• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

Spanish
sb-logo-with-brain
  • Resources
    • Monthly eNewsletter
    • Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle
    • The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness
    • How to evaluate brain training claims
    • Resources at a Glance
  • Brain Teasers
    • Top 25 Brain Teasers & Games for Teens and Adults
    • Brain Teasers for each Cognitive Ability
    • More Mind Teasers & Games for Adults of any Age
  • Virtual Summits
    • 2019 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • Speaker Roster
    • Brainnovations Pitch Contest
    • 2017 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2016 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2015 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2014 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
  • Report: Pervasive Neurotechnology
  • Report: Digital Brain Health
  • About
    • Mission & Team
    • Endorsements
    • Public Speaking
    • In the News
    • Contact Us

To harness our best selves, “Temper your empathy, train your compassion, and avoid the news”

September 1, 2020 by Greater Good Science Center

In the nov­el Lord of the Flies, a group of young boys are ship­wrecked on an island and even­tu­al­ly turn sav­age­ly against each oth­er. The book is a cau­tion­ary tale about humanity’s under­ly­ing cru­el­ty and the need for civ­i­liza­tion to tame our dark­er impulses—a mes­sage that res­onates with many peo­ple today.

But that’s not what hap­pened to a real-life group of ship­wrecked kids in 1965. Unlike the fic­tion­al Lord of the Flies char­ac­ters, they devel­oped a game plan for sur­vival that was coop­er­a­tive, fun, and peace­ful, result­ing in life­long friendships.

In oth­er words, the boys didn’t turn into dev­ils when left on their own—far from it!

Dutch his­to­ri­an Rut­ger Breg­man recounts this sto­ry in his new book Humankind: A Hope­ful His­to­ry, argu­ing against the Lord of the Flies’s unrea­son­ably dim pic­ture of human­i­ty. The key mes­sage in Bregman’s book is that humans are basi­cal­ly good, when left to their own devices.

That’s not to say there aren’t char­ac­ters who will act bad­ly, espe­cial­ly if encour­aged (or manip­u­lat­ed) to do so or when under duress. But the vast major­i­ty of us are hap­py to work togeth­er coop­er­a­tive­ly. This, he writes, is the only pos­si­ble con­clu­sion to make from the sci­en­tif­ic and his­tor­i­cal evidence.

And, he argues, it’s some­thing we des­per­ate­ly need to under­stand if we want to work togeth­er toward cre­at­ing a bet­ter soci­ety for all.

How we get it wrong

Some of the most famous evi­dence for our pes­simistic view of human nature comes from the Stan­ford Prison Exper­i­ment done by Philip Zim­bar­do in the ear­ly 1970s. In this exper­i­ment, Zim­bar­do brought stu­dents into a lab and had them act out roles as pris­on­ers and guards. Soon the exper­i­ment turned sour, as guards began act­ing too harsh­ly toward pris­on­ers, and it had to be shut down.

The exper­i­menters con­clud­ed that peo­ple are sadis­tic under­neath veneers of nor­mal­cy and can eas­i­ly be manip­u­lat­ed to do harm. But Breg­man points out that the results came about because the “guards” were encour­aged from the start to be harsh toward “pris­on­ers.” By enact­ing their roles, they thought they were con­tribut­ing to science—a kind and help­ful intent. Also, one stu­dent “pris­on­er” in the exper­i­ment, who sup­pos­ed­ly “broke down” and had to be removed, con­fessed to fak­ing his hys­te­ria in order to get back to study­ing. The whole study and its con­clu­sions were misrepresented.

“What’s fas­ci­nat­ing is that most guards in the Stan­ford Prison Exper­i­ment remained hes­i­tant to apply ‘tough tac­tics’ at all, even under mount­ing pres­sure,” writes Breg­man. In fact, a lat­er “prison exper­i­ment” mount­ed by the BBC, where guards were not told what to do, had very dif­fer­ent results. The guards soon became reluc­tant to take on their author­i­tar­i­an roles and became friend­ly with “pris­on­ers” instead.

Actu­al­ly, research sug­gests that peo­ple are quite unwill­ing to harm others—even in war situations—without strong coer­cion, which explains why leav­ing peo­ple to their own devices would pro­duce dif­fer­ent results.

Breg­man takes read­ers through many exper­i­ments and events that seem to point to our flawed natures, and debunks them one by one. For exam­ple, we learn that the famous sto­ry about Kit­ty Genovese—a woman who was bru­tal­ly raped and mur­dered in Queens, New York, while neigh­bors sup­pos­ed­ly did noth­ing to help—is large­ly fic­tion, per­pet­u­at­ed by the New York Times cov­er­age of her death. It turns out that the Times’s claim about 37 heart­less bystanders was false, and peo­ple did come to her aid, includ­ing a neigh­bor who held her while wait­ing for an ambu­lance to arrive.

Still, this sto­ry of uncon­cerned bystanders is retold over and over as proof of human indif­fer­ence and, like the Stan­ford Prison Exper­i­ment, graces many social psy­chol­o­gy text­books. There­in lies the problem.

Why does it matter?

The dan­ger in con­tin­u­ing to repeat false con­clu­sions from flawed research is that it feeds a nar­ra­tive that doesn’t serve us. Peo­ple hear­ing these find­ings start to believe that sadists lurk among us and they can’t trust oth­ers, when most of the time they can. It also sup­ports the idea that only through strict social con­trol from on high—dictatorships or police states, for example—can we stop our com­mu­ni­ties from devolv­ing into chaos.

Accord­ing to Breg­man, it’s impor­tant to under­stand that our true nature is (most­ly) good, because it can encour­age us to cre­ate insti­tu­tions with less hier­ar­chi­cal struc­tures and less sti­fling lead­er­ship. And these ways of orga­niz­ing our­selves can have bet­ter outcomes.

For exam­ple, he high­lights the home nurs­ing pro­gram Buurt­zorg, cre­at­ed first in the Nether­lands, in which nurs­es cut out the man­age­ment and cre­at­ed a coop­er­a­tive that has been cost-effec­tive and pro­vides bet­ter patient care. He men­tions city gov­ern­ments in Brazil that enact­ed pub­lic bud­get­ing processes—where cit­i­zens had more say in how city funds were spent—that result­ed in more health care spend­ing, few­er infant deaths, and more civic engage­ment. And, he writes, schools that are less puni­tive and more coop­er­a­tive, and allow stu­dents to be more in charge of their edu­ca­tion, help improve stu­dents’ intrin­sic motivation—one of the most impor­tant fac­tors for learning.

The “tragedy of the commons”—the idea that pub­lic resources shared by many (like air, water, and land) can be deplet­ed if peo­ple use them in a self-inter­est­ed way—has long been an influ­en­tial idea in eco­nom­ics. But Breg­man points to the work of Eli­nor Ostrom, the Nobel Prize–winning econ­o­mist, who stud­ied how peo­ple around the world actu­al­ly man­age the com­mons when left to their own devices. Her research paved the way for under­stand­ing that once cer­tain ele­ments are present, peo­ple act coop­er­a­tive­ly and don’t require social control—a find­ing that res­onates with many econ­o­mists today.

This pos­i­tive view of human nature can inform us about how police should han­dle crime pre­ven­tion and prison reform, too, writes Breg­man. Too often peo­ple believe that get­ting “tough on crime” and giv­ing harsh prison sen­tences are what lead to crime reduc­tion. But, Breg­man argues, police depart­ments that fol­low tough-on-crime tac­tics (like arrest­ing peo­ple for minor vio­la­tions) increase incar­cer­a­tion rates with­out reduc­ing crime. Mean­while, pris­ons that treat their pris­on­ers humanely—by keep­ing sen­tences short and focus­ing on cre­at­ing a more nat­ur­al, com­mu­ni­ty-based sys­tem inside the walls of the prison—prevent more crime and recidi­vism and are more cost-effec­tive than those that don’t.

The book is full of oth­er fas­ci­nat­ing exam­ples of places and pro­grams being remade based on human good­ness and trust. Bregman’s take-home mes­sage is that our bet­ter nature will win out, if we can only rec­og­nize its ubiquity.

That means rec­og­niz­ing the poten­tial for good­ness in every­one, even groups of peo­ple who look, think, or act dif­fer­ent­ly from us whom we might be prej­u­diced against. One way to do so, research sug­gests, is to work on build­ing pos­i­tive con­tact across groups—like friend­ships and coop­er­a­tive work relationships—that will increase our trust for others.

Breg­man lists sev­er­al oth­er tips at the end of his book that peo­ple can use to see the good­ness in humanity—things like “When in doubt, trust first,” “Tem­per your empa­thy, train your com­pas­sion,” and “Avoid the news.” If we take the view that we are born to be good, we can make a soci­ety that is fair­er and freer for all, he says. That doesn’t take opti­mism; it just takes pay­ing atten­tion to sci­ence and experience.

“To believe that peo­ple are hard­wired to be kind isn’t sen­ti­men­tal or naïve. On the con­trary, it’s coura­geous and real­is­tic to believe in peace and for­give­ness,” he writes.

— Jill Sut­tie, Psy.D., is Greater Good‘s  book review edi­tor and a fre­quent con­trib­u­tor to the mag­a­zine. Based at UC-Berke­ley, Greater Good high­lights ground break­ing sci­en­tif­ic research into the roots of com­pas­sion and altru­ism. Copy­right Greater Good.

To Learn More:

  • New book Humankind: A Hope­ful History
  • Study finds a key ingre­di­ent in mind­ful­ness train­ing: Accep­tance (not acquiescence)
  • Four tips to prac­tice good men­tal hygiene dur­ing the coro­n­avirus outbreak
  • New study rein­forces the impor­tance of walk­ing through forests for men­tal and gen­er­al health
  • Six tips to build resilience and pre­vent brain-dam­ag­ing stress
  • Three ways to pro­tect your men­tal health dur­ing –and after– COVID-19

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Peak Performance Tagged With: brain-damaging stress, coronavirus, humankind, Lord of the Flies, mental health, mental hygiene, mindfulness, Rutger Bregman

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Mary Binney says

    September 7, 2020 at 4:51

    Loved it!

Primary Sidebar

Top Articles on Brain Health and Neuroplasticity

  1. Can you grow your hippocampus? Yes. Here’s how, and why it matters
  2. How learning changes your brain
  3. To harness neuroplasticity, start with enthusiasm
  4. Three ways to protect your mental health during –and after– COVID-19
  5. Why you turn down the radio when you're lost
  6. Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle Is the Key to Self-Empowered Aging
  7. Ten neu­rotech­nolo­gies about to trans­form brain enhance­ment & health
  8. Five reasons the future of brain enhancement is digital, pervasive and (hopefully) bright
  9. What Educators and Parents Should Know About Neuroplasticity and Dance
  10. The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Brains
  11. Six tips to build resilience and prevent brain-damaging stress
  12. Can brain training work? Yes, if it meets these 5 conditions
  13. What are cognitive abilities and how to boost them?
  14. Eight Tips To Remember What You Read
  15. Twenty Must-Know Facts to Harness Neuroplasticity and Improve Brain Health

Top 10 Brain Teasers and Illusions

  1. You think you know the colors? Try the Stroop Test
  2. Check out this brief attention experiment
  3. Test your stress level
  4. Guess: Are there more brain connections or leaves in the Amazon?
  5. Quick brain teasers to flex two key men­tal mus­cles
  6. Count the Fs in this sentence
  7. Can you iden­tify Apple’s logo?
  8. Ten classic optical illu­sions to trick your mind
  9. What do you see?
  10. Fun Mental Rotation challenge
  • Check our Top 25 Brain Teasers, Games and Illusions

Join 12,620 readers exploring, at no cost, the latest in neuroplasticity and brain health.

By subscribing you agree to receive our free, monthly eNewsletter. We don't rent or sell emails collected, and you may unsubscribe at any time.

IMPORTANT: Please check your inbox or spam folder in a couple minutes and confirm your subscription.

Get In Touch!

Contact Us

660 4th Street, Suite 205,
San Francisco, CA 94107 USA

About Us

SharpBrains is an independent market research firm tracking health and performance applications of brain science. We prepare general and tailored market reports, publish consumer guides, produce an annual global and virtual conference, and provide strategic advisory services.

© 2022 SharpBrains. All Rights Reserved - Privacy Policy