Moral predispositions leave robust, and sometimes unexpected, traces. The human tendency to divide the social world into groups, to prefer our own group and go against others, is inherited, in part, from predispositions that are expressed very early in life. One example that has been particularly well studied is language and accent. Young children look more at a person who has a similar accent and speaks their mother tongue (another reason to advocate bilingualism). Over time, this bias in our gazes disappears but it transforms into other manifestations.
At two years old, children are more predisposed to accept toys from those who speak their native language. Later, at school age, this effect becomes more explicit in the friends they choose. As adults, we are already familiar with the cultural, emotional, social and political segregations that emerge simply based on speaking different languages in neighbouring regions. But this is not only an aspect of language. In general, throughout their development, children choose to relate to the same type of individuals they would have preferentially directed their gaze at in early childhood.
Children have very early (often innate) intuitions _ what the developmental psychologists Liz Spelke and Susan Carey refer to as core knowledge. These intuitions are revealed in very specific experimental circumstances, in which children direct their gaze or are asked to choose between two alternatives. But core knowledge is not accessible on demand in most real-life situations where it may be needed. This is because at a younger age core knowledge cannot be accessed explicitly and represented in words or concrete symbols.
In the epic task of understanding human thought, the division between biology, psychology and neuroscience is a mere declaration of caste. Nature doesn’t care a fig for such artificial barriers between types of knowledge.
Our brains today are practically identical to those of at least 60,000 years ago, when modern man migrated from Africa and culture was completely different. This shows that individuals’ paths and potential for expression are forged within their social niches.
It’s virtually impossible to understand human behavior without taking into consideration the traits of the organ that comprises it: the brain. The way in which social knowledge and biological knowledge interact and complement each other depends, obviously, on each case and its circumstances. There are some cases in which the biological constitution is decisive. And others are determined primarily by culture and the social fabric. It is not very different from what happens with the rest of the body. Physiologists and coaches know that physical fitness can change enormously during our life while, on the other hand, our running speed, for example, doesn’t have such a wide range of variation.
The biological and the cultural are always intrinsically related. And not in a linear manner. In fact, a completely unfounded intuition is that biology precedes behavior, that there is an innate biological predisposition that can later follow, through the effect of culture, different trajectories.
The social fabric affects the very biology of the brain. This is clear in a dramatic example observed in the brains of two three-year-old children. One is raised with affection in a normal environment while the other lacks emotional, educational and social stability. The brain of the latter is not only abnormally small but its ventricles, the cavities through which cerebrospinal fluid flows, have an abnormal size as well.
Different social experiences result in completely distinct brains. A caress, a word, an image – every life experience leaves a trace in the brain. These traces modify the brain and, with it, one’s way of responding to things, one’s predisposition to relating to someone, one’s desires, wishes and dreams. In other words, the social context changes the brain, and this in turn defines who we are as social beings.
Our choices define us. We choose to take risks or live conservatively, to lie when it seems convenient or to make the truth a priority, no matter what the cost. We choose to save up for a distant future or live in the moment. The vast sum of our actions comprises the outline of our identities.
Almost all decisions are mundane, because the overwhelming majority of our lives are spent day-to-day. Deciding whether we’ll visit a friend after work, if we should take the bus or the Under-ground; choosing between chips or a salad. Imperceptibly, we compare the universe of possible options on a mental scale, and after thinking it over we finally choose (chips, of course). When choosing between these alternatives, we activate the brain circuits that make up our mental decision-making machine.
Our decisions are almost always made based on incomplete information and imprecise data. When a parent chooses what school to send their child to, or a Minister of Economics decides to change the tax policy, or a football player opts to shoot at goal instead of passing to a teammate in the penalty area – in each and every one of these occasions it is only possible to sketch an approximate idea of the impending consequences of our decisions. Making decisions is a bit like predicting the future, and as such is inevitably imprecise. Eppur si muove. The machine works. That is what’s most extraordinary.
The brain converts the information it has gathered from the senses into votes for one option or the other. The votes pile up in the form of ionic currents accumulated in a neuron until they reach a threshold where the brain deems there is sufficient evidence.
Consider, for example, a driver stopping at a traffic light. The driver’s brain is making a great number of estimations: the probability that the light may turn amber or red, the distance to the crossing, the speed of the car, the effectiveness of the brakes, the traffic etc. Not only this: the driver’s brain is also pondering the urgency, the consequences of an accident . .. In the vast majority of cases (except when something goes wrong and the monitoring system of the brain takes control) these considerations are not explicit. We are not aware of all these calculations. Yet our brains do make this sophisticated calculus, which results in a decision of when and how hard we will hit the brake pedal. This specific example reveals a general principle: decision-makers know much more than they believe they do.
Source : The Secret Life of the Mind: How Your Brain Thinks, Feels, and Decides by Mariano Sigman
Goodreads : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32498119-the-secret-life-of-the-mind
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