The brain has a strong egocentric bias; it makes it and us look good at every opportunity. This can mean that we struggle to empathize with people—because they aren’t us—and the brain mostly has things that have happened to us to go on when making decisions. However, a part of the brain, mainly the right supramarginal gyrus, has been shown to recognize and “correct” this bias, allowing us to empathize properly.
There’s also data showing it’s much harder to empathize when this area is disrupted, or you aren’t given time to think about it. Another intriguing experiment, led by Tania Singer from the Max Planck Institute, showed that there are other limits to this compensatory mechanism, by exposing pairs of people to varying tactile surfaces (they had to touch either something nice or something gross).39
They showed two people experiencing something unpleasant will be very good at empathizing correctly, recognizing the emotion and intensity of feeling in the other person, but if one is experiencing pleasure while the other is enduring unpleasantness, then the pleasure-experiencing person will seriously underestimate the other’s suffering. So the more privileged and comfortable someone’s life is, the harder it is for them to appreciate the needs and issues of those worse off. But as long as we don’t do something stupid like put the most pampered people in charge of running countries, we should be OK.
We have seen that the brain has an egocentric bias. Another (related) cognitive bias is called the “just world” hypothesis.40 This argues that the brain inherently assumes the world is fair and just, where good behavior gets rewarded and bad behavior is punished. This bias helps people function as a community because it means bad behavior is deterred before it happens, and people are inclined towards being nice (not that they wouldn’t be anyway, but this helps). It also motivates us; believing the world is random and all actions are ultimately meaningless won’t help you get out of bed at a reasonable hour.
Unfortunately, this isn’t true. Bad behavior isn’t always punished; good people often have bad things happen to them. But the bias is so ingrained in our brains that we stick to it anyway. So when we see someone who is an undeserving victim of something awful, this sets up a dissonance: the world is fair, but what happened to this person isn’t fair. The brain doesn’t like dissonance, so has two options: we can conclude the world is cruel and random after all, or decide that the victim did something to deserve it. The latter is crueler, but it lets us keep our nice cozy (incorrect) assumptions about the world, so we blame victims for their misfortune.
Numerous studies have shown this effect and its many manifestations. For example, people are less critical of victims if they themselves can intervene to alleviate their suffering, or if they were told the victims were compensated later. If people have no means to help victims, they’ll be more disparaging towards them. This, while seeming especially harsh, is consistent with the “just world” hypothesis: the victims have no positive outcome, so they must deserve it, surely?
People are also far more likely to blame a victim they strongly identify with. If you see someone of a different age/race/gender get hit by a falling tree, it’s much easier to sympathise. But if you see someone of your age, height, build, gender, driving a car just like yours and colliding with a house like the one you live in, you’re far more likely to blame that someone for being incompetent or stupid, despite having no evidence of this.
In the first instance, none of the factors apply to us, so it’s OK to blame random chance for what happens; it’s something that can’t affect us. The second could easily apply to us, so the brain rationalizes it as the fault of the individual involved. It must be their fault, because if it was random chance then it could happen to you. And that’s upsetting thinking.
It seems that, despite all the inclinations towards being sociable and friendly, our brain is so concerned with preserving a sense of identity and peace of mind that it makes us willing to screw over anyone and anything that could endanger this. Charming.
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* The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis is something of an annoyance to linguists, because it is a very misleading label. The supposed originators, Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, never actually co-authored anything, and never put forward a specific hypothesis. In essence, the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis didn’t exist until the term itself was coined, making it a very good example of itself. Nobody said linguistics had to be easy.
? There’s much theorizing and speculation as to which brain processes and areas of the brain are responsible for these socially relevant tendencies, but it’s difficult to pin these down even now. The more in-depth brain-scanning procedures such as MRI or EEG require the subject to be at least strapped into a large device in a lab, and it’s difficult to get a realistic social interaction going in such contexts. If you were wedged into an MRI scanner and somebody you know wandered in and started asking you for favors, your brain would probably be more confused than anything.
? One type of chemical often associated with attraction are pheromones, specific substances given off in sweat that other individuals detect and that alter their behavior, most often linked with increasing arousal and attraction towards the source of the pheromones. While human pheromones are regularly referred to (you can seemingly buy sprays laced with them if you’re looking to increase your sexual appeal), there’s currently no definitive evidence that humans have specific pheromones that influence attraction and arousal.19 The brain may often be an idiot, but it’s not so easily manipulated.
§ Retrospective investigations suggest the original reports of the crime were inaccurate, more urban legend than accurate report, something made up to sell newspapers. Despite this, the bystander effect is a real phenomenon. The murder of Kitty Genovese and supposed unwillingness of witnesses to intervene had other surreal consequences; it’s referenced in Alan Moore’s ground-breaking comic Watchmen, as the event that leads to the character Rorschach taking up vigilantism. Many say they’d love superhero comics to be real. Be careful what you wish for.
? Fans of Monty Python should be familiar with the “Four Yorkshiremen” sketch. This is (presumably accidentally) an excellent example of group polarization, if a rather surreal one by normal standards.
# There have also been many criticisms of these experiments. Some are to do with methods and interpretations, whereas others are about ethics. What right have scientists to make innocent people think they are torturing others? Such realizations can be very traumatic. Scientists have a reputation for being cold and dispassionate, and it’s sometimes easy to see why.
** Not to be confused with the social-brain hypothesis from earlier, because scientists never miss an opportunity to be confusing.
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When the brain breaks down . . .