0:00:00.887,0:00:04.415
So I'm starting us out today[br]with a historical mystery.

0:00:05.037,0:00:08.006
In 1957, there were two young women,

0:00:08.030,0:00:09.385
both in their 20s,

0:00:09.409,0:00:10.893
both living in the same city,

0:00:10.917,0:00:13.753
both members of the same political group.

0:00:14.751,0:00:18.591
That year, both decided[br]to commit violent attacks.

0:00:19.284,0:00:23.413
One girl took a gun and approached[br]a soldier at a checkpoint.

0:00:24.300,0:00:29.078
The other girl took a bomb[br]and went to a crowded café.

0:00:30.287,0:00:31.986
But here's the thing:

0:00:32.429,0:00:36.138
one of the those girls[br]followed through with the attack,

0:00:37.028,0:00:40.048
but the other turned back.

0:00:41.303,0:00:42.997
So what made the difference?

0:00:44.157,0:00:47.414
I'm a behavioral historian,[br]and I study aggression,

0:00:47.438,0:00:49.359
moral cognition

0:00:49.383,0:00:52.592
and decision-making in social movements.

0:00:52.616,0:00:54.613
That's a mouthful. (Laughs)

0:00:54.637,0:00:57.287
So, the translation of that is:

0:00:57.311,0:01:02.089
I study the moment an individual[br]decides to pull the trigger,

0:01:02.113,0:01:06.749
the day-to-day decisions[br]that led up to that moment

0:01:06.773,0:01:12.896
and the stories that they tell themselves[br]about why that behavior is justified.

0:01:13.468,0:01:14.724
Now, this topic --

0:01:14.748,0:01:17.418
it's not just scholarly for me.

0:01:17.442,0:01:19.227
It's actually a bit personal.

0:01:19.251,0:01:22.612
I grew up in Kootenai County, Idaho,

0:01:22.636,0:01:24.724
and this is very important.

0:01:25.147,0:01:29.669
This is not the part of Idaho[br]with potatoes.

0:01:29.693,0:01:32.111
We have no potatoes.

0:01:32.135,0:01:34.108
And if you ask me about potatoes,

0:01:34.132,0:01:35.483
I will find you.

0:01:35.507,0:01:36.726
(Laughter)

0:01:36.750,0:01:40.198
This part of Idaho is known[br]for mountain lakes,

0:01:40.222,0:01:42.047
horseback riding,

0:01:42.071,0:01:43.319
skiing.

0:01:43.684,0:01:46.938
Unfortunately, starting in the 1980s,

0:01:46.962,0:01:50.969
it also became known[br]as the worldwide headquarters

0:01:50.993,0:01:52.984
for the Aryan Nations.

0:01:53.348,0:01:56.911
Every year, members of the local[br]neo-Nazi compound

0:01:56.935,0:01:59.924
would turn out and march through our town,

0:01:59.948,0:02:01.158
and every year,

0:02:01.182,0:02:04.523
members of our town[br]would turn out and protest them.

0:02:04.547,0:02:08.395
Now, in 2001, I graduated[br]from high school,

0:02:08.419,0:02:12.577
and I went to college in New York City.

0:02:12.601,0:02:16.553
I arrived in August 2001.

0:02:17.482,0:02:19.766
As many of you probably are aware,

0:02:19.790,0:02:21.681
three weeks later,

0:02:21.705,0:02:23.500
the Twin Towers went down.

0:02:24.243,0:02:27.997
Now, I was shocked.

0:02:28.503,0:02:30.878
I was incredibly angry.

0:02:32.613,0:02:34.222
I wanted to do something,

0:02:34.246,0:02:38.396
but the only thing that I could think[br]of doing at that time

0:02:38.420,0:02:40.623
was to study Arabic.

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I will admit,

0:02:43.136,0:02:49.223
I was that girl in class[br]that wanted to know why "they" hate "us."

0:02:49.247,0:02:52.638
I started studying Arabic[br]for very wrong reasons.

0:02:53.265,0:02:55.200
But something unexpected happened.

0:02:55.224,0:02:58.194
I got a scholarship to go study in Israel.

0:02:58.718,0:03:01.535
So the Idaho girl went to the Middle East.

0:03:01.559,0:03:06.045
And while I was there,[br]I met Palestinian Muslims,

0:03:06.069,0:03:08.101
Palestinian Christians,

0:03:08.125,0:03:09.282
Israeli settlers,

0:03:09.306,0:03:10.975
Israeli peace activists.

0:03:11.501,0:03:16.035
And what I learned[br]is that every act has an ecology.

0:03:16.696,0:03:18.125
It has a context.

0:03:20.074,0:03:23.627
Now, since then, I have gone[br]around the world,

0:03:23.651,0:03:27.565
I have studied violent movements,

0:03:27.589,0:03:32.554
I have worked with NGOs[br]and ex-combatants in Iraq,

0:03:32.578,0:03:33.776
Syria,

0:03:33.800,0:03:35.219
Vietnam,

0:03:35.243,0:03:36.425
the Balkans,

0:03:36.449,0:03:37.730
Cuba.

0:03:38.422,0:03:40.817
I earned my PhD in History,

0:03:40.841,0:03:43.355
and now what I do is[br]I go to different archives

0:03:43.379,0:03:45.600
and I dig through documents,

0:03:45.624,0:03:49.257
looking for police confessions,

0:03:49.281,0:03:51.846
court cases,

0:03:51.870,0:03:57.086
diaries and manifestos of individuals[br]involved in violent attacks.

0:03:57.110,0:04:00.296
Now, you gather all these documents --

0:04:00.320,0:04:01.730
what do they tell you?

0:04:01.754,0:04:04.921
Our brains love causal mysteries,

0:04:04.945,0:04:06.133
it turns out.

0:04:06.157,0:04:09.107
So any time we see an attack on the news,

0:04:09.131,0:04:11.563
we tend to ask one question:

0:04:11.587,0:04:12.889
Why?

0:04:12.913,0:04:14.404
Why did that happen?

0:04:14.428,0:04:17.328
Well, I can tell you I've read[br]thousands of manifestos,

0:04:17.352,0:04:21.913
and what you find out is[br]that they are actually imitative.

0:04:21.937,0:04:25.506
They imitate the political movement[br]that they're drawing from.

0:04:25.530,0:04:29.543
So they actually don't tell us[br]a lot about decision-making

0:04:29.567,0:04:31.561
in that particular case.

0:04:31.924,0:04:36.542
So we have to teach ourselves[br]to ask a totally different question.

0:04:36.566,0:04:40.144
Instead of "Why?" we have to ask "How?"

0:04:40.168,0:04:43.079
How did individuals produce these attacks,

0:04:43.103,0:04:48.381
and how did their decision-making ecology[br]contribute to violent behavior?

0:04:48.781,0:04:53.799
There's a couple things I've learned[br]from asking this kind of question.

0:04:53.823,0:04:55.895
The most important thing is that

0:04:55.919,0:04:58.955
political violence is not[br]culturally endemic.

0:04:58.979,0:05:00.359
We create it.

0:05:00.383,0:05:02.673
And whether we realize it or not,

0:05:02.697,0:05:08.160
our day-to-day habits contribute[br]to the creation of violence

0:05:08.184,0:05:09.738
in our environment.

0:05:09.762,0:05:14.978
So here's a couple of habits[br]that I've learned contribute to violence.

0:05:16.322,0:05:19.562
One of the first things that attackers did

0:05:19.586,0:05:23.392
when preparing themselves[br]for a violent event

0:05:23.416,0:05:27.111
was they enclosed themselves[br]in an information bubble.

0:05:27.135,0:05:29.693
We've heard of fake news, yeah?

0:05:29.717,0:05:32.094
Well, this shocked me:

0:05:32.118,0:05:35.616
every group that I studied[br]had some kind of a fake news slogan.

0:05:35.640,0:05:39.028
French communists[br]called it the "putrid press."

0:05:39.052,0:05:43.149
French ultranationalists called it[br]the "sellout press"

0:05:43.173,0:05:45.365
and the "treasonous press."

0:05:45.389,0:05:48.900
Islamists in Egypt called it[br]the "depraved news."

0:05:48.924,0:05:51.989
And Egyptian communists called it ...

0:05:52.013,0:05:53.266
"fake news."

0:05:53.290,0:05:57.796
So why do groups spend all this time[br]trying to make these information bubbles?

0:05:57.820,0:06:00.701
The answer is actually really simple.

0:06:00.725,0:06:05.220
We make decisions based on[br]the information we trust, yeah?

0:06:05.244,0:06:09.087
So if we trust bad information,

0:06:09.111,0:06:12.086
we're going to make bad decisions.

0:06:12.110,0:06:15.100
Another interesting habit[br]that individuals used

0:06:15.124,0:06:18.067
when they wanted[br]to produce a violent attack

0:06:18.091,0:06:21.621
was that they looked at their victim[br]not as an individual

0:06:21.645,0:06:24.356
but just as a member of an opposing team.

0:06:25.006,0:06:26.737
Now this gets really weird.

0:06:27.554,0:06:31.889
There's some fun brain science behind[br]why that kind of thinking is effective.

0:06:31.913,0:06:35.441
Say I divide all of you guys[br]into two teams:

0:06:35.465,0:06:36.617
blue team,

0:06:36.641,0:06:37.945
red team.

0:06:37.969,0:06:41.437
And then I ask you to compete[br]in a game against each other.

0:06:41.461,0:06:45.419
Well, the funny thing is,[br]within milliseconds,

0:06:45.443,0:06:50.292
you will actually start experiencing[br]pleasure -- pleasure --

0:06:50.316,0:06:55.129
when something bad happens[br]to members of the other team.

0:06:55.814,0:06:59.898
The funny thing about that is[br]if I ask one of you blue team members

0:06:59.922,0:07:01.837
to go and join the red team,

0:07:02.805,0:07:04.797
your brain recalibrates,

0:07:04.821,0:07:06.195
and within milliseconds,

0:07:06.219,0:07:08.812
you will now start experiencing pleasure

0:07:08.836,0:07:12.294
when bad things happen[br]to members of your old team.

0:07:14.064,0:07:20.669
This is a really good example[br]of why us-them thinking is so dangerous

0:07:20.693,0:07:22.463
in our political environment.

0:07:22.487,0:07:26.828
Another habit that attackers used[br]to kind of rev themselves up for an attack

0:07:26.852,0:07:29.220
was they focused on differences.

0:07:29.244,0:07:32.201
In other words, they looked[br]at their victims, and they thought,

0:07:33.075,0:07:35.221
"I share nothing in common[br]with that person.

0:07:35.245,0:07:37.374
They are totally different than me."

0:07:38.829,0:07:41.995
Again, this might sound[br]like a really simple concept,

0:07:42.019,0:07:46.676
but there's some fascinating science[br]behind why this works.

0:07:47.209,0:07:52.438
Say I show you guys videos[br]of different-colored hands

0:07:52.462,0:07:56.237
and sharp pins being driven[br]into these different-colored hands,

0:07:56.261,0:07:57.411
OK?

0:07:58.360,0:08:00.219
If you're white,

0:08:00.243,0:08:05.954
the chances are you will experience[br]the most sympathetic activation,

0:08:05.978,0:08:07.541
or the most pain,

0:08:07.565,0:08:10.496
when you see a pin[br]going into the white hand.

0:08:12.053,0:08:15.447
If you are Latin American, Arab, Black,

0:08:15.471,0:08:19.038
you will probably experience[br]the most sympathetic activation

0:08:19.062,0:08:23.926
watching a pin going into the hand[br]that looks most like yours.

0:08:26.846,0:08:30.718
The good news is,[br]that's not biologically fixed.

0:08:30.742,0:08:32.537
That is learned behavior.

0:08:33.252,0:08:37.730
Which means the more we spend time[br]with other ethnic communities

0:08:37.754,0:08:44.623
and the more we see them as similar to us[br]and part of our team,

0:08:44.647,0:08:46.875
the more we feel their pain.

0:08:46.899,0:08:49.456
The last habit[br]that I'm going to talk about

0:08:49.480,0:08:54.537
is when attackers prepared themselves[br]to go out and do one of these events,

0:08:54.561,0:08:57.227
they focused on certain emotional cues.

0:08:57.251,0:09:03.117
For months, they geared themselves up[br]by focusing on anger cues, for instance.

0:09:03.141,0:09:05.839
I bring this up because[br]it's really popular right now.

0:09:05.863,0:09:09.547
If you read blogs or the news,

0:09:09.571,0:09:13.550
you see talk of two concepts[br]from laboratory science:

0:09:13.574,0:09:16.779
amygdala hijacking[br]and emotional hijacking.

0:09:16.803,0:09:19.376
Now, amygdala hijacking:

0:09:19.400,0:09:23.489
it's the concept that I show you[br]a cue -- say, a gun --

0:09:23.513,0:09:27.406
and your brain reacts[br]with an automatic threat response

0:09:27.430,0:09:28.599
to that cue.

0:09:28.623,0:09:31.124
Emotional hijacking --[br]it's a very similar concept.

0:09:31.148,0:09:36.179
It's the idea that I show you[br]an anger cue, for instance,

0:09:36.203,0:09:41.292
and your brain will react[br]with an automatic anger response

0:09:41.316,0:09:42.643
to that cue.

0:09:42.667,0:09:46.646
I think women usually get[br]this more than men. (Laughs)

0:09:46.670,0:09:47.677
(Laughter)

0:09:47.701,0:09:51.227
That kind of a hijacking narrative[br]grabs our attention.

0:09:51.251,0:09:54.016
Just the word 'hijacking"[br]grabs our attention.

0:09:54.526,0:09:55.677
The thing is,

0:09:55.701,0:10:00.472
most of the time, that's not really[br]how cues work in real life.

0:10:00.970,0:10:02.120
If you study history,

0:10:02.144,0:10:07.406
what you find is that we are bombarded[br]with hundreds of thousands of cues

0:10:07.430,0:10:08.837
every day.

0:10:08.861,0:10:10.908
And so what we do is we learn to filter.

0:10:10.932,0:10:12.776
We ignore some cues,

0:10:12.800,0:10:14.979
we pay attention to other cues.

0:10:15.003,0:10:18.631
For political violence,[br]this becomes really important,

0:10:18.655,0:10:24.566
because what it meant is that attackers[br]usually didn't just see an anger cue

0:10:24.590,0:10:26.470
and suddenly snap.

0:10:26.825,0:10:28.288
Instead,

0:10:28.312,0:10:34.831
politicians, social activists[br]spent weeks, months, years

0:10:34.855,0:10:39.878
flooding the environment[br]with anger cues, for instance,

0:10:39.902,0:10:41.905
and attackers,

0:10:41.929,0:10:44.364
they paid attention to those cues,

0:10:44.388,0:10:46.914
they trusted those cues,

0:10:46.938,0:10:48.486
they focused on them,

0:10:48.510,0:10:51.112
they even memorized those cues.

0:10:51.136,0:10:57.613
All of this just really goes to show[br]how important it is to study history.

0:10:57.637,0:11:01.607
It's one thing to see how cues operate[br]in a laboratory setting.

0:11:01.631,0:11:05.245
And those laboratory experiments[br]are incredibly important.

0:11:05.269,0:11:09.491
They give us a lot of new data[br]about how our bodies work.

0:11:10.269,0:11:15.488
But it's also very important to see[br]how those cues operate in real life.

0:11:18.535,0:11:22.700
So what does all this tell us[br]about political violence?

0:11:23.908,0:11:27.496
Political violence is not[br]culturally endemic.

0:11:27.985,0:11:33.208
It is not an automatic, predetermined[br]response to environmental stimuli.

0:11:33.523,0:11:34.706
We produce it.

0:11:35.356,0:11:37.429
Our everyday habits produce it.

0:11:38.945,0:11:42.906
Let's go back, actually, to those two[br]women that I mentioned at the start.

0:11:43.940,0:11:49.518
The first woman had been paying attention[br]to those outrage campaigns,

0:11:49.542,0:11:50.965
so she took a gun

0:11:50.989,0:11:53.258
and approached a soldier at a checkpoint.

0:11:55.302,0:11:58.905
But in that moment,[br]something really interesting happened.

0:11:58.929,0:12:01.798
She looked at that soldier,

0:12:01.822,0:12:03.775
and she thought to herself,

0:12:06.180,0:12:08.762
"He's the same age as me.

0:12:09.435,0:12:10.953
He looks like me."

0:12:12.724,0:12:15.262
And she put down the gun,[br]and she walked away.

0:12:16.179,0:12:18.602
Just from that little bit of similarity.

0:12:20.128,0:12:23.702
The second girl had[br]a totally different outcome.

0:12:25.533,0:12:28.382
She also listened[br]to the outrage campaigns,

0:12:28.406,0:12:31.398
but she surrounded herself[br]with individuals

0:12:31.422,0:12:33.246
who were supportive of violence,

0:12:33.270,0:12:35.776
with peers who supported her violence.

0:12:36.707,0:12:39.983
She enclosed herself[br]in an information bubble.

0:12:40.747,0:12:44.397
She focused on certain[br]emotional cues for months.

0:12:44.421,0:12:50.013
She taught herself to bypass certain[br]cultural inhibitions against violence.

0:12:50.037,0:12:51.784
She practiced her plan,

0:12:51.808,0:12:54.055
she taught herself new habits,

0:12:54.079,0:12:58.201
and when the time came,[br]she took her bomb to the café,

0:12:58.225,0:13:00.526
and she followed through with that attack.

0:13:03.592,0:13:06.403
This was not impulse.

0:13:06.903,0:13:08.576
This was learning.

0:13:10.463,0:13:14.345
Polarization in our society[br]is not impulse,

0:13:14.369,0:13:15.715
it's learning.

0:13:16.391,0:13:19.318
Every day we are teaching ourselves:

0:13:19.342,0:13:21.304
the news we click on,

0:13:21.328,0:13:23.372
the emotions that we focus on,

0:13:23.396,0:13:27.756
the thoughts that we entertain[br]about the red team or the blue team.

0:13:28.284,0:13:30.549
All of this contributes to learning,

0:13:30.573,0:13:32.296
whether we realize it or not.

0:13:32.696,0:13:34.324
The good news

0:13:35.570,0:13:41.441
is that while the individuals I study[br]already made their decisions,

0:13:41.465,0:13:43.885
we can still change our trajectory.

0:13:45.164,0:13:48.824
We might never make[br]the decisions that they made,

0:13:48.848,0:13:52.997
but we can stop contributing[br]to violent ecologies.

0:13:53.552,0:13:58.038
We can get out of whatever[br]news bubble we're in,

0:13:58.062,0:14:02.106
we can be more mindful[br]about the emotional cues

0:14:02.130,0:14:03.359
that we focus on,

0:14:03.383,0:14:05.782
the outrage bait that we click on.

0:14:06.422,0:14:07.602
But most importantly,

0:14:07.626,0:14:12.127
we can stop seeing each other[br]as just members of the red team

0:14:12.151,0:14:13.545
or the blue team.

0:14:13.959,0:14:19.856
Because whether we are Christian,[br]Muslim, Jewish, atheist,

0:14:19.880,0:14:22.364
Democrat or Republican,

0:14:22.388,0:14:23.544
we're human.

0:14:23.568,0:14:24.843
We're human beings.

0:14:25.992,0:14:29.494
And we often share really similar habits.

0:14:30.224,0:14:32.057
We have differences.

0:14:32.081,0:14:34.296
Those differences are beautiful,

0:14:34.320,0:14:36.761
and those differences are very important.

0:14:36.785,0:14:43.254
But our future depends on us[br]being able to find common ground

0:14:43.278,0:14:44.628
with the other side.

0:14:45.785,0:14:49.120
And that's why it is so, so important

0:14:49.144,0:14:51.723
for us to retrain our brains

0:14:51.747,0:14:55.547
and stop contributing[br]to violent ecologies.

0:14:56.272,0:14:57.444
Thank you.

0:14:57.468,0:14:59.374
(Applause)