0:00:12.130,0:00:16.859 Hi, I am Paul Bloom and I’m a Professor[br]of Psychology at Yale University. 0:00:16.859,0:00:23.240 And what I want to do today is talk about the field psychology, the science[br]of the human mind. 0:00:26.320,0:00:31.050 Now, I’m admittedly biased, but I think[br]psychology is the most interesting of all 0:00:31.050,0:00:32.049 fields. 0:00:32.049,0:00:34.030 It’s the most interesting because it’s[br]about us. 0:00:34.030,0:00:38.340 It’s about the most important and intimate[br]aspects of our lives. 0:00:38.340,0:00:43.689 It's about language and[br]perception. It's about our memory of things, it's about our dreams 0:00:43.689,0:00:47.600 Love, hate. It's about morality our sense of right and wrong. 0:00:47.600,0:00:53.429 It's about when things go wrong, as in depression or anxiety, 0:00:53.429,0:00:55.019 it's about happiness. 0:00:55.019,0:00:58.250 It's about everything that matters to us. 0:00:58.555,0:01:03.435 Psychology is a huge field and it breaks up into different sub fields. 0:01:03.440,0:01:06.880 Some psychologists study the brain, they study neuroscience,. 0:01:06.880,0:01:09.860 The question of how this physical lump of flesh we have 0:01:09.860,0:01:13.049 gives rise to our mental life. 0:01:13.049,0:01:16.680 Others, like me, are Developmental Psychologists. 0:01:16.680,0:01:21.310 We study how babies turn into children and how children turn into adults. 0:01:21.380,0:01:24.460 How does a baby or child think differently than an adult. 0:01:24.480,0:01:26.580 How much of it is hardwired? 0:01:26.580,0:01:27.790 How much of it do we have to learn? 0:01:28.810,0:01:30.530 Some psychologists study Social Psychology. 0:01:30.530,0:01:33.760 Which concerns the relationship of people to other people. 0:01:33.760,0:01:38.430 As with regard to question like prejudice or persuasion. 0:01:38.630,0:01:40.230 Others are Cognitive Psychologists. 0:01:40.250,0:01:43.920 Cognitive psychologist treats the brain like a complicated computer. 0:01:43.930,0:01:47.360 And asks questions like how do we solve computation problems 0:01:47.360,0:01:52.220 like understanding language or recognizing faces or remembering facts. 0:01:52.220,0:01:56.470 Some Psychologists approach this from an evolutionary perspective 0:01:56.470,0:02:00.530 Looking at the question of how the mind evolved. 0:02:00.530,0:02:03.910 and how the origin, the evolutionary origins of the mind 0:02:03.910,0:02:08.150 give us insight into how we think in the here and now. 0:02:08.250,0:02:12.010 Many people when they think of psychology they think of clinical psychology 0:02:12.010,0:02:14.895 they think of Dr. Phil and Freud and 0:02:14.895,0:02:17.230 people who are involved with mental illness. 0:02:17.230,0:02:19.680 and alot of psychologists do study this. 0:02:19.680,0:02:24.030 One huge and important field of psychology involves exploring the 0:02:24.030,0:02:25.970 diagnosis and the causes 0:02:25.970,0:02:29.320 and particularly the treatments mental illnesses. 0:02:29.320,0:02:31.930 Illnesses like schizophrenia, depression, 0:02:31.930,0:02:34.590 obsessive compulsive disorders, phobias. 0:02:34.590,0:02:36.400 and so many other things. 0:02:36.400,0:02:39.140 I'm going to talk about 3 separate case studies. 0:02:39.140,0:02:41.630 I'm going to talk about compassion. 0:02:41.630,0:02:44.990 racism, and sex. 0:02:44.990,0:02:48.160 And I'm going to use these case studies as a way 0:02:48.180,0:02:50.110 to introduce you to psychology. 0:02:51.350,0:02:54.160 The first case study is compassion. 0:02:54.160,0:02:57.390 what I mean by compassion[br]is concern for other people. 0:02:57.390,0:03:00.019 This is particularly interesting to me. 0:03:00.019,0:03:05.909 This is my own research program and my own[br]laboratory at Yale; we look at the emergence 0:03:05.909,0:03:08.470 of morality in babies and young children. 0:03:08.470,0:03:11.050 And we particularly focus on the emergence[br]of compassion. 0:03:11.050,0:03:14.430 At what point in development do babies care[br]about others? 0:03:14.430,0:03:20.810 At what point in development does feelings[br]of empathy and sympathy, sometimes anger, 0:03:20.810,0:03:23.780 guilt, other moral emotions.[br]How do they arise? 0:03:23.780,0:03:26.030 To what extent are they built in? 0:03:26.030,0:03:28.110 To what extent do they have to be learned? 0:03:28.110,0:03:33.665 As a starting point, I have here a picture[br]of a baby 0:03:33.665,0:03:36.305 and inside the baby’s head is[br]the baby’s brain. 0:03:36.660,0:03:40.090 The baby’s brain is an extraordinary computing[br]machine. 0:03:40.090,0:03:41.980 There are by some estimates 0:03:41.980,0:03:45.950 100 billion neurons in a babies brain. 0:03:47.290,0:03:48.290 Now neurons are basic cells 0:03:48.290,0:03:50.629 that process and transmit information. 0:03:50.629,0:03:56.150 And by one estimate, there’s about 1.8 million[br]connections between neurons that are created 0:03:56.150,0:03:58.060 per second. 0:03:58.060,0:04:03.500 To give you a feeling of the complexity of[br]the baby’s brain, I use an analogy from 0:04:03.500,0:04:04.500 Jeff Hawkins. 0:04:04.500,0:04:05.959 Imagine a football stadium. 0:04:05.959,0:04:12.629 Fill it up with cooked spaghetti, then shrink[br]it to the size of a soccer ball. 0:04:12.629,0:04:16.500 Then make it much, much, much denser. 0:04:16.500,0:04:18.170 And then you’ll have some understanding[br] 0:04:18.170,0:04:21.530 of how much is going on inside a brain, 0:04:21.530,0:04:23.660 inside even a babies brain. 0:04:23.660,0:04:25.780 Now, that much we know for sure, 0:04:25.780,0:04:27.900 but where the real debate goes on 0:04:27.900,0:04:29.770 concerns the nature 0:04:29.770,0:04:31.320 of that computational structure. 0:04:36.470,0:04:39.605 There’s one of view that is held by many[br] 0:04:39.605,0:04:43.165 philosophers and many psychologists which is that the 0:04:43.165,0:04:48.830 brain starts off as a blank slate, what the[br]philosopher, John Locke, called “a Tabula[br]Rasa.” 0:04:49.170,0:04:53.931 And what goes on in development, the point[br]of all those connections per second is learning, 0:04:53.931,0:04:56.620 is sucking up information from the environment. 0:04:56.620,0:05:03.670 The baby starts off knowing nothing and turns[br]into an adult, by virtue of absorbing information 0:05:03.670,0:05:05.660 at a tremendously powerful rate. 0:05:06.660,0:05:10.850 Many philosophers and many psychologists,[br]including me and my colleagues are more enamored 0:05:10.850,0:05:12.460 of another view.[br] 0:05:12.505,0:05:14.902 We don’t deny that learning takes place,[br] 0:05:14.902,0:05:17.102 but we would argue that in addition to that, 0:05:17.102,0:05:22.680 there is an extraordinary early understanding,[br]early specialization. 0:05:22.680,0:05:27.240 The brain could better be understood in terms[br]of what the psychologists, Leda Cosmides and 0:05:27.240,0:05:31.730 John Tooby, described as a Swiss Army knife,[br]has many different parts. 0:05:31.730,0:05:35.440 And each part is specialized for a different[br]function. 0:05:35.440,0:05:40.190 Now, so much of the action in psychology has[br]been a running debate over which view is right. 0:05:40.190,0:05:42.120 And this concerns morality. 0:05:42.120,0:05:45.150 Both moral judgements 0:05:45.150,0:05:46.170 right and wrong 0:05:46.170,0:05:47.700 but also moral feelings 0:05:47.700,0:05:50.350 including compassion. 0:05:51.870,0:05:56.990 Many people would argue that in that regard,[br]the baby starts off with nothing. 0:05:56.990,0:05:59.130 The idea is that children start off immoral,[br] 0:05:59.130,0:06:01.220 monsters or if not monsters, 0:06:01.220,0:06:03.040 at least they know not from good and evil. 0:06:03.800,0:06:06.720 This is not the view which I think is supported[br]by the data. 0:06:06.720,0:06:11.050 I think there is now more and more data in[br]support of a different view of compassion. 0:06:11.050,0:06:12.910 One way to make a baby cry 0:06:12.910,0:06:15.175 is to expose it to the cries of other babies. 0:06:15.175,0:06:17.700 There’s sort of contagiousness to the crying. 0:06:17.700,0:06:18.780 It’s not just crying. 0:06:18.780,0:06:25.700 We also know that if a baby sees another human[br]in silent pain, it will distress the baby. 0:06:25.700,0:06:30.000 It seems part of our very nature is to suffer[br]at the suffering of others. 0:06:30.790,0:06:32.785 We know that young babies, 0:06:32.785,0:06:37.452 as they become capable of moving voluntarily will share.[br] 0:06:37.452,0:06:39.201 They will share food, for instance, 0:06:39.201,0:06:41.811 with their siblings and with kids that are around. 0:06:42.020,0:06:43.410 They will sooth. 0:06:43.410,0:06:48.310 If they see somebody else in pain, even the[br]youngest of toddlers will try to reach out 0:06:48.310,0:06:49.750 and pat the person. 0:06:49.750,0:06:51.370 Maybe hand over a toy. 0:06:51.370,0:06:56.550 There’s some lovely studies finding that[br]slightly older children are able to help others 0:06:56.550,0:07:01.760 when they see somebody who is unable to fulfill[br]a goal, they’ll seek out to come to their 0:07:01.760,0:07:02.760 aid. 0:07:02.760,0:07:06.460 So one elegant demonstration of this comes[br]from a recent set of experiments 0:07:06.460,0:07:08.760 Where they take a toddler 0:07:08.760,0:07:10.240 put him or her in a situation 0:07:10.240,0:07:12.070 where an adult is in some sort of 0:07:12.070,0:07:14.380 mild distress and see if the toddler 0:07:14.380,0:07:16.280 will voluntarily help 0:07:16.280,0:07:17.830 even without any prompting. 0:07:17.830,0:07:19.290 And they find that toddlers typically do. 0:07:19.290,0:07:24.600 There seems to be some sort of impulse in[br]us that’s altruistic, that’s kind, that’s 0:07:24.600,0:07:27.300 compassionate. 0:07:27.300,0:07:34.360 In all of these cases; however, the kindness[br]that we see seems to apply to people who are 0:07:34.360,0:07:36.090 close to us, who are either physically in[br] 0:07:36.090,0:07:39.490 our proximity or who are our siblings or our[br] 0:07:39.490,0:07:41.870 parents or our friends. 0:07:41.870,0:07:46.020 So the question arises, how broad does this[br]compassion extend? 0:07:46.020,0:07:50.300 Now some people would argue that we start[br]off with a very broad compassion, we would 0:07:50.300,0:07:53.580 extend it to all individuals, to all people. 0:07:53.580,0:07:57.580 But there’s evidence support a somewhat[br]different view, which is, there’s a moral 0:07:57.580,0:08:01.500 instinct in us, there’s a moral sense in[br]us, but it’s initially very narrow. 0:08:01.500,0:08:03.600 It’s only triggered by those close to us. 0:08:03.780,0:08:10.310 In fact, our natural default feelings towards[br]a stranger, far from being compassionate, 0:08:10.310,0:08:14.430 is actually some sort of mixture of fear and[br]hatred. 0:08:20.000,0:08:22.310 We see this in all sorts of different ways. 0:08:22.310,0:08:26.080 So in young children, we see it in what’s[br]called, “stranger anxiety.” 0:08:26.080,0:08:31.430 At around nine months of age, babies start[br]becoming panicked at the presence of strangers. 0:08:31.430,0:08:34.390 and it sees to capture a universal part 0:08:34.390,0:08:38.240 of development where the other is thought of as dangerous. 0:08:38.240,0:08:42.080 This sort of stranger anxiety fades in some[br]cultures. 0:08:42.080,0:08:44.070 If you were to find yourself in an airport[br] 0:08:44.070,0:08:46.270 in a new city, you’re not likely to have[br] 0:08:46.270,0:08:48.430 a panic attack because you’re surrounded[br] 0:08:48.430,0:08:50.980 by people you don’t know. But in small scale 0:08:50.980,0:08:54.270 human societies, it might never go away. 0:08:54.270,0:08:59.590 In a situation when an individual is raised[br]with a few hundred other individuals around 0:08:59.590,0:09:03.070 them, that is their circle of compassion. 0:09:03.070,0:09:06.170 And their response to others is not positive.[br] 0:09:06.170,0:09:08.140 This is an observation that’s been made[br] 0:09:08.140,0:09:10.910 by many anthropologists who study small scale 0:09:10.910,0:09:12.010 societies. 0:09:12.010,0:09:17.800 So for instance, anthropologist, Jared Diamond,[br]talking about small scale societies in papua new guinea 0:09:17.800,0:09:22.930 writes, “To venture out of one’s[br]territory to meet other humans, even if they 0:09:22.930,0:09:27.370 lived only a few miles away, was equivalent[br]to suicide. 0:09:27.370,0:09:34.590 Many years before, Margaret Meade was talking[br]about the lifestyles of what were called at 0:09:34.590,0:09:36.640 the time, “primitive cultures.” 0:09:36.640,0:09:39.700 And she is famously a supporter of these lifestyles. 0:09:39.700,0:09:44.620 She argues that the Western world would be[br]much better if we were to adopt the customs 0:09:44.620,0:09:49.940 and thoughts and ideas, particularly in regard[br]to sexuality of these other societies. 0:09:49.940,0:09:55.690 But she was very honest and very blunt about[br]how members of these societies treat strangers. 0:09:55.690,0:09:59.990 She writes: “Most primitive tribes feel[br]that if you run across one of those sub humans 0:09:59.990,0:10:03.950 from a rival group in the forest, the most[br]appropriate thing to do is bludgeon them to 0:10:03.950,0:10:04.950 death.” 0:10:04.950,0:10:11.390 I’ve talked about fear and hatred, but there’s[br]a third sort of response that we often give[br]to strangers. 0:10:12.560,0:10:14.930 This is disgust. 0:10:14.930,0:10:20.550 Disgust is what Paul Rozin described as the[br]“body/soul emotion,” is a human universal. 0:10:20.550,0:10:23.720 Humans everywhere are disgusted by certain[br]things. 0:10:23.720,0:10:32.190 We are disgusted by feces, urine, blood, vomit,[br]rotten flesh, and most meat. 0:10:32.190,0:10:34.615 Disgust has a characteristic facial response[br] 0:10:34.615,0:10:35.565 <<>> 0:10:35.662,0:10:38.042 and its easy part of our natures. 0:10:40.381,0:10:45.491 Now, if it was limited to food and cockroaches[br]and that sort of thing, it wouldn’t have 0:10:45.491,0:10:47.982 anything to do with my talk on compassion.[br] 0:10:47.982,0:10:51.592 But what’s most interesting is that we’re[br]often disgusted by other people. 0:10:51.592,0:10:54.440 Particularly, we’re often disgusted by strange[br]people. 0:10:55.280,0:10:56.080 By definition 0:10:56.080,0:10:58.670 any category of human individuals 0:10:58.670,0:11:00.040 is something you either 0:11:00.040,0:11:02.000 belong to, or you don't. 0:11:02.080,0:11:04.160 It's either what psychologists call 0:11:04.160,0:11:06.560 an in group or an out group. 0:11:06.560,0:11:09.170 And we have laboratory research that explores 0:11:09.170,0:11:12.180 the relationship between feelings of disgust 0:11:12.180,0:11:13.860 and feelings towards out groups. 0:11:13.860,0:11:18.050 So we know for instance that people differ[br]in how easily disgusted they are. 0:11:18.990,0:11:19.990 You do a survey of people. 0:11:19.990,0:11:23.960 You ask them questions like, how badly would[br]this bother you. 0:11:23.960,0:11:27.570 So one of the questions might be, you have[br]to pick up a dead cat with your hands. 0:11:27.570,0:11:30.885 And there’s some people who say, “uh, whatever.”[br] 0:11:30.885,0:11:32.390 Some people, “Oh my god! 0:11:32.390,0:11:33.695 I’d rather die”. 0:11:33.695,0:11:35.622 Or, you sit on a city bus seat 0:11:35.622,0:11:37.920 and it’s warm from the last person 0:11:37.920,0:11:39.430 who was on it. 0:11:39.430,0:11:41.670 And some people crack up, well why would that[br]bother me? 0:11:41.670,0:11:44.530 Other people say, “That’s very disturbing.” 0:11:44.530,0:11:46.530 People differ in how sensitive they are to[br]disgust. 0:11:46.530,0:11:52.280 It turns out that where you stand with regard[br]to disgust correlates with your feelings about 0:11:52.280,0:11:53.280 out groups. 0:11:53.280,0:11:57.930 It correlates with your feelings about immigrants;[br]it correlates with your feelings about sexual 0:11:57.930,0:12:01.730 minorities, in particular male homosexuals. 0:12:01.730,0:12:08.279 The more easily disgusted you are, the more[br]aversion you find to these others. 0:12:08.279,0:12:10.860 We also know this experimentally. 0:12:10.860,0:12:15.360 We know that by making people be disgusted,[br] 0:12:15.360,0:12:18.860 we can make them meaner. I’ll give you an example of this. 0:12:18.860,0:12:23.250 This is from a study I was involved with,[br]with David Pizarro at Cornell University as 0:12:23.250,0:12:24.820 the lead investigator. 0:12:24.820,0:12:28.690 What we did was we brought people into the[br]lab… into a lab at Cornell. 0:12:28.690,0:12:32.860 And we asked him all sorts of questions regarding[br]their feelings towards different groups and 0:12:32.860,0:12:33.860 different policies. 0:12:33.860,0:12:35.510 What do you think of African-Americans? 0:12:35.510,0:12:37.070 What do you think of gay men? 0:12:37.070,0:12:39.770 What do you think of welfare?[br]What do you think of immigration? 0:12:39.770,0:12:41.440 And so on and so forth. 0:12:41.440,0:12:43.590 Half the people just filled it out and went[br]home. 0:12:43.590,0:12:46.740 The other half of the subjects went into the[br]room, got the same survey. 0:12:46.740,0:12:49.330 But the difference was, before they entered[br]the room 0:12:49.330,0:12:51.600 we sprayed the room with a fart spray. 0:12:51.600,0:12:55.780 That’s the first experiment I’ve ever[br]been involved with that used a fart spray. 0:12:55.780,0:12:58.570 People would be kind of grossed out. 0:12:58.570,0:13:01.320 And it would make them meaner. 0:13:01.320,0:13:04.160 Not towards everything, but it would make[br] 0:13:04.160,0:13:05.845 them particularly meaner towards out groups,[br] 0:13:05.845,0:13:07.840 like male homosexuals. 0:13:07.840,0:13:12.450 And this supports the idea that there’s[br]a connection in our minds between a visceral 0:13:12.450,0:13:16.730 emotion of disgust and our feelings towards[br]others. 0:13:16.730,0:13:20.230 So what I’ve argued is, we do have a natural compassion, 0:13:20.230,0:13:24.100 but it’s limited. It does not naturally extend to others. 0:13:24.110,0:13:25.875 But that raises a puzzle 0:13:25.875,0:13:29.702 because you and me and everyone else we know 0:13:29.702,0:13:33.141 can extend our compassion to strangers. 0:13:33.141,0:13:36.041 To put it in the language that the philosopher Peter Singer has used, 0:13:36.041,0:13:37.910 “Our moral circle has expanded.” 0:13:38.650,0:13:42.670 It might be that our ancestors, it might be the people in small scale societies only 0:13:42.670,0:13:45.160 cared about their family and friends. 0:13:45.160,0:13:48.650 But we have a broader circle of compassion.[br] 0:13:48.650,0:13:51.350 We think about we care about people in other countries. 0:13:51.350,0:13:53.620 We care about people from other races. 0:13:53.620,0:13:56.990 We care about people we’ve never seen before[br]and we never will see. 0:13:56.990,0:14:01.941 When some sort of disaster strikes like a[br]tsunami or a hurricane, many 0:14:01.941,0:14:08.480 of us give our resources, even our blood,[br]to help out people we’ve never met before. 0:14:08.480,0:14:12.000 And that poses a neat psychological puzzle. 0:14:12.000,0:14:17.992 What forces take our narrow moral circle,[br]our narrow scope of compassion and 0:14:17.992,0:14:20.400 bigger and expand it to care for these others? 0:14:20.400,0:14:22.920 Now I think that there are a lot of different[br]answers to that question. 0:14:22.920,0:14:27.870 Robert Wright, for instance, has argued that[br]one force in expanding the moral circle has 0:14:27.870,0:14:32.730 been human interconnections in commerce, in[br]international travel and so on. 0:14:32.730,0:14:37.589 The more people you know, the more people[br]you have contact with, the more we are interconnected 0:14:37.589,0:14:44.350 in the world, the more you might care about[br]them in a sort of self-interested altruism 0:14:44.350,0:14:48.650 where you care about them because they’re[br]fates are intertwined with yours. 0:14:48.650,0:14:51.580 And I think that there’s a lot of value[br]in that insight. 0:14:51.580,0:14:53.380 But I want to focus on a more 0:14:53.380,0:14:55.770 psychological more individual based mechanism. 0:14:55.770,0:14:57.045 for expanding our the moral circle. 0:14:57.045,0:15:00.155 A mechanism that happens to individuals 0:15:00.155,0:15:01.255 as they get older 0:15:01.255,0:15:02.452 part of devleopment. 0:15:02.452,0:15:06.272 which is, their sympathies expand because of a certain 0:15:06.272,0:15:08.142 sort of persuasion. 0:15:12.430,0:15:17.259 I want to suggest that there is psychological[br]evidence that supports the idea that we can 0:15:17.339,0:15:20.545 expand our compassion, our moral circle to[br][br] 0:15:20.545,0:15:23.882 far away strangers by being made to think 0:15:23.882,0:15:26.230 of them as if they are individual people. 0:15:26.230,0:15:29.470 We think of them as if they’re our friends and family. 0:15:29.470,0:15:31.774 We think of them as if they are right in front[br]of us. 0:15:31.774,0:15:38.880 Joseph Stalin famously said, “A single death[br]is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.” 0:15:38.880,0:15:43.820 And Mother Theresa presented a similar sentiment[br]when she said, “If I look at the mass, I 0:15:43.820,0:15:44.820 will never act. 0:15:44.820,0:15:47.890 If I look at the one, I will.” 0:15:47.890,0:15:51.029 Psychologists like Paul Slovic has explored this in the lab.[br][br] 0:15:51.029,0:15:53.214 So for instance, they would do a study where 0:15:53.214,0:15:55.499 they would have an appeal for a charity. 0:15:55.499,0:15:58.590 And in fact, they would take the money they[br]got and send it to the charity. 0:15:58.590,0:16:05.870 And they would, for one group of subjects,[br]describe the problem in terms of statistics, 0:16:05.870,0:16:09.630 in terms of numbers, in terms of the millions[br]of people suffering, a sort of suffering a 0:16:09.630,0:16:13.310 proportion of the population who is in desperate[br]need. 0:16:13.310,0:16:17.250 And they found that people would give say,[br]roughly a dollar. 0:16:17.250,0:16:20.010 For the other group, they didn’t bother[br]with statistics at all. 0:16:20.010,0:16:24.350 They didn’t bother trying to impress them[br]with the huge number of people suffering. 0:16:24.350,0:16:27.689 They told them a story about a single individual. 0:16:27.689,0:16:31.630 They had a picture of that individual, they[br]gave her a name. 0:16:31.630,0:16:34.800 And when you do that, you find that people[br]are far more generous. 0:16:34.800,0:16:37.830 It’s a far more powerful effect on their[br]compassion. 0:16:37.830,0:16:39.339 They will give, roughly, twice as much. 0:16:40.000,0:16:43.360 Charities, when they try to appeal for people’s[br][br][br] 0:16:43.360,0:16:46.280 help, won’t throw numbers at you. 0:16:46.280,0:16:47.756 They typically won’t because they know that 0:16:47.756,0:16:48.720 doesn’t work. 0:16:48.720,0:16:53.490 The way to extend people’s compassion, the[br]way to motivate altruistic action is to appeal 0:16:53.490,0:16:58.650 to some very natural, very hardwired systems[br]within us that respond to individual people. 0:16:58.650,0:17:05.260 I think it’s a tremendously[br]persuasive way for a charity to work. 0:17:05.260,0:17:09.350 And I think more generally, as part of the[br]story for how our compassion can get bigger 0:17:09.350,0:17:10.820 and bigger. 0:17:11.650,0:17:13.630 People talk about moral progress. 0:17:13.630,0:17:15.970 People have argued that through our history, 0:17:15.970,0:17:18.740 our moral circles have been expanding. 0:17:18.740,0:17:23.790 We now live in a world where people believe[br]we have moral obligations to other races, 0:17:23.790,0:17:28.450 other nationalities that sexism and racism[br]are immoral. 0:17:28.460,0:17:31.620 Consider the end of slavery in the United States. 0:17:31.620,0:17:37.240 There are a lot of different factors that[br]led to the end of slavery, but many historians 0:17:37.240,0:17:43.760 would argue that one of the forces that led[br]many white Americans to believe slavery was 0:17:43.760,0:17:49.253 wrong was persuasion, in particular, it was[br]the work of the author Harriett Beecher Stowe 0:17:49.253,0:17:52.363 in her book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. 0:17:52.363,0:17:58.400 In this book, she didn’t make logical arguments;[br]she didn’t make theological points or philosophical 0:17:58.400,0:17:59.400 proposals. 0:17:59.400,0:18:03.210 Rather, she got her readers to extend their[br]sympathies. 0:18:03.210,0:18:04.660 And this had a profound effect. 0:18:04.660,0:18:07.884 It had a profound effect persuading them that[br][br] 0:18:07.884,0:18:09.314 slavery was wrong 0:18:09.332,0:18:12.552 so part of morality, part of right and wrong 0:18:12.552,0:18:16.142 is intimately connected with compassion over our feelings towards others. 0:18:16.142,0:18:19.212 Some scholars like David Hume, 0:18:19.212,0:18:21.802 argue that a sense of empathy, a sense of compassion 0:18:21.821,0:18:25.741 is aptly central to becoming a fully moral being. 0:18:25.741,0:18:27.965 And certainly notions of right and wrong 0:18:27.965,0:18:30.215 come up in the domain of race. 0:18:30.215,0:18:33.105 Cause the very question of forming stereotypes 0:18:33.105,0:18:37.615 and forming attitudes towards human groups is morally fraught. 0:18:41.160,0:18:44.970 The second case study I want to talk about[br]is racism. 0:18:44.970,0:18:49.059 And I want to begin by making a connection[br]to a branch of cognitive psychology. 0:18:49.059,0:18:54.740 In particular the branch of cognitive psychology[br]that deals with how we make sense of the world. 0:18:54.740,0:19:00.960 How we naturally form categories of the things[br]we see and the things we interact with. 0:19:00.960,0:19:08.140 Cognitive psychologists have pointed out that in order to survive in the world, we have to make generalizations. 0:19:08.980,0:19:13.440 You probably have never seen those three pictures[br]I have up here, but you immediately know that 0:19:13.440,0:19:17.809 one is a dog and one is an apple and one is[br]a chair. 0:19:17.809,0:19:21.370 You will also have intuitions about these[br]things… you’ll make generalizations. 0:19:21.370,0:19:27.310 You’ll believe the dog can bark, the apple[br]is something you can eat, a chair is something 0:19:27.310,0:19:28.790 you can sit on. 0:19:28.790,0:19:32.700 Now, you probably also realize that there[br]are exceptions to this. 0:19:32.700,0:19:37.525 Some dogs are silent, some apples are poisonous,[br]some chairs will collapse if you sit on them,[br] 0:19:37.525,0:19:43.920 but still if you couldn’t make those generalizations,[br]if you didn’t recognize that some properties 0:19:43.920,0:19:49.620 tend to co-occur with some objects, you would[br]be helpless in the world. 0:19:49.620,0:19:54.810 You wouldn’t know what to eat, you wouldn’t[br]know how anything would react; you wouldn’t 0:19:54.810,0:19:56.700 survive. 0:19:56.700,0:20:01.430 Part of being a successful human, in fact,[br]part of being any successful animal is being 0:20:01.430,0:20:02.490 able to learn. 0:20:02.490,0:20:07.640 And a good part of what learning is is to[br]make statistical generalizations on the basis 0:20:07.640,0:20:09.480 of limited experience. 0:20:09.480,0:20:14.640 You eat a thousand apples, they all taste[br]pretty good, you conclude, I can eat apples, 0:20:14.640,0:20:15.640 apples taste good. 0:20:15.640,0:20:18.360 And when you’re hungry, you reach for the apple.[br] 0:20:18.360,0:20:21.810 This is adaptive, it is rational, it is reasonable. 0:20:21.820,0:20:24.679 But now there’s a twist. 0:20:24.679,0:20:29.085 The twist is that some of the categories that[br]we form are categories of people.[br] 0:20:29.085,0:20:35.480 We form categories on the basis of sex, of age, of 0:20:35.480,0:20:44.550 race, profession, religion, sexual orientation,[br]nationality, and where the person lives. 0:20:48.890,0:20:52.570 When we form categories of people, we often call these stereotypes. 0:20:52.580,0:20:56.730 Now, stereotype may sound like a bad word,[br]but there’s nothing bad about it. 0:20:56.730,0:21:00.170 For one thing, stereotypes are often accurate. 0:21:00.170,0:21:04.670 We’re reasonably good statistical learners,[br]and so we tend to be reasonably accurate. 0:21:04.670,0:21:09.760 Also, stereotypes are often positive, particularly[br]of groups that we ourselves belong to. 0:21:09.760,0:21:14.910 Some of the statistical generalizations may[br]be correct and may be positive as some groups 0:21:14.910,0:21:21.250 have reputations for being smart, for being[br]loyal, for being brave, for all sorts of things 0:21:21.250,0:21:23.640 that are not at all negative. 0:21:23.640,0:21:27.390 And so there’s nothing inherently wrong[br]about stereotypes. 0:21:27.390,0:21:31.179 On the other hand there are several problems with stereotypes. 0:21:31.179,0:21:37.200 For one thing, they’re reliable insofar[br]as they’re based on a sample, an unbiased 0:21:37.200,0:21:38.780 sample, of the population.[br] 0:21:38.780,0:21:43.740 But a lot of the information we get about[br]human groups is through biased sources like 0:21:43.740,0:21:46.059 how they’re represented in the media. 0:21:46.059,0:21:52.110 And if these sources don’t give you an accurate[br]rendition, you’re a stereotype won’t be 0:21:52.110,0:21:53.460 accurate. 0:21:53.460,0:21:57.930 For example, many Italian-Americans were upset[br]at the depiction of Italian-Americans in a 0:21:57.930,0:22:00.299 television show, “The Sopranos.” 0:22:00.299,0:22:04.500 This is because, if you are in an area where[br]the only Italian-Americans you meet are those 0:22:04.500,0:22:07.430 you see on TV and those you see on “The[br]Sopranos,” you’re going to think they’re 0:22:07.430,0:22:09.350 all mobsters. 0:22:09.350,0:22:13.480 Many Jews historically have been troubled[br]by Shakespeare’s depiction of Shylock. 0:22:13.480,0:22:18.460 If the only Jew you know is Shakespeare’s[br]Shylock, again, it’s going to be a very 0:22:18.460,0:22:19.950 bad impression. 0:22:19.950,0:22:26.290 And so one problem with stereotypes is while[br]we have accurate statistical mechanisms for 0:22:26.290,0:22:31.049 taking in information and drawing conclusions[br]from them, often our information isn’t reliable 0:22:31.049,0:22:35.080 and often this can lead to the formation of[br]stereotypes that aren’t right. 0:22:35.080,0:22:40.450 A second problem is that stereotypes regardless[br]of whether or not they’re accurate can have 0:22:40.450,0:22:43.200 a negative effect on the people that they apply to.[br] 0:22:43.200,0:22:48.590 And this is what the psychologist, Claude[br]Steele, described as stereotype threat. 0:22:48.590,0:22:51.140 So he has a vivid example of this. 0:22:51.140,0:22:55.940 Here’s how to make African-Americans do[br]worse on a math test. 0:22:55.940,0:23:01.040 You have the test and you put on the test[br]that they have to identify their race. 0:23:01.040,0:23:07.540 The very act of acknowledging that their African-American[br]when given a test ignites in them thoughts 0:23:07.540,0:23:12.040 of their own stereotype, which isn’t positive,[br]which is negative regarding academics and 0:23:12.040,0:23:13.110 that makes them do worse. 0:23:13.110,0:23:16.820 Want to know how to make a woman do worse[br]on a math test? 0:23:16.820,0:23:19.809 Same thing, get her to write down her sex. 0:23:19.809,0:23:22.940 One recent study found a sort of clever twist[br]on this. 0:23:22.940,0:23:26.280 The study involved testing Asian-American[br]women. 0:23:26.280,0:23:29.740 Turns out, when Asian-American women are given[br]a test and they’re asked to mark down their 0:23:29.740,0:23:32.280 race, they do better than they would otherwise[br]do. 0:23:32.280,0:23:36.040 They’re reminded of the stereotype, but[br]as a positive stereotype and it bumps them 0:23:36.040,0:23:37.120 up. 0:23:37.120,0:23:41.490 You ask them, on the other hand, to mark down[br]their sex, they do worse because they’re 0:23:41.490,0:23:45.080 women and that’s a negative stereotype towards[br]women. 0:23:45.080,0:23:50.580 That’s an example of how stereotypes have[br]a potentially damaging effect on people. 0:23:50.580,0:23:57.169 A third problem with stereotypes is, in some[br]way, our stereotypes of human groups are like 0:23:57.169,0:24:01.880 our categories of dogs and apples and chairs. 0:24:01.880,0:24:04.220 But there’s a way in which they aren’t. 0:24:04.220,0:24:07.180 We’re not dogs and apples and chairs. 0:24:07.180,0:24:09.490 But we are members of human groups. 0:24:09.490,0:24:16.490 And this fact of how you connect with the[br]category has an effect on how you think of 0:24:16.490,0:24:17.630 the category. 0:24:17.630,0:24:21.750 There’s a lot of evidence suggesting that[br]when you’re a member of the category, you 0:24:21.750,0:24:22.750 boost it. 0:24:22.750,0:24:24.250 You give it higher qualities. 0:24:24.250,0:24:28.081 People in your group are smarter or nicer,[br]they’re more deserving and so on. 0:24:28.081,0:24:35.060 On the other hand, if it’s an out group,[br]if it’s another category, particularly if 0:24:35.060,0:24:40.080 it’s a category that you’re in some way[br]competing against, the category gets denigrated. 0:24:40.080,0:24:43.640 We see some vivid historical example of this. 0:24:43.640,0:24:50.255 In one study in 1942, Americans were asked[br]to describe the top two features of Russians.[br] 0:24:50.255,0:24:54.565 And they described them as brave and hard-working. 0:24:54.565,0:24:57.100 In 1948, they were asked the same question. 0:24:57.100,0:25:00.300 They described them as cruel and conceited. 0:25:00.300,0:25:05.660 The Russians didn’t change, what changed[br]was our relationship to them over the intervening 0:25:05.660,0:25:11.131 years; they went from being part of a group[br]that we were a part of to the out group.[br] 0:25:11.131,0:25:14.881 The final problem with stereotypes is a moral[br]one. 0:25:15.831,0:25:22.840 Even if stereotypes are perfectly accurate,[br]even if they’re accurate summaries of the 0:25:22.840,0:25:26.870 statistics of a group, there are many cases[br]where we believe that it’s morally wrong 0:25:26.870,0:25:31.690 to judge somebody based on their group membership. 0:25:31.690,0:25:34.460 We should judge them as individuals. 0:25:42.400,0:25:45.530 For all of these reasons, and maybe mostly[br]for the last one, 0:25:45.530,0:25:50.470 there’s an interesting tension in how we think about other groups. 0:25:50.760,0:25:56.780 On the one hand, we want to be consciously[br]egalitarian, consciously non-racist, consciously 0:25:56.780,0:26:02.010 thinking of individuals as individuals and[br]not letting stereotypes, particularly ugly 0:26:02.010,0:26:04.930 stereotypes affect our judgments. 0:26:04.930,0:26:07.960 And there’s some evidence that we succeed[br]at this. 0:26:07.960,0:26:11.690 You look at the statistics, for instance,[br]what you see in this graph, is there are a[br] 0:26:11.690,0:26:17.080 portion of Americans who say they would vote[br]for a qualified African-American to be President. 0:26:17.240,0:26:21.420 And what you could see is, at a certain point[br]by the mid-nineties, just about everybody 0:26:21.420,0:26:22.660 says, that they would. 0:26:22.660,0:26:27.365 And the election of Barrack Obama shows that[br]this wasn’t just people lying when asked[br] 0:26:27.365,0:26:33.505 questions, it really reflects an honest to god consciously egalitarian viewpoint. 0:26:33.910,0:26:37.510 On the other hand, we also have an unconscious[br]system. 0:26:37.510,0:26:44.530 And an unconscious system is more statistics[br]driven, more biased and less sensitive to 0:26:44.530,0:26:46.170 moral concerns. 0:26:46.170,0:26:52.730 So you get a tension between the conscious[br]egalitarian system and the unconscious system, 0:26:52.730,0:26:55.500 which is often driven by bias. 0:26:55.501,0:27:00.181 This conscious, this unconscious system is[br]data-driven 0:27:00.181,0:27:05.371 and it is a lot less sensitive to our[br]moral concerns than the conscious system. 0:27:05.431,0:27:08.701 One striking example of unconscious biases involves 0:27:08.701,0:27:11.121 being shown these two faces. 0:27:11.256,0:27:14.776 And asked who is more American? 0:27:14.833,0:27:17.173 Well at some level this is a ridiculous question. 0:27:17.182,0:27:18.936 You would laugh when they hear it. 0:27:18.936,0:27:22.063 Barack Obama is more American cause he's like American. 0:27:22.063,0:27:24.602 Tony Blair is British. 0:27:24.602,0:27:27.431 But unconsciously you can ask the same question. 0:27:27.431,0:27:31.306 You can see how quickly it takes to associate 0:27:31.306,0:27:35.051 these faces with words like American or not American. 0:27:35.051,0:27:39.471 And it turns out based on this sort of implicit unconscious test 0:27:39.471,0:27:43.872 people are often more willing and quicker to 0:27:43.872,0:27:46.804 associate the face of Tony Blair as American 0:27:46.804,0:27:48.796 than the face of Barack Obama. 0:27:48.796,0:27:50.791 Of course because Tony Blair has a white face 0:27:50.791,0:27:53.481 and Barack Obama has a dark face. 0:27:53.611,0:27:59.231 Now, one response to these sorts of studies,[br]one perfectly legitimate response I think 0:27:59.231,0:28:00.831 is say, who cares. 0:28:00.831,0:28:04.941 Consciously, we’re egalitarian, consciously[br]we’re non-prejudice, we have these weird, 0:28:04.941,0:28:07.951 quirky unconscious biases that drive our behavior[br] 0:28:07.951,0:28:11.071 when pressing buttons and responding fast. 0:28:11.071,0:28:12.901 What difference does it make? 0:28:13.491,0:28:15.571 But there’s evidence it does make a difference. 0:28:15.571,0:28:19.881 There’s evidence that these unconscious[br]biases play a role in things that matter very 0:28:19.881,0:28:22.071 much in the real world. 0:28:22.071,0:28:25.821 So consider some studies by Jack Dovidio and[br]his colleagues. 0:28:25.821,0:28:31.871 They first did this study in 1989, and what[br]it involved is, you give people resumes of 0:28:31.871,0:28:34.821 candidates and these resumes have pictures. 0:28:34.821,0:28:39.870 And what the subjects and experiment don’t[br]know is they were always given the same resume, 0:28:39.870,0:28:43.610 but half of them got it with a white person,[br]half of them a black person. 0:28:43.610,0:28:47.620 And then they were asked, how strongly would[br]you recommend this person for a job? 0:28:47.620,0:28:53.150 Now, if these candidates had strong qualifications,[br]they both would be recommended. 0:28:53.150,0:28:58.710 In fact, perhaps the black is a bit more likely[br]to be recommended than the white one. 0:28:58.710,0:29:04.510 But when they had moderate qualifications,[br]when it’s a judgment call, the white candidate 0:29:04.510,0:29:08.980 was statistically more like to be recommended[br]for a job than the black candidate. 0:29:08.980,0:29:11.400 Not because these people said, I’m a racist,[br]I’m going to do it this way, 0:29:11.400,0:29:16.060 but rather they are swayed by this factor that they might[br]not have been conscious of. 0:29:16.620,0:29:19.049 As I said, this was done in 1989. 0:29:19.049,0:29:22.340 But they did the same study in 1999 and got[br]the same result. 0:29:22.340,0:29:25.970 And they did the same study in 2005, and got[br]the same result. 0:29:26.050,0:29:29.100 So, we’re at war with ourselves. 0:29:29.380,0:29:33.170 We have on the one hand these conscious beliefs[br]about how we think we should think, how we 0:29:33.170,0:29:34.330 think we should behave. 0:29:34.330,0:29:37.750 On the other hand, we have this unconscious[br]system that makes all these sorts of decisions 0:29:37.750,0:29:43.220 and affects us in ways that we might not know[br]about, we might not be aware of. 0:29:43.220,0:29:46.520 The good news is we’re also smart. 0:29:46.520,0:29:54.100 And part of being smart means that we can[br]structure our world so that we can make it 0:29:54.100,0:29:56.550 that unconscious biases matter less. 0:29:57.652,0:30:02.490 To give you an example of this, I’ll turn not to race, but to gender. 0:30:02.490,0:30:08.720 Not too long ago, women were deeply underrepresented[br]in symphony orchestras. 0:30:08.720,0:30:12.950 And the reason for this, it was argued is[br]because they don’t play as well. 0:30:12.950,0:30:17.309 In a fair and biased fashion[br]they’d been judged and they just don’t 0:30:17.309,0:30:19.380 sound as good. 0:30:19.380,0:30:25.085 But in part, based on these sorts of discoveries,[br]symphony orchestras began to hold blind auditions.[br] 0:30:25.085,0:30:29.205 What they would do is they would have the[br]person play behind a screen. 0:30:29.205,0:30:34.210 The judges won’t know if they are listening to a man or to a woman. 0:30:34.210,0:30:39.920 Once this was put into place, the representation[br]of women in symphony orchestras shot up. 0:30:39.920,0:30:43.500 It wasn’t that originally these were just sexist, to say, 0:30:43.500,0:30:45.990 I don’t like women; I’m going to count against them. 0:30:45.990,0:30:51.660 Rather, these were perhaps good, non-sexist[br]people, who couldn’t help hearing the woman 0:30:51.660,0:30:53.820 differently from the man. 0:30:53.970,0:31:00.000 And I like this example because it shows how[br]first, social psychology and psychology in 0:31:00.000,0:31:02.390 general can shape policy in a good way. 0:31:02.390,0:31:07.510 But second, it shows how we’re smart enough[br]to manipulate the world so that our better 0:31:07.510,0:31:09.390 selves get to make the decisions. 0:31:14.090,0:31:17.680 The third case study I want to talk about[br]is sex. 0:31:17.680,0:31:23.820 And when it comes to sex, considerations of[br]evolution become incredibly relevant.[br] 0:31:23.820,0:31:30.110 I think the question of how we evolve and[br]the question of how our minds are now shaped 0:31:30.110,0:31:34.169 in response to evolution pressure is something[br]that pertains to all of psychology. 0:31:34.169,0:31:37.850 It pertains to, certainly, for how we think[br]about human groups, certainly for compassion[br] 0:31:37.850,0:31:42.140 and morality, and all sorts of other topics[br]I haven’t discussed, like perception and 0:31:42.140,0:31:43.970 language and memory. 0:31:43.970,0:31:48.970 But it’s screamingly obvious in the domain[br]of sex. 0:31:53.630,0:31:58.889 As soon as you start thinking about[br]our bodies and our brains, you’re faced 0:31:58.889,0:32:00.329 with a puzzle. 0:32:00.329,0:32:04.270 And it’s the sort of a puzzle that can only[br]be resolved in terms of evolution. 0:32:04.270,0:32:06.590 And here’s what the puzzle is. 0:32:06.590,0:32:08.890 What’s the difference between males and[br]females? 0:32:08.890,0:32:13.510 Well, there’s a general answer to this that[br]doesn’t pertain to any particular species 0:32:13.510,0:32:16.100 that goes across every creature on earth. 0:32:16.100,0:32:19.360 The males are the ones with the small sex[br]cells. 0:32:19.360,0:32:25.450 To be a male is to have a sperm, which contains[br]genetic material, and that’s basically it. 0:32:25.450,0:32:28.180 The females have the large sex cells. 0:32:28.180,0:32:35.270 The female sex cell, the egg, also contains[br]genetic material but it contains a cover, 0:32:35.270,0:32:41.560 it contains food, it contains all the apparatus[br]needed to get an organism growing. 0:32:41.560,0:32:43.900 So here’s the puzzle. 0:32:43.900,0:32:48.490 You look around most animals, not all animals,[br]but most animals. 0:32:48.490,0:32:53.230 And the male is bigger and more aggressive. 0:32:53.230,0:32:59.669 So why would the animal with the smaller sex[br]cell tend to grow up to be the bigger animal. 0:32:59.669,0:33:05.580 And this has been a mystery for a very long[br]time until an evolutionary biologist named[br] 0:33:05.580,0:33:07.490 Robert Trivers, solved it. 0:33:07.510,0:33:13.890 And he solved it by making reference to the[br]idea of parental investment. 0:33:17.800,0:33:23.299 Trivers defines parental investment as any[br]investment by the parent in an individual 0:33:23.299,0:33:28.530 offspring that increases the offspring’s[br]chances of surviving at the cost of the parent’s 0:33:28.530,0:33:30.789 ability to invest in other offspring. 0:33:30.789,0:33:34.180 Given the different size in the sex cells 0:33:34.180,0:33:38.237 it means that males typicaly have less investment than females. 0:33:38.457,0:33:41.063 Because in most, though not in all species 0:33:41.063,0:33:44.613 the offspring grows inside the females body. 0:33:44.636,0:33:48.356 And while that offspring is growing inside the females body 0:33:48.463,0:33:53.276 the male is free to have other offspring, but the female is not. 0:33:53.276,0:33:55.678 for humans for instance a man can ejaculate 0:33:55.678,0:33:59.128 then moments later or hours later 0:33:59.180,0:34:01.940 or however much later can ejaculate again. 0:34:01.950,0:34:05.455 And there's virtually no practical limit 0:34:05.455,0:34:09.340 to how many different offspring a man can have. 0:34:09.340,0:34:11.450 For a woman when she get's pregnant 0:34:11.450,0:34:14.389 she can't have more kids during that period. 0:34:14.389,0:34:17.929 In fact it is difficult for her to have kids even later on when she is breastfeeding. 0:34:17.929,0:34:21.009 So there is a fairly small number of offspring 0:34:21.009,0:34:23.119 a female human can have. 0:34:23.119,0:34:24.588 This makes a difference, 0:34:24.588,0:34:25.383 it makes a difference. It makes a difference in the 0:34:25.383,0:34:28.291 sort of economic game theoretic structure. 0:34:28.291,0:34:30.135 of human sexuality. 0:34:30.135,0:34:33.147 What follows from this from an economic point of view 0:34:33.147,0:34:35.427 is that males compete with on another 0:34:35.427,0:34:37.779 for access to females. 0:34:37.779,0:34:44.129 Both males and females want offspring, that’s[br]the genetic imperative, but males can be more 0:34:44.129,0:34:48.109 into number while females can be more into[br]quality. 0:34:48.109,0:34:50.029 This leads to competition between males. 0:34:50.029,0:34:53.299 And the competition is of two different sorts. 0:34:53.299,0:35:00.270 There’s competition male against male, which[br]leads to the evolution of aggressive trades. 0:35:00.270,0:35:04.930 It even leads to the evolution of some species[br]with special organs, like the giant horns 0:35:04.930,0:35:10.710 of some animals that exist for males and not[br]females because they’ve evolved according 0:35:10.710,0:35:15.439 to this reproductive logic based on the lower[br]parental investment. 0:35:20.779,0:35:25.610 It also leads males to evolve certain traits[br]to attract the attention of females. 0:35:25.610,0:35:27.674 Females are the scarce resource here. 0:35:27.674,0:35:30.246 Females as a rule are more choosey 0:35:30.246,0:35:34.116 when it comes to short term sexual partners than males. 0:35:34.116,0:35:38.299 And so males compete with one another to attract[br]females. 0:35:38.299,0:35:41.609 The most striking biological example of this[br] 0:35:41.609,0:35:46.079 is the elaborate, glorious plumage of the peacock. 0:35:46.079,0:35:49.179 There’s a carton I enjoy here because the[br]peahens are saying to the peacock, 0:35:49.179,0:35:51.389 “Cut the crap and show us your willy.” 0:35:51.920,0:35:56.130 Which I like because it sounds sort of British,[br]but I also like because it nicely captures 0:35:56.130,0:35:59.311 the evolutionary logic behind what all of[br]this is for. 0:35:59.881,0:36:02.911 Finally, you get to relative choosiness. 0:36:02.911,0:36:08.141 Females are, as a rule, more choosy when it[br]comes to short-term sexual partners than males. 0:36:08.241,0:36:12.261 And this shows up in a couple of ways, it[br]shows up in prostitution. 0:36:12.261,0:36:17.029 So, prostitution is a huge industry in the[br]world. 0:36:17.029,0:36:21.861 And with very few exceptions, prostitutes[br]cater to male customers. 0:36:21.861,0:36:23.769 Then there’s pornography. 0:36:23.769,0:36:28.190 Now, pornography may appeal to different sexes,[br]some people have argued that romance novels 0:36:28.190,0:36:31.634 are sort of the equivalent to pornography[br]for women.[br] 0:36:31.634,0:36:36.994 But what appeals to men is often sort of images[br]of sexually receptive women. 0:36:37.549,0:36:42.039 This isn’t the same as sort of a one-night[br]stand, but is a psychologically vicarious 0:36:42.039,0:36:46.880 one-night stand, where this image is enough[br]to lead to arousal. 0:36:46.880,0:36:50.420 The only thing interesting I have to say about[br]this is a recent study that suggests this 0:36:50.420,0:36:53.869 is not exclusively a human vice. 0:36:53.869,0:36:58.250 So recent study involved showing pornography[br]to Rhesus Macaques, these are a type of monkey. 0:36:58.250,0:37:02.950 The question was, would these monkeys pay to see porn? 0:37:02.950,0:37:06.710 And so you didn’t have a financial system[br]for these monkeys, so they set up a nice apparatus 0:37:06.710,0:37:10.029 where at a certain point, the[br]monkey had a choice, he could either stare 0:37:10.029,0:37:15.720 at a picture or turn and sip sweet orange[br]juice; monkeys love orange juice. 0:37:15.720,0:37:19.719 So the question is, what sort of pictures[br]would they pay, would they give up on this 0:37:19.719,0:37:21.880 orange juice in order to see? 0:37:21.880,0:37:25.250 And there were two sorts of pictures that[br]they would pay to see. 0:37:25.250,0:37:30.490 They would pay to see the behinds of female[br]Rhesus monkeys and they would pay to see the 0:37:30.490,0:37:34.210 faces of high status male Rhesus monkeys. 0:37:34.210,0:37:39.750 Sort of like the equivalent of a Playboy Magazine[br]and People Magazine, suggesting that two of 0:37:39.750,0:37:47.149 the major human vices, pornography and celebrity[br]worship are in fact not uniquely human. 0:37:50.989,0:37:56.950 Now, you can go on about the differences between[br]males and females in terms of sexual interest 0:37:56.950,0:38:02.460 and sexual hues and so on, but I want to focus[br]for the rest of this case study on certain 0:38:02.460,0:38:04.200 things we have in common. 0:38:04.200,0:38:08.930 And one thing that we have in common is an[br]attraction to what we would call beauty. 0:38:08.930,0:38:14.019 Certain things are beautiful, certain things[br]appeal to us universally. 0:38:14.019,0:38:18.940 Some studies find in the first tenth of a[br]second after looking at a face, you have computed 0:38:18.940,0:38:20.520 how beautiful it is. 0:38:20.520,0:38:23.465 Cultures differ tremendously, different times,[br]different places 0:38:23.465,0:38:26.275 in what counts as beautiful, what counts as sexually attractive. 0:38:26.275,0:38:32.349 And that is entirely true; there are interesting[br]and powerful differences. 0:38:32.349,0:38:34.595 But at the same time, there are also universals.[br] 0:38:34.595,0:38:38.755 There are certain things that people everywhere[br]find attractive. 0:38:38.940,0:38:44.289 And we can use evolutionary theory to makes[br]sense of the sort of things people find as 0:38:44.289,0:38:45.289 beautiful. 0:38:45.289,0:38:50.420 So to some extent, beauty equates to youth. 0:38:50.420,0:38:54.935 Hues like round eyes, full lips, smooth tight[br]skin. 0:38:54.935,0:38:58.857 Most likely it is because they are cues the person is young, 0:38:58.857,0:39:02.027 is able to have kids, has many years ahead of them. 0:39:02.027,0:39:03.187 And so on. 0:39:03.187,0:39:05.740 Beauty also equates to health. 0:39:05.740,0:39:07.030 We are drawn to features like 0:39:07.030,0:39:11.900 absence of deformities, clear eyes, unblemished skin 0:39:11.900,0:39:14.760 intact teeth, and average faces. 0:39:14.760,0:39:17.029 And you might think, average faces? 0:39:17.029,0:39:20.239 That’s strange thing to put in beautiful,[br]as a category of beautiful. 0:39:20.239,0:39:23.550 But it turns out average faces actually look[br]really good.[br] 0:39:23.550,0:39:30.429 So what an average face does is it gets rid[br]of all of the things that are unusual and 0:39:30.429,0:39:33.360 people tend to find it quite attractive. 0:39:33.590,0:39:36.530 Now one accusation that always comes up in[br]these situations is, 0:39:36.530,0:39:38.410 who did you get this data from? 0:39:38.410,0:39:44.030 And in fact, psychologists are often guilty[br]of collecting data from 24 university freshmen 0:39:44.030,0:39:49.390 and then saying that these conclusions apply[br]to all of humanity, but not in this case. 0:39:49.390,0:39:54.229 In this case, studies of human attractiveness[br]have been done cross-culturally and you get 0:39:54.229,0:39:56.849 pretty much the same findings wherever you[br]go. 0:39:56.849,0:40:03.059 Again, there’s some interesting differences,[br]but these universals seem to always be attractive. 0:40:03.059,0:40:07.964 The work that’s most exciting to me along[br]these lines is actually done with babies.[br] 0:40:07.964,0:40:13.364 So adults can rank faces as attractive or[br]unattractive, but you can also see what babies 0:40:13.369,0:40:15.034 think about faces.[br] 0:40:15.034,0:40:21.759 And it turns out, using babies looking time[br]as a measure for what they like to see. 0:40:21.759,0:40:24.319 So how long will they look at a face? 0:40:24.319,0:40:30.140 It turns out that babies preference for attractive[br]faces match pretty well adults preferences 0:40:30.140,0:40:31.700 for attractive faces. 0:40:31.700,0:40:35.930 So for instance, in some wonderful work by[br]Languar[ph] and her colleagues, she would 0:40:35.930,0:40:41.461 show different degrees of averageness across[br]faces, composites of more and more people. 0:40:41.461,0:40:45.531 You can see this in these faces are not the[br]faces of real people, these faces are computer 0:40:45.531,0:40:51.289 composites of multiple people and they are[br]not bad looking, but you can get better than 0:40:51.289,0:40:53.384 average for both males and females.[br] 0:40:53.384,0:40:58.669 For females, many people will judge a face[br]better than average if it’s feminized. 0:40:58.669,0:41:05.039 If you take the features that define a face[br]as female and you exaggerate them, as in the 0:41:05.039,0:41:10.440 picture on the right, it tends to look a little[br]bit better than your average female face. 0:41:10.440,0:41:13.239 For men, you could do the same thing. 0:41:13.239,0:41:15.369 you can take faces and 0:41:15.369,0:41:19.940 take your average male face and turn it into[br]testosterone man, which is the face that you’re 0:41:19.940,0:41:21.469 looking at on the left. 0:41:21.469,0:41:26.750 It turns out that women’s responses to testosterone[br]man differ according to whether or not they’re 0:41:26.750,0:41:28.660 ovulating. 0:41:28.660,0:41:34.890 So if a woman is ovulating, she is more likely[br]to find this manliest of man face attractive, 0:41:34.890,0:41:39.690 while if not, she tends to go back to just[br]find average man more attractive. 0:41:39.690,0:41:42.700 And there's different theories of precisely why this is so. 0:41:42.700,0:41:47.049 It does suggest that our sexual psychologies[br]connect with our reproductive preferences 0:41:47.049,0:41:49.180 in all sorts of interesting ways. 0:41:49.180,0:41:53.529 But there’s a lot more to looking[br]good than how you look. 0:41:57.800,0:42:02.449 It turns out, how attractive you find a face[br] 0:42:02.449,0:42:05.594 is critically dependent on how much you like the person. 0:42:05.594,0:42:09.324 The more you like somebody, the better they look to you. 0:42:09.324,0:42:12.794 This is why spouses and happy marraiges 0:42:12.794,0:42:16.034 will honestly find their husband or wife 0:42:16.034,0:42:20.104 far more attractive than anyone else finds them. 0:42:20.104,0:42:22.131 This is true more generally. 0:42:22.131,0:42:25.485 In a classic study, David Bus, 0:42:25.485,0:42:28.905 tested people from 37 different cultures around the world 0:42:28.905,0:42:31.669 and asked who is your perfect mate? 0:42:31.669,0:42:34.504 He was largely looking for sex differences in theses studies 0:42:34.504,0:42:36.024 and he found them, he found all sorts of differences 0:42:36.024,0:42:39.967 in what men were looking for and in what women were looking for. 0:42:39.967,0:42:43.098 But he also found one similarity, one thing 0:42:43.098,0:42:45.849 one way in which women and men were alike. 0:42:45.849,0:42:49.540 And this is that for both, the number one quality 0:42:49.540,0:42:51.939 people were looking for in a mate 0:42:51.939,0:42:53.239 was kindness. 0:42:54.239,0:42:56.259 All of this in the domain of sex 0:42:56.259,0:42:58.189 supports a moral from Shakespeare 0:42:58.189,0:43:02.259 which is "love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind". 0:43:06.599,0:43:09.684 What I have done is I have very briefly talked about 0:43:09.684,0:43:12.254 three case studies in the domain of psychology. 0:43:12.254,0:43:14.304 I talked about compassion, 0:43:14.304,0:43:16.104 I talked about racism, 0:43:16.104,0:43:18.254 and I have talked about sex. 0:43:18.509,0:43:21.079 In the course of this I've tried to illustrate 0:43:21.079,0:43:24.549 certain themes in the study of psychology, in general. 0:43:24.549,0:43:29.180 And in fact I started by listing six domains of psychology. 0:43:29.180,0:43:33.640 Neuroscience, I started by talking about the babies brain 0:43:33.640,0:43:35.530 and gave that as a starting point 0:43:35.530,0:43:38.150 for the question of the development of compassion 0:43:38.150,0:43:39.860 the development of these other traits. 0:43:39.860,0:43:42.249 but every domain of psychology every 0:43:42.249,0:43:43.964 aspect of our mental life 0:43:43.964,0:43:46.010 is caused by our physical brains. 0:43:46.010,0:43:50.470 And in fact, in all of these domains I’ve[br]talked about, compassion and moral psychology 0:43:50.470,0:43:56.030 and more general, race and stereotyping and[br]thinking about groups, and sex and sexuality, 0:43:56.030,0:43:58.509 people have used the methods of neuroscience[br] 0:43:58.520,0:44:01.880 to better understand how the mind works in[br]these domains. 0:44:03.070,0:44:07.470 I’ve talked about development and I focused[br]mostly in development on the first case study[br] 0:44:07.470,0:44:12.780 of compassion, but of course there’s a huge[br]amount of very interesting research on the 0:44:12.780,0:44:17.281 development of our understanding of groups[br]asking the question, for instance, are young 0:44:17.281,0:44:18.791 children racist? 0:44:18.791,0:44:20.951 Do young children have complicit biases? 0:44:21.681,0:44:27.751 And of course in the development of romance[br]and sexuality, how does the mind of a child 0:44:27.751,0:44:33.891 before puberty differ and how much is it like[br]the mind of an adult after puberty and how 0:44:33.891,0:44:35.201 did these differs take place? 0:44:35.201,0:44:38.601 These are extraordinarily interesting developmental[br]questions. 0:44:39.351,0:44:45.570 All three domains connect to social psychology and cognitive psychology in clear ways.[br] 0:44:45.570,0:44:49.930 They are all questions about social psychology,[br]they are all questions about dealing with 0:44:49.930,0:44:52.939 other people; how we deal with and make sense[br]out of other people. 0:44:52.939,0:44:59.280 And they all connect to questions of cognitive[br]psychology, like the perception of faces, 0:44:59.280,0:45:05.640 the formation of categories, the comprehension[br]of stories; those are all central parts of 0:45:05.640,0:45:10.740 cognitive psychology and central to understanding[br]the domains we’ve talked about here. 0:45:11.370,0:45:16.549 We’ve talked about evolution, particularly[br]again, in the case of sexuality. 0:45:16.549,0:45:21.749 But of course, the evolutionary psychology[br]of morality and compassion is a fascinating[br] 0:45:21.749,0:45:27.179 issues connecting it with research done with[br]other primates, our evolutionary relatives 0:45:27.179,0:45:30.109 like chimpanzees and monkeys. 0:45:30.199,0:45:32.679 I’ve said the least about clinical psychology. 0:45:32.679,0:45:36.859 Clinical psychology is extraordinarily interesting[br]and also connects to each of the domains that 0:45:36.859,0:45:38.409 I’ve talked about. 0:45:38.409,0:45:42.309 People are interested in the psychopathology[br]related to sexuality. 0:45:42.309,0:45:49.139 They’re particularly interested in the psychopathology[br]in mental illness in the domain of morality 0:45:49.139,0:45:55.379 because this connects to one of the most troubling[br]and one of the most interesting questions 0:45:55.379,0:45:58.749 in clinical psychology, which concerns the[br]psychopath. 0:45:59.349,0:46:05.079 There are some of us, apparently, who don’t[br]have consciences, who don’t feel compassion, 0:46:06.289,0:46:11.989 who will destroy other people’s lives out[br]of malice or self-interest or simple boredom. 0:46:12.859,0:46:18.119 And the question of where psychopaths come[br]from, what’s the precise nature of what’s 0:46:18.119,0:46:20.049 going wrong with them. 0:46:20.049,0:46:24.369 Most of all, what can be done about them are[br]issues of extraordinary interest. 0:46:28.714,0:46:31.544 Psychology is the perfect liberal arts major 0:46:31.544,0:46:35.094 because it connects across all these interesting disciplines 0:46:35.094,0:46:38.436 and gives you intellectual tools, tools that we share 0:46:38.436,0:46:41.067 with philosophers and we share with chemists 0:46:41.067,0:46:44.843 and we share with people who study english literature. 0:46:44.843,0:46:48.763 It brings them all together in the project of studying the mind. 0:46:48.763,0:46:51.583 Every interesting question in psychology is also an 0:46:51.583,0:46:55.003 interesting question for scholars outside psychology. 0:47:00.073,0:47:03.893 We've made huge progress over the last many years 0:47:03.893,0:47:06.083 in understanding mental life. 0:47:06.083,0:47:10.883 And I think there's no reason to expect this progress to stop. 0:47:10.883,0:47:14.093 I think that in the end 0:47:14.093,0:47:17.473 the most important and intimate aspects of ourselves, 0:47:17.783,0:47:20.813 how we understand people, our emotions, our motivations 0:47:20.813,0:47:25.003 our desires, our sense of right and wrong. 0:47:25.003,0:47:27.973 can be understood through the methods of scientific[br]psychology 0:47:27.973,0:47:30.223 through constructing and testing hypotheses. 0:47:30.223,0:47:32.843 Through bringing to bear considerations 0:47:32.843,0:47:34.403 based on evolution. 0:47:34.403,0:47:37.633 and computation and neuroscience. 0:47:38.533,0:47:42.143 Now, some people might find this a scary prospect. 0:47:42.143,0:47:46.253 I know that there are some people that worry[br]that a scientific perspective of the mind 0:47:46.253,0:47:48.483 takes away from us somehow. 0:47:48.483,0:47:49.563 It diminishes us. 0:47:49.563,0:47:51.593 It makes us less than what we are. 0:47:51.593,0:47:52.573 I don’t agree. 0:47:52.573,0:47:57.783 I have the opposite reaction, which is that[br]as the more you understand the mind from a 0:47:57.783,0:48:03.003 serious scientific point of view; the more[br]you come to appreciate its complexity, its 0:48:03.003,0:48:04.693 uniqueness and its beauty. 0:48:05.053,0:48:06.683 Thank you.