Max S. Dunn

Book: A Mind of its Own

Posted by: Max Dunn on January 17, 2011 09:39:52

Wow, this might be my favorite book I read this semester! Not only it is an important book for understanding our beliefs and actions, it was also well written bringing in funny stories of the author's life to give a personal context to many of the points.

Take this for example: they hypnotized some normal Stanford students and told them that when they heard a buzzer they would act as if aroused. Some students were given the gentle hint that the reason for their arousal might lie with other people. When brought out of hypnosis and the buzzer sounded, sure enough, they felt aroused. But here is the interesting part: these students became paranoid, hostile, and vindictive, so much so that professional clinicians confidently diagnosed that 80% of them were pathologically disturbed and officially insane. No wonder since they "became inarticulate, confused, hyperactive, angrily banging on the desk, in near tears, frightened, picking away at a scab, anxious, or developed an uncontrollable muscle tick." Yet seconds after their memory of the hypnotic suggestion was restored, they were fine. It is scary that something so small such as an unexplained arousal could cause us to act insane!

But that is not all of the weird and unexpected things our brains do to us. It turns out that our bodies produce a one-size-fits-all emotional response. Psychologist have long thought that our bodies response would be different to different emotions, whether it was nervousness about taking a test, excitement over winning the lottery or the stress of running to catch a bus. But it turns out that our body responds the same in all these cases. It is only the same arousal plus our emotional thoughts that creates emotions. While the intensity of the arousal varies, it is only our brain layering thoughts on top of it that creates emotions. So no wonder the Stanford students went temporarily insane when their arousal couldn't be easily explained by their brain!

There is so much more good stuff like this that I wished it had a summary of its findings. But without that, here are some of the results I found interesting.

• The brain is very vain and can trick itself into believing pretty much anything it wants. The only class of people who get unusually close to the truth are those that are clinically depressed.
• If we are not aware that we are in a particular mood, we can often mistakenly let that mood influence our opinions of other things. However, we can sometimes protect ourselves from the ups-and-downs of or moods as long as we are aware of them. (This is why meeting check-ins work so well!)
• We judge ourselves by our intentions but other people by their actions. (This same point was made in "The Speed of Trust". It also remains me of the corollary point from AA "Don't judge your insides by other people's outsides.")
• Our brains have a sneaky habit of seeing correlations that we expect, even if they are not really there. This is why placebos work so well and prejudice exists.
• When we encounter evidence that supports an existing belief, we uncritically accept it as true. However, evidence that goes against our beliefs is scrutinized carefully. As a result, after seeing counterevidence, our beliefs may become more fully entrenched. This is called belief polarization and explains why attempting to convince someone of their mistaken belies is so often futile. However, effusive flattery can often subdue an intellectual opponent better than air-tight logic.
• If a lie or misconception is passed around, a web of evidence is built up to support it. Later, if the lie is revealed, often the belief remains because the web of explanation is strong enough to support the belief without the initial fact even being true. For instance, if a rumor goes around that a teenage girl is pregnant, the web will be built illustrating her lack of morals and later, when the rumor is proved false, people will still tend to think less of the slandered girl. This is also why negative campaigning works, even when the accusations are not true. 
• Rewarding behavior can often make it unrewarding. For instance, when half a group of children are rewarded to draw, a few days later they will be less likely to want to draw than the other half that weren't rewarded.
• Even modest feats of self-control leave us in a surprisingly weakened state so that subsequently, we are much less likely to exhibit self-control. Also, our moral fiber can easily be upset by a bad mood. So to keep our moral will it should not be overworked, have only happiness and light around it and feel beloved and cherished. However, exercising our moral muscle can help bolster it and the secret to developing good habits is to form an implementation plan.
• Unfortunately, our brains our quite bigoted and by unconsciously priming them with a stereotype causes us to distort our interpretations and actions. However, the good news is that when the truth about these stereotype threats are revealed, it can help set us quash their influence. 
• The true motives for our actions remain disturbingly obscure much of the time.

So it is true: our brains have a mind of their own.