. They put them in the 165 00:10:25,240 --> 00:10:28,840 Speaker 1: brain scanner while they had the people walking through the 166 00:10:28,960 --> 00:10:31,760 Speaker 1: trolley dilemma problem, and essentially what they found is there 167 00:10:31,760 --> 00:10:33,920 Speaker 1: are areas of your brain that are involved in math 168 00:10:34,040 --> 00:10:37,080 Speaker 1: problems that are saying, okay, well, one versus five and 169 00:10:37,120 --> 00:10:39,960 Speaker 1: so on. They make a calculation, and you have other 170 00:10:40,040 --> 00:10:43,640 Speaker 1: areas of your brain that care about emotional issues. They're 171 00:10:44,080 --> 00:10:48,480 Speaker 1: simulating situations and assessing how those make you feel. Those 172 00:10:48,520 --> 00:10:51,240 Speaker 1: areas are generally along the midline of the brain if 173 00:10:51,280 --> 00:10:53,640 Speaker 1: you drew a line from your nose to the back 174 00:10:53,640 --> 00:10:55,640 Speaker 1: of your head. And it turns out that in this 175 00:10:55,960 --> 00:10:58,520 Speaker 1: second scenario where you're asking if you're going to push 176 00:10:58,559 --> 00:11:03,240 Speaker 1: the guy, these emotional areas come online, and that changes 177 00:11:03,360 --> 00:11:07,679 Speaker 1: your decision making. In other words, emotions, how you feel 178 00:11:07,720 --> 00:11:12,360 Speaker 1: about something is a very important part in navigating the decision. 179 00:11:12,800 --> 00:11:15,439 Speaker 1: The first scenario is just an easy math problem. The 180 00:11:15,480 --> 00:11:19,080 Speaker 1: second one is an emotional problem, and it changes what 181 00:11:19,240 --> 00:11:22,800 Speaker 1: you decide. And in fact, the idea that reason and 182 00:11:22,880 --> 00:11:26,280 Speaker 1: emotion are fighting with each other. That's a very old idea. 183 00:11:26,480 --> 00:11:29,960 Speaker 1: The Greeks had this metaphor that life is as though 184 00:11:30,000 --> 00:11:33,839 Speaker 1: you are a charioteer and you're being pulled along by 185 00:11:34,200 --> 00:11:37,360 Speaker 1: the white horse of reason and the black horse of passion, 186 00:11:37,760 --> 00:11:40,800 Speaker 1: and they're always trying to pull you off in opposite directions, 187 00:11:41,160 --> 00:11:44,160 Speaker 1: and your job as the charioteer is to. 188 00:11:44,160 --> 00:11:45,640 Speaker 2: Stay down the middle of the road. 189 00:11:46,040 --> 00:11:48,200 Speaker 1: And it's not easy, right because you've got these two 190 00:11:48,200 --> 00:11:53,040 Speaker 1: different polls going on all the time. So emotions are 191 00:11:53,120 --> 00:11:57,120 Speaker 1: tightly involved in decision making. They serve an important role 192 00:11:57,559 --> 00:12:00,000 Speaker 1: in how we navigate our life. 193 00:12:00,559 --> 00:12:02,720 Speaker 2: And you wouldn't want to live in a world. 194 00:12:02,520 --> 00:12:05,720 Speaker 1: Where everybody is like mister Spock and Star Trek and 195 00:12:05,760 --> 00:12:09,400 Speaker 1: doesn't have emotions, right, because everybody would just push the 196 00:12:09,440 --> 00:12:10,760 Speaker 1: man off the bridge and that would be. 197 00:12:10,760 --> 00:12:11,240 Speaker 2: The end of it. 198 00:12:11,600 --> 00:12:16,240 Speaker 1: But instead, we use emotions to steer the decisions we make, 199 00:12:16,360 --> 00:12:19,280 Speaker 1: and if something feels wrong, we try not to do it. 200 00:12:35,440 --> 00:12:39,240 Speaker 1: So the question is how do we understand or interpret 201 00:12:39,920 --> 00:12:44,960 Speaker 1: the things that we see during wartime. There's a horrifying 202 00:12:45,040 --> 00:12:48,400 Speaker 1: photograph from World War Two where there's a crying mother 203 00:12:48,480 --> 00:12:51,720 Speaker 1: who's clutching her small child to her chest, and there's 204 00:12:51,760 --> 00:12:55,240 Speaker 1: a German soldier about six feet behind her with his 205 00:12:55,520 --> 00:12:59,440 Speaker 1: rifle poised aimed at her head, ready to execute her 206 00:12:59,720 --> 00:13:02,760 Speaker 1: while she's holding her baby in her arms. Now, there 207 00:13:02,760 --> 00:13:05,160 Speaker 1: are several things to note about this photograph. First, the 208 00:13:05,240 --> 00:13:07,920 Speaker 1: fact that he's doing this in front of someone in 209 00:13:07,960 --> 00:13:11,679 Speaker 1: front of the cameraman suggests that he has a diminished 210 00:13:12,160 --> 00:13:16,559 Speaker 1: emotional reactivity to this situation. He's not distressed by the situation. 211 00:13:17,040 --> 00:13:20,079 Speaker 1: He's not feeling like you felt when you thought about 212 00:13:20,120 --> 00:13:22,920 Speaker 1: pushing the man off the bridge. Now, if this were 213 00:13:23,320 --> 00:13:26,480 Speaker 1: the one guy committing atrocities during wartime, we might just 214 00:13:26,520 --> 00:13:28,400 Speaker 1: write him off as a psychopath. 215 00:13:28,800 --> 00:13:30,120 Speaker 2: But there were hundreds of. 216 00:13:30,160 --> 00:13:34,120 Speaker 1: Thousands of young men doing awful stuff everywhere you looked, 217 00:13:34,120 --> 00:13:38,480 Speaker 1: including running the concentration camps, or raping women in the towns, 218 00:13:38,600 --> 00:13:42,560 Speaker 1: or lining up dozens of people along ditches and machine 219 00:13:42,559 --> 00:13:47,200 Speaker 1: gunning them. So it wasn't just one psychopath. What was 220 00:13:47,240 --> 00:13:50,800 Speaker 1: going on here? The neurosurgeon you talk Freed in the 221 00:13:50,880 --> 00:13:54,320 Speaker 1: late nineties started thinking about this question a lot, and 222 00:13:54,360 --> 00:13:57,160 Speaker 1: he said, you know, when you look across all these 223 00:13:57,160 --> 00:13:59,400 Speaker 1: different events in the world, you find this kind of 224 00:13:59,480 --> 00:14:03,920 Speaker 1: behavior everywhere. People seem to lose their normal way that 225 00:14:03,960 --> 00:14:07,160 Speaker 1: their brain functions, and they become different in how they 226 00:14:07,160 --> 00:14:11,840 Speaker 1: make decisions, they act differently than they would under normal circumstances. 227 00:14:12,520 --> 00:14:15,000 Speaker 1: And he said, when you look at the signs and 228 00:14:15,040 --> 00:14:18,640 Speaker 1: the symptoms of their behavior, it's like there's a medical 229 00:14:18,679 --> 00:14:22,680 Speaker 1: condition going on here. So he named this syndrome E, 230 00:14:23,560 --> 00:14:27,080 Speaker 1: and he said there are very particular signs and symptoms 231 00:14:27,640 --> 00:14:29,400 Speaker 1: that you look for here, just like you would look 232 00:14:29,440 --> 00:14:32,960 Speaker 1: for coughing or fever with pneumonia. You look for particular 233 00:14:33,120 --> 00:14:39,920 Speaker 1: things that characterize people's behavior during wartime. First, there's diminished 234 00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:45,720 Speaker 1: emotional reactivity that gives people this ability to do repetitive 235 00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:49,480 Speaker 1: acts of violence. Maybe people start off having a little 236 00:14:49,480 --> 00:14:51,920 Speaker 1: bit of a hard time with it, but they rapidly 237 00:14:52,480 --> 00:14:57,160 Speaker 1: desensitize it doesn't bother them anymore. Second, he noticed there's 238 00:14:57,200 --> 00:15:01,080 Speaker 1: a hyper arousal or as the Germans called it, raush, 239 00:15:01,440 --> 00:15:06,400 Speaker 1: which is this feeling of elation when committing these horrific acts. 240 00:15:06,840 --> 00:15:11,080 Speaker 1: Another sign is group contagion, which is an important one 241 00:15:11,080 --> 00:15:14,520 Speaker 1: that I'll come back to. The issue is everybody's doing 242 00:15:14,560 --> 00:15:18,000 Speaker 1: something and it catches on and it spreads. He also 243 00:15:18,160 --> 00:15:22,960 Speaker 1: pointed to compartmentalization. Someone can care about their own family 244 00:15:23,360 --> 00:15:25,040 Speaker 1: and yet at the same time do this sort of 245 00:15:25,040 --> 00:15:28,640 Speaker 1: thing to another family. So these are the signs of 246 00:15:28,680 --> 00:15:34,840 Speaker 1: syndrome E. Diminished emotional reactivity, repetitive acts of violence, hyper arousal, 247 00:15:35,360 --> 00:15:40,520 Speaker 1: group contagion, compartmentalization. And the interesting thing from a neuroscience 248 00:15:40,520 --> 00:15:43,560 Speaker 1: point of view is that the other functions of the 249 00:15:43,560 --> 00:15:46,880 Speaker 1: brain are working just fine. Things like language and memory 250 00:15:46,920 --> 00:15:50,720 Speaker 1: and problem solving, those are completely intact so that gives 251 00:15:50,800 --> 00:15:53,920 Speaker 1: us a clue into what's happening under the hood. And 252 00:15:54,000 --> 00:15:57,280 Speaker 1: what's happening in the case of syndrome E is something 253 00:15:57,400 --> 00:16:03,280 Speaker 1: like this. The emotional networks of the brain are short circuited. 254 00:16:04,120 --> 00:16:07,800 Speaker 1: They are not participating in the decision making anymore. They 255 00:16:07,840 --> 00:16:11,960 Speaker 1: are now sidelined. They're out of the equation. So that 256 00:16:12,160 --> 00:16:16,200 Speaker 1: allows a soldier to execute a woman clutching her baby, 257 00:16:16,520 --> 00:16:18,760 Speaker 1: just like it would allow you to push the man 258 00:16:18,800 --> 00:16:21,520 Speaker 1: off the bridge without really thinking twice about it. In 259 00:16:21,560 --> 00:16:24,840 Speaker 1: other words, their decision making is being steered by parts 260 00:16:24,840 --> 00:16:27,400 Speaker 1: of the brain that can do logic and reasoning and 261 00:16:27,480 --> 00:16:29,920 Speaker 1: memory and so on, but not the parts of the 262 00:16:29,960 --> 00:16:33,760 Speaker 1: brain that normally navigate things with emotion. And what this 263 00:16:33,920 --> 00:16:38,480 Speaker 1: leads to is a moral disengagement. A person becomes like 264 00:16:38,600 --> 00:16:41,400 Speaker 1: a car that's in neutral going down the hill. He 265 00:16:41,440 --> 00:16:44,560 Speaker 1: doesn't have all these systems anymore that tell him the 266 00:16:44,640 --> 00:16:47,560 Speaker 1: right way to steer his actions. Now, can this sort 267 00:16:47,600 --> 00:16:51,200 Speaker 1: of thing be studied in the laboratory, Yes it can. 268 00:16:51,840 --> 00:16:57,280 Speaker 1: So consider this study. People are shown photographs of other 269 00:16:57,320 --> 00:16:59,960 Speaker 1: people and you measure what's going on in their brain. 270 00:17:00,520 --> 00:17:02,680 Speaker 1: And what the researchers found is that if you show 271 00:17:02,760 --> 00:17:08,240 Speaker 1: participants pictures of people they admire, Olympic athletes and hard workers, 272 00:17:08,240 --> 00:17:10,800 Speaker 1: and so on. Various parts of the brain light up, 273 00:17:11,560 --> 00:17:14,040 Speaker 1: and the area I want to draw attention to is 274 00:17:14,200 --> 00:17:18,199 Speaker 1: a part along the brain's midline called the medial prefrontal cortex. 275 00:17:18,560 --> 00:17:23,040 Speaker 1: The medial prefrontal cortex is involved in these emotional systems, 276 00:17:23,040 --> 00:17:26,680 Speaker 1: and it's also involved in social cognition. In other words, 277 00:17:26,760 --> 00:17:31,120 Speaker 1: this area is active whenever you're dealing with another person 278 00:17:31,280 --> 00:17:33,639 Speaker 1: as opposed to an object like a coffee cup or 279 00:17:33,640 --> 00:17:37,399 Speaker 1: a laptop. Even if you show participants photographs of people 280 00:17:37,440 --> 00:17:40,439 Speaker 1: they don't like very much, like people they envy or 281 00:17:40,440 --> 00:17:44,280 Speaker 1: people they pity, you still get medial prefrontal cortex activation. 282 00:17:44,400 --> 00:17:47,760 Speaker 1: In other words, people still see them as humans even 283 00:17:47,800 --> 00:17:50,639 Speaker 1: though they're maybe not in their in group. But if 284 00:17:50,680 --> 00:17:54,159 Speaker 1: you go even further along the spectrum of outgroups and 285 00:17:54,200 --> 00:17:58,520 Speaker 1: show pictures of people that they feel very separated from, 286 00:17:58,600 --> 00:18:02,280 Speaker 1: like homeless people are drug addicts, the medial prefrontal cortex 287 00:18:02,560 --> 00:18:06,399 Speaker 1: turns off. It just doesn't come online in the same way. 288 00:18:06,560 --> 00:18:10,000 Speaker 1: And what that means is that they're viewing these people 289 00:18:10,480 --> 00:18:14,080 Speaker 1: the same way that they do objects. So again, when 290 00:18:14,119 --> 00:18:17,520 Speaker 1: you view objects, this area doesn't come online, and it 291 00:18:17,600 --> 00:18:21,639 Speaker 1: comes online when you're looking at humans, except for really 292 00:18:21,800 --> 00:18:25,840 Speaker 1: outgroup humans, when it simply doesn't activate anymore. So when 293 00:18:25,880 --> 00:18:30,640 Speaker 1: we talk about dehumanization, what we're really talking about are 294 00:18:30,760 --> 00:18:34,800 Speaker 1: regions of the brain that think about other humans that 295 00:18:35,000 --> 00:18:38,280 Speaker 1: don't come online anymore. These regions are now out of 296 00:18:38,320 --> 00:18:42,200 Speaker 1: the equation, and in this scenario, when you are making 297 00:18:42,320 --> 00:18:46,520 Speaker 1: moral decisions about people who are in your outgroup, you 298 00:18:46,560 --> 00:18:52,760 Speaker 1: don't have these use social mechanisms steering your behavior. With psychopaths, 299 00:18:52,760 --> 00:18:55,680 Speaker 1: by the way, there are many subtle differences in their brains, 300 00:18:55,680 --> 00:18:57,800 Speaker 1: but one of the issues you see is this, they 301 00:18:57,880 --> 00:19:00,439 Speaker 1: just don't have these areas like the medial pre frontal 302 00:19:00,440 --> 00:19:04,760 Speaker 1: cortex emotionally steering their behavior, and so they're capable of 303 00:19:04,840 --> 00:19:08,080 Speaker 1: doing things like violence and murder because they don't care 304 00:19:08,119 --> 00:19:11,159 Speaker 1: about you. They're not simulating what it is like to 305 00:19:11,280 --> 00:19:15,919 Speaker 1: be you. They don't have the emotional feeling that's steering 306 00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:20,400 Speaker 1: around their decisions. And this is what happens when groups 307 00:19:20,880 --> 00:19:25,359 Speaker 1: dehumanize their neighbors. I have a photograph of a group 308 00:19:25,400 --> 00:19:28,320 Speaker 1: of German citizens and soldiers at the beginning of World 309 00:19:28,359 --> 00:19:33,480 Speaker 1: War Two making their Jewish neighbors scrub the pavement with toothbrushes, 310 00:19:33,880 --> 00:19:36,880 Speaker 1: and the Germans watching are having a great time posing 311 00:19:36,920 --> 00:19:39,679 Speaker 1: and laughing. And what's happening is that, because of the 312 00:19:39,760 --> 00:19:45,160 Speaker 1: social context that allows syndrome E, these emotional regions are 313 00:19:45,200 --> 00:19:49,480 Speaker 1: no longer online, and so their neighbors are not like 314 00:19:49,560 --> 00:19:55,400 Speaker 1: humans to them anymore. And this situation typifies genocides. Here's 315 00:19:55,440 --> 00:19:59,520 Speaker 1: a quotation from a Japanese general talking about his behavior 316 00:20:00,160 --> 00:20:03,880 Speaker 1: during the invasion of China. He explained his soldier's behavior 317 00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:07,160 Speaker 1: by saying, it was quote because we thought of them 318 00:20:07,280 --> 00:20:10,240 Speaker 1: as things, not as people like us. 319 00:20:10,440 --> 00:20:10,879 Speaker 2: End quote. 320 00:20:11,200 --> 00:20:14,440 Speaker 1: Here's a statement from a woman in Rwanda who orchestrated 321 00:20:14,480 --> 00:20:17,800 Speaker 1: the killing of thousands of Tutsi. She said, quote, we 322 00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:21,840 Speaker 1: thought of them as nothing more than insects or cockroaches. 323 00:20:22,359 --> 00:20:26,240 Speaker 1: Here's a quotation from an American sergeant stationed in Iraq. 324 00:20:26,359 --> 00:20:29,359 Speaker 1: He says, quote, you just sort of tried to block 325 00:20:29,400 --> 00:20:32,200 Speaker 1: out the fact that they're human beings and you see 326 00:20:32,200 --> 00:20:35,919 Speaker 1: them as enemies. So what we're talking about here is 327 00:20:35,960 --> 00:20:41,439 Speaker 1: the same neural issue across place and time. Dehumanization is 328 00:20:41,480 --> 00:20:44,600 Speaker 1: about turning off the parts of your brain that allow 329 00:20:44,680 --> 00:20:48,680 Speaker 1: you to understand what it is like to be someone else. 330 00:20:49,119 --> 00:20:53,880 Speaker 1: You may remember Anders Bravik, the Norwegian who murdered seventy 331 00:20:54,000 --> 00:20:57,520 Speaker 1: seven young people in twenty eleven. So back in twenty twelve, 332 00:20:57,560 --> 00:21:01,600 Speaker 1: I was following his trial closely, and here's what he said. 333 00:21:01,920 --> 00:21:04,159 Speaker 1: One might say I was quite normal in two thousand 334 00:21:04,160 --> 00:21:09,920 Speaker 1: and six when I started training, when I commenced de emotionalizing. 335 00:21:10,160 --> 00:21:15,240 Speaker 1: He said, I've had a dehumanization strategy towards those I 336 00:21:15,320 --> 00:21:19,240 Speaker 1: considered valid targets so I could come to the point 337 00:21:19,520 --> 00:21:23,240 Speaker 1: of killing them. He nailed it here. He knew that 338 00:21:23,359 --> 00:21:28,200 Speaker 1: his own training regime was about de emotionalizing. I mean, 339 00:21:28,200 --> 00:21:30,960 Speaker 1: he phrased exactly what we've been talking about here so far. 340 00:21:31,359 --> 00:21:36,000 Speaker 1: He worked, for example, with meditation, to hammer away any 341 00:21:36,119 --> 00:21:40,400 Speaker 1: emotional response he had to the idea of killing someone. 342 00:21:41,040 --> 00:21:43,480 Speaker 1: That's the way he trained. He worked to diminish the 343 00:21:43,520 --> 00:21:47,320 Speaker 1: response of his medial prefrontal cortex in other areas and 344 00:21:47,359 --> 00:21:50,960 Speaker 1: the networks involved in emotion. Now, we might lament the 345 00:21:51,040 --> 00:21:54,040 Speaker 1: fact that these programs are able to be overridden, but 346 00:21:54,119 --> 00:21:57,200 Speaker 1: we should be thankful for the fact that they're so 347 00:21:57,200 --> 00:22:03,000 Speaker 1: so difficult to override. Act like bravics is extremely rare. 348 00:22:03,240 --> 00:22:06,440 Speaker 1: Despite the logical ease of anyone pulling it off. Now, 349 00:22:06,440 --> 00:22:08,560 Speaker 1: if you're not that good at turning off your own 350 00:22:08,640 --> 00:22:11,840 Speaker 1: medial prefrontal cortex, you should know that there are always 351 00:22:11,960 --> 00:22:14,920 Speaker 1: groups that are willing to do this for you, and 352 00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:19,920 Speaker 1: that is the art and science of propaganda. So something 353 00:22:19,960 --> 00:22:23,280 Speaker 1: that I have always found amazing is looking at war posters. 354 00:22:23,720 --> 00:22:26,680 Speaker 1: For example, I have an American poster from World War One. 355 00:22:26,800 --> 00:22:31,600 Speaker 1: It shows a giant, crazy looking ape wearing a German helmet, 356 00:22:31,680 --> 00:22:34,760 Speaker 1: and on the helmet it reads militarism. And in one 357 00:22:34,800 --> 00:22:37,720 Speaker 1: hand the ape is carrying a huge club, and in 358 00:22:37,760 --> 00:22:41,920 Speaker 1: the other arm he's holding a beautiful woman whose arms 359 00:22:41,960 --> 00:22:45,959 Speaker 1: are flung over her head, and the poster reads, destroy 360 00:22:46,200 --> 00:22:50,199 Speaker 1: this mad brute enlist US Army. Now, I want to 361 00:22:50,240 --> 00:22:52,800 Speaker 1: point out that if you look at any propaganda poster 362 00:22:52,960 --> 00:22:56,480 Speaker 1: from any war at any time, on any side, you'll 363 00:22:56,480 --> 00:23:01,199 Speaker 1: see a common theme. You make your enemy less than human, 364 00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:04,639 Speaker 1: and making them explicitly an animal. 365 00:23:04,320 --> 00:23:05,919 Speaker 2: Is a very popular choice. 366 00:23:06,040 --> 00:23:08,600 Speaker 1: So in this case, the Germans are portrayed as a 367 00:23:09,040 --> 00:23:12,600 Speaker 1: bellicose ape coming onto American shores, and the fact that 368 00:23:12,640 --> 00:23:17,080 Speaker 1: he's stealing away a half naked, beautiful American woman makes 369 00:23:17,080 --> 00:23:19,520 Speaker 1: you even more mad about the whole thing. And this 370 00:23:19,680 --> 00:23:23,800 Speaker 1: is typical of propaganda posters. You always give the enemy 371 00:23:24,320 --> 00:23:28,240 Speaker 1: fangs and feral features. And the idea is you want 372 00:23:28,280 --> 00:23:32,200 Speaker 1: to shut off the networks that are involved in humanization. 373 00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:35,600 Speaker 1: You want your population to feel like we can do this, 374 00:23:35,720 --> 00:23:38,119 Speaker 1: We can go to war with these guys because they're 375 00:23:38,119 --> 00:23:42,560 Speaker 1: not like us, they're animals. Or consider this other propaganda 376 00:23:42,600 --> 00:23:46,040 Speaker 1: poster I have from Germany during World War Two, which 377 00:23:46,160 --> 00:23:52,400 Speaker 1: represents America as a giant mechanical robot monster toting guns 378 00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:56,119 Speaker 1: and bombs and destroying Europe. So it doesn't have to 379 00:23:56,119 --> 00:23:59,680 Speaker 1: be animals, just anything that's not human. And in fact, 380 00:23:59,720 --> 00:24:02,720 Speaker 1: when our Winian thinking got introduced in the eighteen hundreds, 381 00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:07,800 Speaker 1: lots of people took the opportunity to generate pseudoscience, suggesting 382 00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:11,480 Speaker 1: that whoever their enemy was, they were less than human. 383 00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:15,959 Speaker 1: This is a typical strategy to implement, and it can 384 00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:18,840 Speaker 1: even be done subtly. Some of you may remember that 385 00:24:18,960 --> 00:24:22,480 Speaker 1: when George W. Bush was running for president against Al Gore, 386 00:24:22,840 --> 00:24:26,160 Speaker 1: he did the same thing. His commercial ran and said 387 00:24:26,720 --> 00:24:30,000 Speaker 1: the Gore prescription plan, and then you see this big 388 00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:33,920 Speaker 1: word rats on the screen, and then after about half 389 00:24:33,960 --> 00:24:36,280 Speaker 1: a second is the word zooms out. You see it 390 00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:41,040 Speaker 1: actually says bureaucrats, and eventually, when it's all zoomed out, 391 00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:44,520 Speaker 1: it says bureaucrats decide. But what it starts with is 392 00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:49,680 Speaker 1: this giant word rats. The strategy of dehumanization is one 393 00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:52,720 Speaker 1: that people use to make your brain feel like it 394 00:24:52,760 --> 00:24:55,959 Speaker 1: doesn't have to think about the other person as a 395 00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:58,119 Speaker 1: fellow human. And I have a lot of goals with 396 00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:00,919 Speaker 1: this podcast, but one of them is to expose this 397 00:25:01,160 --> 00:25:05,080 Speaker 1: simple neural tricks that have been employed forever so that 398 00:25:05,160 --> 00:25:07,880 Speaker 1: you can know what to watch for. We'll come back 399 00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:09,600 Speaker 1: to this at the end. But the thing I want 400 00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:11,400 Speaker 1: you to keep an eye out for as you move 401 00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:15,280 Speaker 1: forward is when is someone using the technique of trying 402 00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:19,359 Speaker 1: to manipulate your assessment about some other group by making 403 00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:24,000 Speaker 1: them less than human, like animals or machines, or viruses 404 00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:28,280 Speaker 1: or insects. Once you start seeing the tricks of propaganda, 405 00:25:28,720 --> 00:25:33,000 Speaker 1: you'll find yourself more immune to them. So how does 406 00:25:33,040 --> 00:25:37,760 Speaker 1: the issue of dehumanization get studied in the laboratory? While 407 00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:41,600 Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy five, a researcher named Albert Bandura set 408 00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:44,520 Speaker 1: up a simple study. He had college students come in 409 00:25:44,600 --> 00:25:47,400 Speaker 1: to do an experiment. So you come into a room 410 00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:50,760 Speaker 1: and you're told that in this other room are three 411 00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:54,840 Speaker 1: college students and they're trying to learn some associations with words, 412 00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:58,240 Speaker 1: and you're there to help teach them. Whenever they get 413 00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:01,600 Speaker 1: a wrong answer, you you are to send an electrical 414 00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:04,040 Speaker 1: shock to them in the other room, but you get 415 00:26:04,040 --> 00:26:07,320 Speaker 1: to choose how high the level of that shock is 416 00:26:07,359 --> 00:26:09,360 Speaker 1: from one to ten, and you get to choose each 417 00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:10,480 Speaker 1: time they make a mistake. 418 00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:12,560 Speaker 2: So those are the rules of the game. 419 00:26:12,760 --> 00:26:16,639 Speaker 1: And what happens is just before the experiment starts, the 420 00:26:16,760 --> 00:26:21,959 Speaker 1: experiment to running, it accidentally leaves the intercom on and 421 00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:25,960 Speaker 1: you overhear him say these guys meaning the students that 422 00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:28,879 Speaker 1: you don't see, these guys are a bunch of animals, 423 00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:32,280 Speaker 1: or in a different condition he says, oh, those guys 424 00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:35,080 Speaker 1: are really nice, or in a third condition, he doesn't 425 00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:35,800 Speaker 1: say anything at all. 426 00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:36,520 Speaker 2: So that's it. 427 00:26:36,880 --> 00:26:40,800 Speaker 1: The only experimental variable is what you overhear him say. 428 00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:43,560 Speaker 2: So the experiment begins, and every time they get. 429 00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:46,480 Speaker 1: A wrong answer, you get to decide between one and 430 00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:49,960 Speaker 1: ten what level of electrical shock you're going to send. 431 00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:55,600 Speaker 1: And what Bandura found was striking in the dehumanized condition 432 00:26:55,760 --> 00:27:00,840 Speaker 1: where they're called animals, people send stronger sho the only 433 00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:03,560 Speaker 1: difference being that they heard them described as animals at 434 00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:07,280 Speaker 1: the beginning. In the neutral condition, where nothing is overheard, 435 00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:12,120 Speaker 1: they send milder shocks, And in the humanized condition, where 436 00:27:12,119 --> 00:27:15,600 Speaker 1: they overheard the compliment that they were nice, they sent 437 00:27:15,840 --> 00:27:19,680 Speaker 1: even smaller shocks on average, just by dint of having 438 00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:40,680 Speaker 1: heard a simple sentence that humanized them. So I want 439 00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:42,960 Speaker 1: to be clear that the issue of humanization is not 440 00:27:43,080 --> 00:27:46,600 Speaker 1: something that's just turned on or off. It's more subtle. 441 00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:49,840 Speaker 1: It's not just human or nonhuman. Your notion of what 442 00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:54,080 Speaker 1: you think about someone can be modulated quite subtly, and 443 00:27:54,119 --> 00:27:56,600 Speaker 1: this is one of the things we've studied in my laboratory. 444 00:27:57,040 --> 00:27:59,080 Speaker 1: So for me to explain this, let's talk for a 445 00:27:59,119 --> 00:28:03,840 Speaker 1: second about pain. Let's say you put your hand on 446 00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:06,760 Speaker 1: the table and I stab your hand with a syringe 447 00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:12,000 Speaker 1: needle that activates a particular series of areas in your brain, 448 00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:16,639 Speaker 1: a network that we summarize as the pain matrix, and 449 00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:18,840 Speaker 1: that network says out, I'm feeling pain. 450 00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:23,560 Speaker 2: Now. If you watch somebody else's hand get stabbed, it's 451 00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:24,320 Speaker 2: not your hand. 452 00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:27,720 Speaker 1: You're watching a video of someone else's hand get stabbed 453 00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:28,400 Speaker 1: with a syringe. 454 00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:28,760 Speaker 2: Needle. 455 00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:33,240 Speaker 1: What happens in the brain, most of this same network 456 00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:37,480 Speaker 1: becomes active. So these areas respond when you're in pain 457 00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:42,680 Speaker 1: or when you're watching somebody else in pain, and this 458 00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:46,800 Speaker 1: is the neural basis of empathy. Watching someone else in 459 00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:51,200 Speaker 1: pain and simulating what it is like for them. You're 460 00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:55,240 Speaker 1: running a simulation as if it were your hand. That's 461 00:28:55,240 --> 00:28:58,600 Speaker 1: what empathy is. You're literally simulating what it is like 462 00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:04,360 Speaker 1: to be the other person. Now, the surprise is, even 463 00:29:04,400 --> 00:29:07,600 Speaker 1: though this is a very low level neural response, it 464 00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:10,680 Speaker 1: can be modulated by what you think about the other person. 465 00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:13,640 Speaker 1: So there was an experiment done by my colleague Tania 466 00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:17,000 Speaker 1: Singer in which she had people play a little game 467 00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:21,200 Speaker 1: with other people where they're making decisions about exchanging money. 468 00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:21,440 Speaker 2: With each other. 469 00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:24,480 Speaker 1: What's called an economic decision game. I'll skip to details. 470 00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:26,920 Speaker 1: The important part is that the other person that you're 471 00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:30,600 Speaker 1: playing with is a shill, someone who's secretly working with 472 00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:35,360 Speaker 1: the experimenter, and they can either play fairly or unfairly. 473 00:29:35,600 --> 00:29:38,120 Speaker 1: So you're either playing with someone who you feel does 474 00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:40,640 Speaker 1: the right thing or against the person that you conclude 475 00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:43,120 Speaker 1: is a bit of a cheat. And then you get 476 00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:46,400 Speaker 1: to see the person get an electrical shock. Now the 477 00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:50,840 Speaker 1: question is how much does your brain care? Just based 478 00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:54,680 Speaker 1: on their behavior, whether they're fair or a cheater, your 479 00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:59,720 Speaker 1: empathy can be modulated you care more or less about 480 00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:02,440 Speaker 1: their pain. Now, I'll link to all these papers on 481 00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:06,040 Speaker 1: Eagleman dot com slash podcast, but I'll just mention there 482 00:30:06,080 --> 00:30:09,640 Speaker 1: are a lot of individual differences between the participants, and 483 00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:13,560 Speaker 1: on average, men showed this effect of losing their empathy 484 00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:16,280 Speaker 1: more than women did. But once again, the point is 485 00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:20,240 Speaker 1: that this very basic neural response about seeing someone else 486 00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:24,640 Speaker 1: in pain can get modulated. Now, this is based on 487 00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:27,800 Speaker 1: their behavior. And one of the things that I started 488 00:30:27,840 --> 00:30:30,440 Speaker 1: wondering about in my work was could this be based 489 00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:33,280 Speaker 1: on something that's not even behavior. You never even meet 490 00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:36,160 Speaker 1: the person, You never see the person, but it's just 491 00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:39,080 Speaker 1: based on the in group or outgroup that they're in. 492 00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:43,720 Speaker 1: Could that modulate empathy? So my student Don Vaughan and 493 00:30:43,760 --> 00:30:46,960 Speaker 1: I put people into the brain scanner and we show 494 00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:50,560 Speaker 1: you six hands on the screen. Then on each round, 495 00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:53,560 Speaker 1: the computer goes around and randomly picks one of those hands, 496 00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:56,360 Speaker 1: and that hand expands to the middle of the screen, 497 00:30:56,680 --> 00:30:59,200 Speaker 1: and then you see that hand get touched with a 498 00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:02,600 Speaker 1: Q tip or stabbed with a syringe needle. We can 499 00:31:02,680 --> 00:31:05,800 Speaker 1: trast those two conditions to find those areas of the 500 00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:09,560 Speaker 1: brain that are just involved in that difference. And as 501 00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:12,320 Speaker 1: I mentioned before, this is where we find a network 502 00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:17,280 Speaker 1: that we summarize as the pain matrix. Now that we've 503 00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:22,040 Speaker 1: established this baseline condition, we just make one very simple change, 504 00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:24,760 Speaker 1: which is now we label the six hands on the 505 00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:32,760 Speaker 1: screen with a one word label Christian, Jewish, Atheist, Muslim, Hindu, scientologist. 506 00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:36,959 Speaker 1: A hand gets selected, comes to the middle of the screen, 507 00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:39,000 Speaker 1: and then you either see if get touched with a 508 00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:43,360 Speaker 1: Q tip or stabbed. And the question is what's your 509 00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:46,440 Speaker 1: in group and how does your brain respond to seeing 510 00:31:46,600 --> 00:31:49,440 Speaker 1: that hand get hurt as opposed to one of the 511 00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:52,720 Speaker 1: other hands get hurt. So in the baseline case, where 512 00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:55,560 Speaker 1: there's no label, your brain shows a lot of activity 513 00:31:55,560 --> 00:31:58,920 Speaker 1: in this network. This is the empathic response. When you 514 00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:03,360 Speaker 1: watch your in group gets stabbed, you see this response 515 00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:07,280 Speaker 1: but larger. Your brain really really cares about your in 516 00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:10,520 Speaker 1: group in pain. And when you watch a hand labeled 517 00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:14,000 Speaker 1: as one of your out groups get stabbed, the response 518 00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:17,680 Speaker 1: is diminished, so you care a lot about your in 519 00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:21,960 Speaker 1: group and less about your out groups. And by the way, 520 00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:25,800 Speaker 1: we recruited participants of all different religions, and we see 521 00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:29,280 Speaker 1: this same in group out group effects for everyone. And 522 00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:31,360 Speaker 1: by the way of interest, is that we see the 523 00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:32,960 Speaker 1: same effect even. 524 00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:34,000 Speaker 2: For that atheists. 525 00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:37,520 Speaker 1: Atheists care when they see an atheist hand get stabbed, 526 00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:39,400 Speaker 1: and they don't care as much when they see someone 527 00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:42,240 Speaker 1: else's hand get stabbed. So this is a very basic 528 00:32:42,400 --> 00:32:47,400 Speaker 1: issue about labels. It's about who's team you're on. Now, 529 00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:52,120 Speaker 1: something that got me interested is understanding how flexible these 530 00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:55,760 Speaker 1: sorts of designations are. So if you look, for example, 531 00:32:56,200 --> 00:32:58,960 Speaker 1: before World War Two, the Americans and the Soviets hated 532 00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:01,840 Speaker 1: each other, and then during World War two they were 533 00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:05,200 Speaker 1: both allied against the Axis powers. So now they were 534 00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:08,280 Speaker 1: buddies and fighting side by side, and when the war ended, 535 00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:11,400 Speaker 1: they went back to a position of enmity. And I thought, 536 00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:15,360 Speaker 1: it's interesting how flexible labels are. So we did the 537 00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:17,960 Speaker 1: same experiment. We put you in the scanner, and now 538 00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:21,960 Speaker 1: it says the year is twenty thirty two, and three 539 00:33:22,080 --> 00:33:25,800 Speaker 1: of these religions have teamed up against the other three religions, 540 00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:28,880 Speaker 1: and it's randomly selected every time. Okay, so now you're 541 00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:30,760 Speaker 1: in the scanner and you see the six hands on 542 00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:35,840 Speaker 1: the screen. But now you have teammates, allies, these other 543 00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:39,320 Speaker 1: religions that you didn't care about a minute ago, Now 544 00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:42,400 Speaker 1: they're on your team. And the question is what happens 545 00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:45,560 Speaker 1: when you see someone else's hand get stabbed if they're 546 00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:49,040 Speaker 1: an in group but happen to be an ally And 547 00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:52,360 Speaker 1: the answer is we find particular regions in the brain 548 00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:56,560 Speaker 1: that are sensitive to these alliances, which is to say, 549 00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:58,920 Speaker 1: you know, five minutes ago, you didn't care at all 550 00:33:58,960 --> 00:34:01,760 Speaker 1: about this outgroup, and now just because we've told you 551 00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:05,160 Speaker 1: in a single sentenced narrative that this outgroup is on 552 00:34:05,200 --> 00:34:08,239 Speaker 1: your team, now you care a little more about them 553 00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:11,759 Speaker 1: when you see them get stabbed. So, even though labels, 554 00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:16,319 Speaker 1: like religious labels, run so deep, things are flexible, and 555 00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:18,480 Speaker 1: that got me interested in a third phase of the 556 00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:23,239 Speaker 1: experiment to really understand about the arbitrariness of labels. So 557 00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:25,560 Speaker 1: what we do is we have you come into the 558 00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:27,879 Speaker 1: lab and I hand you a coin, and I say 559 00:34:27,880 --> 00:34:30,680 Speaker 1: you're going to toss this coin. And if it's heads, 560 00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:34,839 Speaker 1: you're an Augustinian, if it's tails, you're a Justinian. That's 561 00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:36,560 Speaker 1: all I tell you. I don't tell you anything else. 562 00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:39,520 Speaker 1: So you toss the coin, let's say you're a Justinian. 563 00:34:39,719 --> 00:34:42,080 Speaker 1: So I now hand you a bracelet according to which 564 00:34:42,120 --> 00:34:44,360 Speaker 1: team you're on, and you put it on, and you 565 00:34:44,400 --> 00:34:46,919 Speaker 1: go into the scanner, and we give you a one 566 00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:52,800 Speaker 1: sentence narrative that the Justinians and Augustinians are two warring tribes, 567 00:34:53,239 --> 00:34:55,560 Speaker 1: and it's the same thing. And the computer chooses a 568 00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:58,960 Speaker 1: hand and you either see the Justinian hand get stabbed 569 00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:02,120 Speaker 1: or the Augustinian hand get stabbed. And the question is 570 00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:06,480 Speaker 1: does your brain care more about a team that you 571 00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:10,680 Speaker 1: were arbitrarily assigned to and you know it was arbitrary 572 00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:13,319 Speaker 1: because you're the one who flipped the coin. And the 573 00:35:13,400 --> 00:35:17,600 Speaker 1: answer is yes, it's a smaller effect, but a totally 574 00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:22,440 Speaker 1: arbitrary team label is sufficient to make you care more 575 00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:24,759 Speaker 1: for your in group. And this is at a very 576 00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:28,400 Speaker 1: low level. This is a very basic neural response. So 577 00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:30,440 Speaker 1: this is the kind of thing we've been studying, and 578 00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:34,400 Speaker 1: it's important not only for what it reveals about human nature, 579 00:35:34,440 --> 00:35:38,400 Speaker 1: but also because it gives us a diagnostic tool for 580 00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:42,240 Speaker 1: measuring the degree of in group outgroup. In other words, 581 00:35:42,360 --> 00:35:44,320 Speaker 1: how much do you care about your in group and 582 00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:46,319 Speaker 1: how much do you not care about your outgroup? We 583 00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:50,240 Speaker 1: can quantify that difference, and that gives us a tool 584 00:35:50,360 --> 00:35:56,080 Speaker 1: into the future to measure the effect of rehumanizing narratives. 585 00:35:56,600 --> 00:36:00,759 Speaker 1: In other words, what are the different interventional strategy that 586 00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:04,920 Speaker 1: we can use to actually make groups reconverge. So we'll 587 00:36:04,960 --> 00:36:07,520 Speaker 1: come back to that in next week's episode. What I've 588 00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:11,319 Speaker 1: told you about today is the issue of dehumanization and 589 00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:14,920 Speaker 1: how your brain dials up and down the degree to 590 00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:17,759 Speaker 1: which you view another person as human. And in next 591 00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:21,160 Speaker 1: week's episode, part two, I'm going to expand these points 592 00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:24,600 Speaker 1: to dive deeper into our brains to understand what we 593 00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:26,960 Speaker 1: can do about it. I've said this before, but I 594 00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:30,000 Speaker 1: want to be really clear about this point. The reason 595 00:36:30,080 --> 00:36:34,040 Speaker 1: we work to understand the science of human behavior is 596 00:36:34,080 --> 00:36:37,600 Speaker 1: because our psychology has been carved by millions of years 597 00:36:37,600 --> 00:36:41,440 Speaker 1: of evolutionary pressures, and what we see in history is 598 00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:45,960 Speaker 1: the same events playing out over and over again, wherein 599 00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:50,360 Speaker 1: groups of individuals turn on their neighbors and devour them. 600 00:36:50,520 --> 00:36:53,240 Speaker 1: And this is not academic stuff that makes no difference. 601 00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:56,040 Speaker 1: This is the most important work that we can devote 602 00:36:56,040 --> 00:36:59,600 Speaker 1: ourselves to understanding because as we come to understand the 603 00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:04,000 Speaker 1: detail of our psychology and the tools of propaganda. We 604 00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:08,200 Speaker 1: develop our capacity to at least recognize when we are 605 00:37:08,200 --> 00:37:12,440 Speaker 1: getting manipulated. So when a government or rebel group, or 606 00:37:12,480 --> 00:37:16,319 Speaker 1: your neighbor tells you something about the members of some 607 00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:19,359 Speaker 1: other country, or some other religion or some other group, 608 00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:22,520 Speaker 1: we can at least be a step ahead of our 609 00:37:22,840 --> 00:37:27,160 Speaker 1: predecessors in previous generations, who fell for the most basic 610 00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:28,640 Speaker 1: tricks over and over. 611 00:37:29,160 --> 00:37:31,360 Speaker 2: We can work to strengthen our. 612 00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:36,200 Speaker 1: Societies and improve our world by better understanding the fabric 613 00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:44,240 Speaker 1: of our own psyches. Go to Eagleman dot com slash 614 00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:48,480 Speaker 1: podcast for more information and further readings. Send me an 615 00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:52,520 Speaker 1: email at podcasts at eagleman dot com with questions or 616 00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:55,360 Speaker 1: any discussions, and I'll be making an episode soon in 617 00:37:55,400 --> 00:37:58,520 Speaker 1: which I address those. And check out and subscribe to 618 00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:02,520 Speaker 1: Inner Cosmos on YouTube for videos of each episode, and 619 00:38:02,560 --> 00:38:04,080 Speaker 1: you can leave comments there. 620 00:38:04,280 --> 00:38:07,720 Speaker 2: Until next time. I'm David Eagleman, and this is Inner 621 00:38:07,800 --> 00:38:08,440 Speaker 2: Cosmos