The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and SaveOur Lives

by Shankar Vedantam

The hidden brain is the voice in our ear when we make the most important decisions in our lives—but we’re never aware of it. The hidden brain decides whom we fall in love with and whom we hate. It tells us to vote for the white candidate and convict the dark-skinned defendant, to hire the thin woman but pay her less than the man doing the same job. It can direct us to safety when disaster strikes and move us to extraordinary acts of altruism. But it can also be manipulated to turn an ordinary person into a suicide terrorist or a group of bystanders into a mob.In a series of compulsively readable narratives, Shankar Vedantam journeys through the latest discoveries in neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral science to uncover the darkest corner of our minds and its decisive impact on the choices we make as individuals and as a society. Filled with fascinating characters, dramatic storytelling, and cutting-edge science, this is an engrossing exploration of the secrets our brains keep from us—and how they are revealed.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Science, Neuroscience, Audiobook, Sociology, Business

290 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 22, 2009

About the author

Shankar Vedantam is host of the Hidden Brain podcast and public radio show and the author of The Hidden Brain, a New York Times national bestseller. He lives in Washington, DC.

Reviews

[Nikhil P. Freeman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just did not like the book. Covered a lot of ground--most of the things a person would learn in a social psychology class--but the presentation of different biases were lost to verbose anecdotes. The stories to explain the biases would get so long and cumbersome that I would forget his original point--and all of his points I already knew or heard before elsewhere. Every story was literally 50 words too long.

I was expecting a more neuroscience driven explanation for unconscious behavior/biases, but this was briefly mentioned if at all.

To his credit, racial biases and the "terrorist mind" were excellently executed.

Would recommend this only if you have never been exposed to any social psychology material (and like long anecdotes to prove points). Reading this in conjunction with Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion will round out the social psychological picture.

[Asenath · Rating 3 out of 5]

This would have received a 4, even a 4.5 up until the last two chapters. Vedantam does a great job with the writing--it's engaging and interesting. However, when I got to the "Defusing the Bomb" chapter, I couldn't help but feel that Vedantam had his own agenda and own point to get across--regardless of science. This chapter is the longest in the book (43 pages) and it is redundant and the actual evidence is weak. Even in the last chapter (about gun control) I felt the shift from presenting evidence to supporting Vedantam's own personal opinions, which frustrated me. It made me wonder how much of the rest of the book was simply his opinions.

An interesting read with interesting stories, but I wanted to know more about the why of it all, and that was never answered. Well, the answer was "because of our UNCONSCIOUS!"

Also, I found it interesting that evolutionary psychology wasn't introduced until the last chapter, when it related to ideas that had been brought up earlier.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

After the way Freud's theories have been discredited, you might think the notion of the unconscious has disappeared from psychology.

But Shankar Vedantam, a staff writer for the Washington Post, brilliantly resurrects the concept with modern-day experiments done by social psychologists and brain imaging experts to show how much of our lives is controlled by impulses and biases that we are completely unaware of.

For each type of influence exerted by the hidden brain, Vedantam gives gripping examples from real-world experiences, building from personal preferences to large societal trends.

Just a couple examples:

* To show how hidden gender bias can be, he tells the story of two Stanford professors who were already well known in their fields and went through sex change operations, one to a man and the other to a woman. The woman began to notice how colleagues would interrupt her sentences and angrily challenge her research in ways that never happened when she was male. The man found that his research suddenly earned new respect.

* In another chapter, he tells how much of the world became captivated by the story of a puppy left on a drifting oil tanker in the Pacific, sending money in from around the world for its rescue, and contrasted that with the well-known and distressing phenomenon of how the world ignores genocides that kill millions of people. In that case, he points to research which has shown that people not only exhibit more compassion for one individual in distress than for a large group, but will even demonstrate more compassion for one person in laboratory tests than for two or three people with the same problem.

I have seen some lukewarm reviews of this book, including a cryptic one in the New York Times (perhaps the hidden brain of the reviewer was influenced by the fact that Vedantam works for the rival Washington Post?), and I don't understand it. This book is built around a fascinating and compelling premise and is filled with good anecdotes and provocative research, all well written.

I highly recommend it.

[Book Riot Community]

I made an informal pledge to read more nonfiction this year, and I started off with this one. It’s a good thing I really enjoyed the discussions in this book as it makes me more likely to stick to my goal!

–Sarah Nicolas


from The Best Books We Read In January 2017: http://bookriot.com/2017/02/01/riot-r...

[Kaethe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vedantam's reporting is one of my favorite things on NPR. His beat is the most practical psychology: why do people do that? Actually he reports on insights from many different fields, but the research is always looking at the epidemiology, to borrow his metaphor. Not the medical or social explanation for why some individual did something, but for the broad patterns of brain subroutines working beneath and behind conscious thought: that's the hidden brain.
What Vedantam has so brilliantly synthesized out of disparate and discrete research is that much of our society is predicated on the belief that people will make rational conscious choices that they are responsible for. Actually, our hidden brain often encourages us to make the wrong choice for ourselves, but it is even more likely to do so for everyone else. When it comes to issues that affect billions of people our hidden brain is at its most destructive.
Finding ways around the hidden brain and implicit bias is probably the most important scientific research we can do. We've known for how long about global climate change? Waiting until every single human has been endangered by catastrophic weather enough to believe in it and want to do something about it is too late: but maybe we can learn enough about the hidden brain to effectively appeal to the rational people that we strive to be and bypass the pointless denial. There's something like five vacant American homes for every homeless American. The problem isn't what to do, the problem is convincing the hidden brain to do anything.

Oh, and also, the chapters on crowds and disasters could save your life. Like Gift of Fear save your life. Seriously, read this book, if for no other reason than to immunize you to the people who would manipulate your hidden brain for their own ends.

Library copy

[Mythili · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I liked about this book: Its storytelling. Vedantam rounds up all kinds of anecdotes and interviews all kinds of characters to look at how the unconscious mind shapes everything from how much a waitress is tipped to whether or not someone is sentenced to death. Particularly fascinating to me was the section on gender discrimination, in which Vedantam contrasts the experiences of two Stanford professors -- one who transitioned from male-to-female and the other who went female-to-male. Powerful stuff. What I didn't like about this book was the broader argument Vedantam wanted to hammer home. A lot of his examples of the "hidden brain" at work spring from many different kinds of psychological (and sociological) factors, some of which may be subtle but are well-documented, and in the end, not all that mysterious (I didn't get much out of his analysis of racism, for example, and had to agree with the black man in jail who tells him "wake up, you live in America"). Reading this book is like having a conversation with an interesting know-it-all. Not all of the book's arguments are completely accurate or convincing, but there is more than enough good tangential detail to make it worth your time.

[Ismail Elshareef · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author tries to accomplish two things throughout this book: Explain how the hidden brain works and how it influences human behavior. He doesn't, however, explain how the hidden brain has evolved or how it can be changed, which to me is a crucial and expected takeaway when reading about the subject of the hidden, or unconscious, brain.

We come to understand through the extensive psychological research put into this book the reasons behind racial biases, prejudices, sexism and suicide bombings in our collective societies. The author challenges our preconceptions about the "intent" behind these behaviors and explains the real reasons behind their occurrences. The fascinating research shows that our unconscious brain, which is fast and visceral, dictates what our conscious brain, which is rational, deliberate and analytical, does.

One of the things the book draws attention to is the spotlight focus (aka tunnel vision) of the conscious brain and how the unconscious brain compensates for that limitation. Our attention is always focused on what we "choose" to focus on. Our unconscious brain's job is to adjust our behavior based on its own processing of the feedback it receives from everything outside our spotlight focus. This explains the distance we keep between each other while perusing artwork at the museum, for example.

Another fascinating discovery about the hidden brain is that it is influenced by other hidden brains. Ever wonder why in some situations where someone is attacked the witnesses never intervene to help knowing very well that it's wrong to stand idle? Well, it's because no one took the initiative to intervene, so everyone else followed suit. Individual hidden brains relinquish control to the group's "collective" hidden brain. Same thing explains why some floors on the World Trade Center towers were evacuated on 9/11 and some weren't--not even a single person left those perished floors.

My favorite and I believe the most important learning I took away from this book is how the "Tunnel" theory works on the hidden brain. The author argues that suicide bombers, Nazis, Jonestown mass suicide and other violent ideologues out there are not influenced so much by religion or a specific ideology but rather by a "need to belong and to impress others." The "Tunnel" theory is about taking a normal person, isolating her from the outside world, sending her hidden brain consistent and focused messages (aka indoctrinating,) and praising her as a "special" and a "chosen" individual worthy of whatever it is that is promised.

The "Tunnel" theory explains how Hitler was able to control a relatively sophisticated and educated society to follow his barbaric ideas. It also explains how nonreligious young Muslims turn into suicide bombers given the right conditions.

The hidden brain and the "Tunnel" theory also make me understand the nasty political atmosphere here in America better; The religious fanaticism that exists even within neighborhoods of large and diverse cities.

I personally think homeschooling children is a way of using the "Tunnel" theory on their hidden brains, but that's just me.

This book is full of great examples on how the hidden brain works. To a discerning reader, the information is vital in understanding human behavior and how to manipulate it. Read it.

[Faye* · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting read, especially in combination with my other current book Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race.

***

Listening to this for the Goodreads Summer Reading Challenge. Cue: "Back to school: Read a book about a subject you don't know much about."

[S · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like shankars podcast hidden brain so thought I’d like this book. Well Shankar is a spectacular storyteller, but he gets so detailed and lengthy with his stories and anecdotes in this book that the messages about the human brain are a bit lost. There is also a lot of repetition. It’s not bad but his podcast is much better written and constructed- it has good stories but also clear lessons. But again it’s not too bad maybe 3.5 stars

[Patrick Brew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much of the content has risen to the forefront of social science in the last 10 years

[Rabbit {Paint me like one of your 19th century gothic heroines!} · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Hidden Brain aka the douche bag brain meme tbh. Our brains and bodies are really weird. It gets even worse when you look at the collective hidden brain of societies as a whole, as our species as a whole. We are still responsible for our actions. Instincts/intuition is important, but we need to also have our reason and logic. It's a delicate balance. This book made me want to make memes tbh.

[Feisty Harriet · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little bit "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell, and a little bit "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman, this book explores our unconscious minds, our snap decisions, our "gut" feelings, and how we acquire and even overcome them. Really interesting.

[Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is full of interesting information, but the presentation is lacking. It is obvious that the author comes from a scientific background, he is often repetitive in relaying the information and not straightforward enough. Overall, interesting but not incredible.

[Karin Mika · Rating 5 out of 5]

As opposed to Brain Games (which takes on the brain from a purely scientific vantage point) and books on implicit bias (which try to explain why we truly do live in a racist society despite almost everyone claiming they are not racist), Vedantam presents the workings of the brain from both perspectives. Vedantam suggests that there are automatic processes in the brain that make us act in ways unconsciously, suggests that these processes can be overridden at times, but also suggests that the unconscious brain is not necessarily racist, selfish, or bad. Vedantam tries to explain the brain is a tool made from our genetics and our experiences such that some things that occur are not at all the product of ignorance or other inappropriate motive. They are more in line with being a functioning machine that simply cannot do everything it needs to do at once.

As we are now hearing so many theories of our implicit biases, many (particularly white people) are becoming angrier at the suggestion that most are secretly racist without knowing it. In their anger, they are rejecting the whole concept of implicit biases without truly understanding how the brain works to produce these biases on every level of our lives. The knowledge of what the brain is doing should be a positive, not a negative.

In relation to racism, Vedantam explains that racism is only partially the product of a purposeful societal construct, but more so how the brain processes the information that it takes in. Vedantam points out that even darker-skinned people are more prejudiced against darker skinned people in the U.S. because the brain automatically processes the "otherness" of minorities and reaches quick conclusions about the meaning of the "otherness." Although executive function can override these quick conclusions, a stressed or fatigued brain is not capable of executive function in certain situations. Vedantam, who is a minority himself, points out that this "otherness" phenomenon exists in other areas of the world like Thailand where, he points out, the native population believes white Americans would be more likely to be pedophiles than would a person native to Thailand. He explains how some societal constructs (and media) add to the negative connotations the brain takes in, but also explains how and why the brain develops biases even when not receiving negative information about any particular person or group.

The book is not just about implicit bias, but about "groupthink," irrational fears, and even why the human mind seems better able to process the horror that might happen to one person (or an animal) as opposed to the horror of genocide. All in all a fascinating read with a lot of anecdotes that demonstrate why we do some of the things we do and why we are confounded when some people do as they do, or especially say what they say.

[Matas · Rating 1 out of 5]

It wasn't that bad. It had some good points, but nothing mind blowing. To me personally, it lacked depth. It seemed like I was reading a compilation of real life events that can be analyzed in psychological context. And the analysis was average at the very best. The stories where way too long with way too much unnecessary detail. For example:

"It was a lovely April morning in South Philadelphia. Raymond Fiss left his home at seven-thirty carrying a brown bag—lunch his wife, Marie, had packed for him. Fiss was a heavy man, two hundred sixty pounds crammed into a five foot eight frame. He slid into his silver and black convertible, and drove away. It was the last time Marie would see him alive."

I mean... really...? In a way its understandable, Shankar Vedantam is a science journalist, not a scientist (mistake nr1, attributing a persons profession to who he is and the quality of his work).

I usually pick books depending on the reviews and synopsis (these are getting highly misleading) but I can't understand who in their right mind would give this book 5 stars. There's nothing that revealing in the book. Unless we view it as a work of fiction, then yes, the stories portrayed can captivate.

[Karmen · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author introduces an interesting idea - not a new concept but rather names something that has already been discussed.

He goes at great length to present the evidence for his claims and he does so mostly by using very detailed stories and forces the reader to take many off-road trips that often make you lose the sight of the point being proved.

What really bothers me though, that despite all the details put into stories (often unnecessary too) and despites author's obvious interest in topics of sexism and racism, he leave the reader hanging. Even though the authors represents several obvious examples of sexism, he goes on to claim that there';s no scientific studies/evidence to prove it (which isn't true) and that it could be either way, so it is only an assumption.

For someone, who spent almost 50 pages describing the 11th September stories, way past already making his point, he seems very sloppy with looking for evidence for sexism, almost as if he didn't want to present it.

I don't feel sorry for reading the book, but wouldn't necessarily recommend it either, as it says little new to anyone with the basic knowledge of psychology.

[Virginia · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives," is a fascinating and well-documented expose of what goes on behind the "closed doors" of the human consciousness. Shankar Vedantam brings his journalistic story-telling and researching skills to bear on a fascinating topic, and makes his points powerfully. I found the relatively few instances of evolutionary explanation for our mammalian brain's grip on our biases to be cogent and convincing. However, Vedantam acknowledges his limitations in this area, pointing out that his theories are not conclusive. Nonetheless, he documents each instance of unconscious inclination with fascinating stories that turn our consciousnesses onto the track of a new possibility: Do we NOT know our own minds? A triumph of writing and reasoning, and a very important book in the context of the challenges humanity faces, including terrorism, genocide, public policy and sustainable economies and ecosystems.

[Jeff Ferguson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Love Vedantam's work on NPR and his pod casts, but this book left me cold. Has some good thoughts on our internal bias, but I didn't like the examples. The book opens with a description of a rape and the wrongful conviction. The chapter on herd mentality used the example of a brutal attack and death of a young women in front of many witnesses, then segued into 9/11. Another chapter describes 2 murders and the how and why the convictions differed. Maybe not fair, but I wished he found some less violent examples to prove his points.

[Pete Wung · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author, Shankar Vedantam, is the host of the popular NPR program by the same name. He started looking into what he termed the hidden brain when he became curious about many decisions that people made that just didn't make rational sense. He, like everyone else, assumed that we make our best decisions by relying upon our rational mind. He sensed that this was not accurate description of the procedure by which we make all of our decisions and he sought to investigate the process by which we make our decisions. He dug into the psychological literature to get at all the existing research on biases and reasons why we usually don’t call upon our conscious or rational brain. The resulting book is a treasure trove of studies and anecdotes that goes to prove his points.

Interestingly, this book came out in 2010, before Daniel Kahneman published his tome: Thinking: Fast and Slow and well before David Epstein published Range in 2019. They all investigated the same phenomenon albeit with different means. Vedantam is a journalist, as is Epstein, and Kahneman is a Nobel Prize winning economist. Both Vedantam and Epstein called upon the research of others to draw their conclusions whereas Kahneman had been conducting his own research with Amos Tversky for decades.

Vedantam talks about the conscious brain versus the hidden brain when digs in deeper into the research on the subconscious biases and irrational conclusions that we draw when making quick decisions. Kahneman and Epstein uses Kahneman and Tversky terms of System 1 and System 2 thinking. Indeed, conscious brain can is the System 2 and the Hidden brain is the System 1.

Vedantam establishes his argument in the first two chapters of the book and then he delves into the studies that he had gathered in the succeeding chapters. He pairs the findings with great stories which integrates nicely with his arguments and each chapter is an enjoyable read which serves a greater purpose: to show the perniciousness of the biases which dominates our hidden brain. He ultimately draws some interesting conclusions in Chapter 10, where he tries to bring everything together.

I probably should have known about this book earlier, as I would have read it before I was exposed to the works of the others. Remarkably, The Hidden Brain has withstood the test of rapidly changing knowledge and research into the unconscious mind and still tells a great set of stories which shows us that our decision making prowess is indeed affected by our hidden biases, more importantly, other people, people in positions of authority or in a position to affect lives are also affected by the hidden brain. What is worse, they are not aware about how their hidden brain affects their decisions, or they just don’t care.

[David Rush · Rating 3 out of 5]

We have carried our Stone Age brain into the Internet Age. Pg. 242

The name says it all, the HIDDEN Brain.

We think we operate as conscious rational actors who make evidence based decision. Except we don't, because much, if not most, of our brain/mind operates out of sight ( and "out of mind" you might say). And aside from automatic survival functions the brain handles, it also filter our thoughts and actions through biases we don't see and often are consciously against the biased viewpoint.

[in the stock market] they found that companies with easy to pronounce names out performed companies with hard to pronounce name by 11.2 percent on their first day of trading...after six months it was more than 27 percent. After a year, it was more than 33 percent. Pg. 29

Their hidden brains associated the names of companies that were associated companies that easy to pronounce with a sense of comfort...comfort linked to familiarity and safety which is why investors chose some stocks and drove up the prices. Pg.30

We all walk around thinking we are thinking for ourselves...but we ain't.

Our society resolutely believes the conscious mind is all that matters, and so all our educational and legal efforts focus on that. Pg. 75

And some people use that almost universal fiction for devious ends. Nowadays republican politics has turned into code words and dog whistles and gaslight-ing so people like Trump can say a dozen different things but as long as he doesn't explicitly say "I never specifically said to storm congress and attack them... so you can't touch me!" [ my imaginary trump quote, so technically I should have left off the quotes I guess ].

Aside from our hidden biases he goes into general unthinking human behavior like how when in a crisis a group people will slow down and look for consensus rather then individuals assert dominance. Like on 9/11 in the south tower before it was hit but after the first plane hit the north tower, why did almost everybody on floor 88 in get out while on floor 89 almost nobody got out? The same company and the same type of employees on both floors, BUT on floor 88 ONE GUY immediately jumped up and ran through the floor shouting that everybody needed to exit the building ( this guy ran upstairs to get other moving and in the process missed his time to get out ).

He also goes into what motivates suicide bombers, and it isn't' really religion but rather community and finding meaning with peers.

The central insight of all this research is that suicide terrorism is only a special case of a larger phenomenon. The hidden brain’s drive for approval and meaning, and the ability of small groups to confer such approval and meaning, is what is common to the world of the elite corporate executive and the young marine, the terrorist organization and the missionary order that sends idealistic people into harm’s way. pg. 154

He also speculates on why people will be moved to give large amounts of money to save one child, or even one dog, but never spend less to end up saving many more children or animals through support of aid organizations. He attributes it to people not being able to relate to large numbers or groups.

I believe our inability to wrap our minds around large number sis responsible for out apathy toward mass suffering. Pg. 249

We spend our money to save one life and not ten lives or a hundred, because our internal telescope unconsciously biases us to care more about one life than a hundred Pg. 251

Since we are both really just playing armchair sociologists I contend it is that people are really motivated by stories, stories they can relate to, and it is easy to appreciate single child or animal but with multitudes it becomes statistics. Deadly and depressing statistics for sure, but we just don't connected to that information as a story we "relate" to, even if we wish things were better for all those people and animals.

In the end he goes on about how to address convincing people to somehow change or drop their biases and he basically says you have to address it only obliquely, not head on. Well maybe, I mean confronting directly doesn't help so I guess it is better than just giving up, even it if probably won't work

It was an old lesson from therapy textbooks: Regardless of whether feeling are justified, they were real. You cannot eliminate feelings by denying their validity; indeed, denying them usually strengthened them. Pg. 224

Good stuff. Lots of things to keep in mind, and to have a reference to look at again. BUT somehow I feel he left something out, but I am just not smart enough to say exactly what it was. Just that I was wanting something more, something just a little bit deeper.

Maybe it is up to me to take the next step. Up to me to find that bit that is a little deeper. Use this book to wake myself up so I notice my own biases and don’t sleepwalk through my encounters with other in the world. OK, OK, I will try harder!!

[Nick Rolston · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is based around the principles of "Thinking Fast and Slow" while using Gladwell's anecdotal style from "Talking to Strangers". I was hoping for a bit more substance, as while some of the stories are compelling, I thought that the message could be communicated with a much shorter narrative. In particular, I thought the section on racial bias was long-winded and not as insightful. However, the psychology of groupthink behind the Jonestown cult and lack of reaction during emergency situations—such as hesitancy to leave the Twin Towers during the 9/11 attacks—was fascinating.

[J. Scott Frampton · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun book that provides plenty of insight into our subconscious and how it affects us in subtle ways. I have been subscribing to the Podcast that goes by the same name for years. So, not many new lessons since I have been tuning into the podcast, alas, the many lessons are still valuable. Recommend the first part of the book; it starts to trail off after that, with stories that are hard to connect to the themes and theories. All good and fun though.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve heard Hidden Brain on NPR a lot and I am always fascinated by the topics (and neurology in general) and this was no different. The hidden biases we all have are truly fascinating, and the fact that he didn’t give solutions was actually okay with me. Because there really may not be any.

The big drawback here is that these biases are best explained with shorter anecdotes, and the stories here were anything but. I found my mind wandering often. There were lots of different topics, some done better than others. Or maybe they were just more interesting to my hidden brain??

[Chintushig Tumenbayar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Сонсдог подкастныхаа хөтлөгчийн номыг барьж аваад амтархан уншлаа. Зохиолч маань ижил нэртэй подкаст эрхлэн явуулахдаа туйлын сонирхолтой хүнд хэрэгтэй мэдээллийг түгээдэг бол энэ ном нь түүнийх нь цоморлог нь байлаа.

Хүний анзааргагүй тархи хэрхэн ажилд болохыг тохирсон жишээ нь дээр илүү сайн ойлгож авсан мэт санагдлаа.

[Liana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was definitely geared towards Americans and it felt like a time capsule! I didn't check the date before listening to this, but it was written in 2009!

Even though it was dated, it was still super interesting. It definitely felt more pop science, rather than technical science, but I enjoyed it overall and learned a lot.

[Jessica Zu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tagore once said “who you are you do not see, what you see is your shadow.” You’ll understand the meaning of this verse when you finished reading this book.

[Ella Newby · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was so eye opening. I feel like it brought so much perspective into how we react to things as humans. I would definitely recommend (I listened and enjoyed it).

[Reneé Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative, but examples were really sad.

[Moh. Nasiri · Rating 4 out of 5]

We are programmed to trust our memories, judgments and perceptions.
مغز پنهان ما
Our unconscious lives help us navigate the world, fostering our relationships, and regulating our social behavior. Yet many of us aren’t aware of our susceptibility to biases and errors. By learning about the hidden brain, we can use our knowledge of unconscious bias to design more effective social an economic institutions.

Most of us believe that we behave according to knowledge and conscious intention. Not only does this belief inform our individual experiences, but it’s also the bedrock of our social, economic, and political institutions.

But how accurate is it? If you look at the science, the answer to this question becomes unstintingly clear: not very. 

According to numerous studies, we spend much of our time on autopilot. In many ways, this is a good thing. Unconscious cognitive mechanisms enable us to navigate the world smoothly from the moment we are born. But this comes with some less-positive side effects. Inevitably, unconscious forces influence our memories, judgments, and perceptions. In these blinks, you’ll learn about the unconscious biases and errors that the author calls the hidden brain.

Ref: blinkist.com

What to read next: Subliminal, by Leonard Mlodinow

[Nonfiction-- KCM · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this text, Vedantam employs specific examples in service of his thesis that our unconscious minds control much of our lives and make us naturally behave in ways that are biased and irrational. Most people believe their conscious brains to be in control, when, in reality, deeper forces that relate to group solidarity govern many of our hasty and unexamined decisions. One of Vedantam’s most powerful examples details what happened with people from the same company on the 88th and 89th floors of the World Trade Center during 9-11. In the face of extreme danger, Vedantam argues that the hidden brain and its desire for group consensus and conformity drove all people on one floor to flee the building while everyone on the other floor stayed put. In this situation, people fell in line behind the ad-hoc leaders of each floor, as their unconscious minds found a feeling of safety in numbers, regardless of the reality of the situation. In addition to his discussion of people’s desire for group consensus, Vendantam explores the unconscious biases that result in racism and sexism, noting how while the larger statistical numbers clearly indicate that racism and sexism still exist, it’s difficult to prove that these biases are the causes of behavior in individual situations, where a host of other factors can be blamed. The irrationality of gun ownership (people who own guns are not safer) is related to another hidden bias: we feel safer when we believe ourselves to be in control (even if the larger statistical evidence makes this unlikely). The irrationality of spending so much time and money to rescue a single dog left on a damaged oil tanker in international waters, when little attention is paid to genocides (e.g., Darfur), is yet another example of our unconscious bias. When people connect to the highly specific story of a single living creature, they are much more likely to be moved to action. Yet, when presented with evidence of suffering on a much grander scale (as in the case of genocide), they rarely pay attention. Vendantam argues that our evolutionary brains were wired to form deep and personal connections; to fear outsiders and anomalies; not to perceive the world in a rational and analytical fashion. His fitting conclusion is as follows: “Terrorism, psychopaths, and homicide will always seem scarier to us than obesity, smoking, and suicide. The heartbreaking story about the single puppy lost at sea will make us cry more quickly than a dry account of a million children killed by malaria. In every one of these cases, reason is our only rock against the tides of unconscious bias. It is our lighthouse and our life jacket. It is—or should be—our voice of conscience” (255).

Interesting Quotations
• “Most people equate the term ‘unconscious bias’ with prejudice or partiality, but the new research was using the term differently: ‘Unconscious bias’ described any situation where people’s actions were at odds with their intentions” (4)
• “Good people are not those who lack flaws, the brave are not those who feel no fear, and the generous are not those who never feel selfish. Extraordinary people are not extraordinary because they are invulnerable to unconscious bias. They are extraordinary because they choose to do something about it” (8).
• “There is abundant research showing that our mood states—comfort and peace, anger and envy—influence our memory and judgement” (15).
• Social psychologist Abraham “Tesser found that people feel very powerful resentment when their partners are successful in domains that are integral to their own identity. This resentment is so powerful that volunteers in experiments sabotage their friends and lovers to keep them from doing well at the things the volunteers see as their core strengths” (39).
• “Everyday life requires us to suspend rationality, to be mindless about countless risks” (57).
• “The extinction event in childhood friendships turns out to be a natural outgrowth of children’s development. Around the time kids are seven or eight, they start to seek out memberships in groups as a way to cement a sense of their own identity. Developing these identities is both normal and important. Racial identity is only one of the many dimensions children gravitate toward. They also start to identify with sports teams, with cultures, and with nations” (79).
• “If children can be encouraged to form loyalties to groups that transcend race—to a nation or a school or even a sports team—parents and educators can harness the automatic biases of the mind to drive children from different races together, rather than apart” (81).
• “What mostly changes between [childhood and adulthood] are not the associations of the hidden brain but the ability of the conscious mind to restrain those associations” (82).
• “When people cannot control their hidden brains—because they are young and immature, or because they are adults whose minds are temporarily distracted, or because they are elderly and literally losing brain matter—they are more vulnerable to the associations that are always present in the hidden brain” (87).
• “When an alarm goes off, it triggers anxiety, and the hidden brain instructs you to turn to the group because groups provided our ancestors with comfort and safety more often than they exposed them to danger and risk” (127).
• The process of radicalization can be explained by the metaphor of a tunnel: “The central feature of a tunnel is that it seals off the outside world. In our everyday lives, we are pulled in multiple directions. Conflicting responsibilities, clashing opinions, and the cacophony of a polyglot culture create stress in our lives, but they also keep us from seeing things in unidimensional terms. When people enter the suicide bombers’ tunnel, they are deprived—either by design or by accident—of the usual tugs of the outside world” (152).
• “Media representations of criminals and welfare recipients are often skewed. Media coverage regularly reflects existing stereotypes . . .” (205).
• “Aberrational things done by people in a highly visible minority group stick up in our minds more dramatically than aberrational things done by members of a majority group. The technical term for this phenomenon is an illusory correlation” (206).
• “The researchers Richard P. Eibach and Joyce Ehrlinger have shown that a central reason why whites and blacks in America have very different impressions about the state of racial progress is that whites unconsciously compare the state of race relations with the past . . . [the researchers found that] blacks, on the other hand, unconsciously compare the status quo with an idealized future where discrimination does not exist; for the young black man or woman who suffers subtle forms of discrimination in the workplace, it isn’t much consolation to say things were worse two hundred years ago” (220).
• Regarding gun ownership: “The combined risks of accidents, suicide, and domestic violence dwarfs the risk of homicide at the hands of a stranger” (236).
• “Suicide rates in states with high levels of gun ownership are much higher than in states that have low levels of gun ownership. Alabama, Idaho, Colorado, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, and New Mexico have twice the rate of suicide of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut, Hawaii, and New York. The United States as a whole has a very high suicide rate compared to other industrialized countries” (238).
• “Our unconscious minds are exquisitely tuned to the unexpected, violent attack we are always on the lookout for strange and exotic threats. We are always on the lookout for strange and exotic threats. In our evolutionary history, this made sense” (241).
• “The dumb algorithms in our hidden brain are not programmed to trigger panic when it comes to the risks we pose ourselves . . . Unconscious bias explains why so many of our fears—and national policies—are completely detached from reality . . . We have carried our Stone Age brain into the Internet Age. It is Stone Age thinking that prompts us to spend so much of our national budget fighting terrorism and so little on the everyday diseases and threats that kill many, many more Americans in the years to come” (242).
• “[O]ur inability to wrap our minds around large numbers is responsible for our apathy toward mass suffering. We are unconsciously biased in our moral judgment, in much the same way we are biased when we think about risk” (249).
• “The philosopher Pete Singer once devised a dilemma that highlights a central contradiction in our moral reasoning. If you see a child drowning in a pond, and you know you can save a child without any risk to your own life—but you would ruin a fine pair of shoes worth two hundred dollars if you jumped into the water—would you save the child or your shoes? Most people react incredulously to the question; obviously a child’s life is worth more than a pair of shoes. If this is the case, Singer asked, why do large numbers of people hesitate to write a check for two hundred dollars to a reputable charity that could save the life of a child . . .” (249).

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