0:00

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantu.

0:03

In 1980, Ronald Reagan became President

0:05

of the United States. He

0:08

quickly raised the temperature of the Cold War

0:10

and assumed a muscular stance toward the

0:13

Soviet Union. Let us be aware that

0:15

while they preach the supremacy of the

0:17

state, they are the focus

0:19

of evil in the modern world. That

0:23

September, a message flashed in a

0:25

secret bunker at Suprokov 15, a

0:28

secret Soviet outpost that analyzed

0:30

satellite data from the United States. Inside

0:33

the bunker was a 44-year-old

0:36

Soviet lieutenant colonel named Stanislav

0:38

Petrov. The military

0:40

commander saw a button pulsing red. His

0:43

panel told him the unimaginable had

0:45

happened. The United States

0:47

had launched a ballistic missile. Within

0:53

minutes, the satellite data showed four

0:55

more missiles had been launched. It

0:57

looked like the United States was trying

1:00

to cripple the Soviet Union with a

1:02

sudden, deadly nuclear attack. There

1:04

were only seconds for the Soviets to

1:06

launch strikes in response. Stanislav

1:13

Petrov debated whether to report the

1:15

attack. If he did,

1:17

it could have triggered a massive Soviet

1:20

response. The

1:22

Soviet commander did not do what was expected

1:24

of him. He decided the

1:26

satellite data was wrong and did

1:28

not report the missiles. He

1:32

was right. The satellite signals

1:34

were reflections of sunlight off

1:36

clouds. You

1:40

probably have never heard of Stanislav Petrov, but

1:43

you might owe your life to him. Retaliatory

1:45

strikes could easily have killed half

1:47

the populations of both countries. Researchers

1:50

have estimated that the nuclear winter

1:53

that followed could have killed 2

1:55

billion people worldwide. There

1:59

is a lesson in the story. about whether

2:01

fallible human beings should ever have nuclear weapons

2:03

at their disposal. But

2:05

our focus today is on a psychological

2:07

idea, how our minds work

2:09

when we are under attack. It's

2:13

also the start of a series we're calling US

2:15

2.0. As

2:17

we begin what promises to be a

2:19

pivotal and contentious election season in the

2:21

United States and many countries around the

2:23

world, we're taking a close look

2:25

at how we engage with our opponents. Over

2:30

the next few weeks, we'll explore the

2:32

assumptions we make about our allies and

2:34

our foes. We'll look to

2:36

history for lessons. And we'll

2:38

offer specific strategies to engage constructively

2:40

with our opponents, whether in

2:42

the political realm, at the dinner table,

2:45

or at work. We

2:48

begin with the psychology of threat,

2:51

this week on Hidden Brain. Support

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for Hidden Brain comes from Discover. In

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today's world, it seems the best treatment is reserved for

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only a few. Well, Discover wants

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card. Limitations apply.

3:30

When something bad happens, it's

3:32

human nature to look for someone to

3:34

blame. Needless to say, that person usually isn't us.

3:39

The tendency to see others as villains

3:41

and to cast ourselves as innocent victims

3:45

causes harm in interpersonal relationships. It

3:48

may also lie beneath some of our deepest societal divides. At

3:51

the University of North Carolina, psychologist

3:53

and neuroscientist Kurt Gray is

3:56

a leading expert on the human brain.

4:00

studies what happens in our minds when

4:02

we think about our political opponents. Kurt

4:05

Gray, welcome to Hidden Brain. Thanks

4:07

so much for having me on. Kurt,

4:09

I want to start our conversation with a story

4:11

that is very far away from politics, but I

4:13

think it has a deep

4:16

connection with politics at a

4:18

psychological level. When you

4:20

were a teenager, you used to drive

4:22

around with a bunch of high school

4:24

friends. I understand your car was nicknamed

4:26

fireball. Does that say something about how

4:28

fast you used to drive? It

4:31

does. I used to drive a

4:34

two-door Pontiac Grand Dam. It wasn't

4:36

a flashy car, but I like to drive it

4:38

very fast and didn't always

4:40

pay attention. So one time

4:42

you and your friends were heading to a

4:44

movie when something fairly dramatic happened to you. Tell

4:47

me the story of what happened, Kurt. I

4:50

was 16, had just got my license,

4:53

and we were driving in the night

4:56

to go see a movie. It

4:59

had just rained, and so the

5:01

the streets were shining in

5:04

the orange sodium lights.

5:06

We were roaring up the road because

5:09

the movie started in five

5:11

minutes and we were 10 minutes away. I

5:14

was in the right-hand lane. There was a lane

5:16

to my left, and

5:19

my friend and shotgun all of a sudden

5:21

said, Kurt, you're going

5:23

to miss the turn. Turn left. I

5:27

hauled on the steering wheel to the left. I

5:29

didn't look in the lane next to me because

5:31

I had to cross the lane to be able to turn

5:33

left, and there was a car driving

5:35

next to me. Oh my gosh.

5:38

As I turned, this car slammed on

5:40

its brakes. I suddenly became aware

5:43

it was there. I slammed on my brakes. We

5:45

screeched and squealed. The roads were wet.

5:48

We spun around in the

5:50

intersection. I didn't hit it, this

5:53

other car. It didn't hit me, and we didn't hit anything

5:55

else. Luckily, everyone was

5:57

safe. No one was around. We ended

5:59

up stops in the

6:01

wrong direction on the other side of the road,

6:03

just kind of in a desolate night.

6:07

I mean, it's still a heart-stopping moment though, because

6:09

I think in that instant, everyone must have seen

6:11

how close they came to a crash. It

6:14

was terrifying, and it happened so fast.

6:17

I mean, the music was so loud, we barely realized

6:19

anything. We were kind of wrapped in our own world.

6:22

And so I opened my

6:25

window to start to apologize to

6:27

the driver of the other car.

6:29

It was a silver Mercedes Benz. And

6:32

this driver, this guy gets out of the

6:34

car, he was in his early 20s, had

6:38

pretty nice clothes on. I remember he

6:40

had curly hair, it was gelled, he

6:42

had some silver chains on. And

6:45

I just started opening my mouth

6:47

to say sorry. And he looks

6:50

at me, just daggers right in

6:52

his eyes, and his shoulders

6:55

are set. And he is coming towards

6:57

me fast. And he says, you're

7:00

dead. Get out of the car.

7:03

I'm gonna kill you. So I took

7:08

off, and I was flying through a strip mall. It was

7:10

a really built up kind of like

7:12

big I

7:29

was totally panicked. I had

7:31

no idea where it was going. And

7:33

again, it was dark. No one was around,

7:36

even though the movie theater half

7:38

a mile away was bustling. No one was

7:40

around these stores. And so

7:43

I'm just taking turn after turn, and

7:46

he's getting closer and closer on my tail.

7:48

And eventually I turn into a

7:51

parking lot of a Home Depot store. And

7:55

he revs and gets

7:57

close to me, And I turn and I.

8:00

Go behind the store. Into.

8:02

The loading docks and so. There's

8:05

a steep embankment on my right, so

8:07

I'm really like funneled into this little

8:09

canyon with this guy behind me. And

8:13

he accelerates. Up.

8:16

Beside me and then in front of me and

8:18

starts. Kind of like cutting me off. He kind

8:21

of like corral was me into the wall, kind

8:23

of into a corner and I realized I was

8:25

traps. Caught.

8:28

Was so paralyzed with fear he could

8:31

barely think. And.

8:34

She gets out of his car

8:36

and starts walking towards me again

8:38

very menacing he sorry angry and

8:40

all my friends we were talking

8:42

on the way they're obviously we're

8:44

having fun in a deadly silent

8:46

know music and my one friend

8:48

in the back whose thinking. Lucidly

8:51

her name's Jesse. She

8:54

says lock the door and saw it.

8:56

I immediately lock the door and a

8:58

second later he grabs my handle and

9:00

starts to to hall on the handle

9:02

and trying to pull me out of

9:04

the car. While. By the door

9:06

locked at this point so he can get in. Exactly.

9:09

But by also realize I had to defuse

9:11

the situation. Because. He

9:14

he so angry and. Much.

9:16

Bigger than me and so I

9:18

do the only thing I can

9:20

which is. The. Or start to

9:23

apologize. So I unrolled my window. A

9:25

few inches same from so sorry I am

9:27

I know it's my father was a much

9:30

more i was going and he he gets

9:32

his you know you're dead up I'm gonna

9:34

kill you and then he reaches into through

9:36

the crack in the window and he tries

9:38

to unlock. The door from

9:41

the inside with his hand.

9:43

While and so I'm simultaneously

9:45

trying to stay calm and

9:47

can trace apologize to this

9:49

man while frantically slapping away

9:51

his hands so he can

9:53

unlock the door. and

9:55

then it's clear he's not going to be able to

9:57

on on markets and so he just start slapping me

10:00

through the crack in the window is grabbing me

10:02

by my collar and just kind of shaking me,

10:04

just repeating like I'm going to kill you, you're

10:06

dead again and again. How

10:09

does this end? The

10:12

friend of mine in the backseat, Jesse, you

10:14

know, the cogent one, her

10:16

mom happened to work for a

10:19

cell phone store. And

10:21

cell phones back when I was in high school were

10:23

not popular. Not everyone had

10:25

one, but she had one, lent

10:27

from her mom just in case anything

10:29

happened, if she had to make any

10:32

phone calls. And it was a, you know,

10:34

a kind of brick of a phone as the

10:36

old ones were. And she holds it

10:38

up and she says to this guy, I've

10:41

got a cell phone and I'll call the cops.

10:44

And so this doesn't sink in right away

10:46

to the guy who keeps on slapping me

10:50

and threatening to kill me. And

10:52

then eventually he stops, it sinks

10:54

in, and he takes his hand

10:56

away and he kind of bends down and he looks through

11:00

the crack in the window at all of us in the

11:02

car and he says, fine,

11:04

you call the cops and

11:06

I'll tell them what you did. And

11:09

this statement was perplexing

11:12

to me because clearly

11:16

in my mind, if

11:18

I explain what had happened to the

11:20

police, they would surely be

11:22

on my side. I was the one

11:24

getting assaulted, getting threatened

11:26

with murder, but

11:29

I was puzzled because he was

11:31

so confident that the police

11:33

would be on his side. I

11:35

couldn't understand how he could be so confident

11:37

that he was in the morally right position.

11:40

And yet I was confident that I was morally

11:42

correct. You know, I

11:45

think when things like this happen to us, you

11:48

know, we're very quick to try and

11:50

defend our particular points of view. But

11:53

as you're telling me the story, I'm an observer, and

11:56

I can see things from both points of view. I can

11:58

see how he must have been driving. driving along the road,

12:01

someone swerves in front of him at

12:03

high speed, nearly kills

12:05

him, and he says, clearly

12:08

I'm the victim here. This crazy

12:10

teenager could have killed me. And

12:13

from your point of view, you're saying, you

12:15

know, I made a mistake, a

12:17

simple mistake, and I'm really

12:19

sorry about it, but surely that mistake

12:21

doesn't warrant somebody chasing me through dark

12:24

streets for mile upon mile, cornering me

12:26

and threatening to kill me. I

12:28

agree. And as I started to do

12:30

research on moral psychology, I

12:33

came more and more to

12:35

recognize the genuine concerns

12:38

that he had about being harmed.

12:41

He genuinely felt like he was

12:43

victimized, and so did I. And

12:45

so this presented a puzzle to

12:47

me. We experienced the

12:49

same situation and had completely opposite

12:52

perceptions of blame and harm.

12:56

I have to ask you, what happened that night

12:58

after your friend threatened to call the police and

13:00

he said, go ahead, call them. How did the

13:02

incident come to an end? Well,

13:05

he, after he

13:07

told us to go ahead and call the cops, he

13:09

kind of stood there and looked at

13:11

us for a while and, you know,

13:14

maybe recognize that we were all frightened

13:17

teenagers, you know, trapped in

13:20

a little metal cage, like veal

13:22

in some parking lot. And

13:24

he stormed back to

13:26

his car, slammed his door and squealed

13:29

off into the night. When

13:36

we come back, how Kurt's story

13:38

speaks to our deep political divides.

13:42

You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar

13:44

Vedansam. Now

13:55

is the time to embrace a new wave of workers.

13:57

Every day your team grows younger, more digital. It's

14:00

easy to get distracted by email alerts, texts, and emails. But

14:07

psychologist Gloria Mark says there's another source

14:09

of distraction that's just as

14:37

insidious. Self-interruptions. And

14:42

we find that when the

14:44

number of external interruptions goes

14:47

down in the next

14:49

hour, the number of self-interruptions

14:51

goes up. So

14:54

it's almost as if people want

14:56

to maintain this level of

14:59

interruptions. And if you're not being

15:01

interrupted by something external

15:03

to yourself, then you've self-interrupt.

15:08

Learn how to rebuild your attention span in

15:10

our recent episode, Finding Focus.

15:13

You can find it right now in this podcast feed

15:16

or on our website, hiddenbrain.org.

15:30

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. At

15:33

the University of North Carolina Chapel

15:35

Hill, psychologist Kurt Gray studies the

15:38

science of political polarization. Along

15:40

with other researchers who study how we think

15:43

about our political opponents, Kurt finds

15:46

that we make a series of assumptions and draw

15:48

a series of conclusions about people

15:50

who disagree with us politically. These

15:53

assumptions and conclusions are especially powerful

15:56

Because they happen so swiftly,

15:58

automatically, and unconsciously. That.

16:00

They don't feel like assumptions

16:02

are conclusions. They

16:04

see laxatives. Says evident

16:07

facts. The first of

16:09

these has to do with what we

16:11

think is happening inside our opponents minds

16:13

or rather. What? We think

16:15

isn't happening. Inside our opponents

16:17

might. We. Generally

16:19

think that we are side is smart,

16:22

that we vote in our own self

16:24

interests and that we do things that

16:26

make sense. And. We think

16:28

that we. You. Know. What?

16:30

Policies are gonna help ourselves and the

16:33

country, but when we think of our

16:35

opponents, we think of them as being.

16:37

Quite. Stupid mistake of them

16:39

as not voting in their own

16:41

self interest and we think of them

16:44

not wanting policies as gonna help them.

16:46

And so and one study we

16:48

did in North Carolina. We.

16:50

Presented people with a bunch of

16:52

amendments that were part of an

16:54

election a few years ago and

16:57

we just asked people. A.

16:59

Bows. Those amendments.

17:01

And why someone on the

17:03

other side might vote differently

17:06

than they do on those

17:08

amendments. And so it might

17:11

ask a progressive participants in

17:13

North Carolina why mice a

17:16

conservative person vote yes on

17:18

these things? And what we

17:20

found is that. People.

17:24

Things that people on the other side they

17:26

think that they are. Dumb.

17:29

And they don't appreciate what's

17:31

best for themselves or. Their.

17:34

Country or the state. So. In other

17:36

words, we think the other side

17:38

is filled with simple. exactly. We

17:41

think that we are thoughtful and

17:43

rational and doing the best we

17:45

can with complex issues. And we've

17:48

also think that those on the

17:50

other side are not those things

17:52

at all. They are tricked by

17:55

the media, They are deceived by

17:57

some leader that they are see.

18:00

For and we just think that they're

18:02

stupid. So we think our

18:04

opponents are not very smart. but it's

18:06

also the case that we feel like

18:08

we don't like our opponents very much,

18:10

but we think our opponents have stronger

18:12

ceilings about us. Tell me about the

18:15

what you've done looking at, how we

18:17

think about our opponents and how we

18:19

think our opponents feel about us. So.

18:22

It's true that we don't like folks on

18:24

the other side. But. A

18:26

lot of research finds that we

18:28

severely overestimate how much the other

18:31

side dislikes us. In.

18:33

One paper. The. Researchers show

18:36

that we inflates. Our

18:39

estimates of how much the other side

18:41

dislikes us. I somewhere between

18:43

city. To three hundred

18:45

percent. While. So.

18:49

Republicans might. Mildly.

18:52

Dislike democrats in general. But if you

18:54

as democrats how much you think republicans

18:56

dislike you, they think it's this. He

18:59

dug deep. Burning. Hatred says

19:01

you harm yourself and your political party

19:03

and it's just not true. And

19:06

of course the that the reverse as

19:08

soon as well that Republicans believe that

19:10

the Democrats hate them and I understand

19:12

that this work i think it was

19:14

done by Samantha More Bird in a

19:17

Twenty twenty found that the more partisan

19:19

people are, the more strongly partisan people

19:21

are, the more the whole despise. That's

19:23

right. so no matter what size the political

19:26

spectrum, you are. The. Further out on

19:28

that spectrum, you are. The. More

19:30

you inflate. Your. Estimates of

19:32

how much the other side hates you. I'm

19:35

wondering what's the As sectors This is if

19:37

you and I are in conflict with one

19:39

another and we have a disagreement about something

19:42

I can tell myself you know curt ones

19:44

acts and I want why and we can

19:46

figure out you know, is there a middle

19:48

ground between X and Y But if I

19:50

tell myself you a court doesn't just want

19:52

X, could actually hates me and really wants

19:54

the worst. For me, it becomes very difficult

19:57

to think about splitting the difference between X

19:59

and Y. That's. right? So.

20:01

Compromise and democracy more

20:03

generally requires that. Were.

20:06

Willing to talk with others who

20:08

might disagree with us, cooperate with

20:10

others who might disagree with us.

20:12

And if you think of the

20:14

other side hates you, it can

20:16

be hard to even engage in

20:18

conversation with them right? It's a

20:20

It's a fight for survival. Spin.

20:27

On thinking back to that incident that took

20:29

place when you're a teenager, the incident where

20:31

you gotten to a conflict with another driver

20:33

at one of the things that strikes me

20:35

is that in that moment when your friend

20:38

was threatening to call the police, you said

20:40

righteous because you felt clearly I'm the one

20:42

who's been wronged here and the police will

20:44

see my side of the story and the

20:47

other driver self righteous do and said surely

20:49

the police will see my side of the

20:51

story in some ways when we believe that

20:53

people that hate us to gives us license

20:56

to feel righteous. Absolutely right.

20:58

We feel righteous and in

21:00

in the moral right because

21:02

not only are we. Hated.

21:06

But also because we're being harmed

21:08

by there's a villain on the

21:10

other side. They're attacking us and

21:12

that makes us the victim. Ends.

21:16

When we're ceiling victimize, we

21:18

feel. License. To protect ourselves

21:20

and any way that we can. I'm

21:26

wondering how much of this is about. You

21:28

know what psychologists sometimes cause you know,

21:30

cognitive closure seeking constant. It's simplicity. If

21:32

I have to say caught once acts

21:35

I want Why? What's the middle ground?

21:37

It's complicated, but if I can the

21:39

say he Caught hates me code is

21:41

clearly wrong. I'm in the right In

21:43

some ways it's cognitively simpler. Yes,

21:46

Our minds. Once simplicity.

21:49

And. That's especially true when it comes

21:51

to morality. And the

21:53

reason is because if we

21:55

acknowledged that the moral universe

21:58

is complicated, than we. To

22:00

acknowledge that our moral beliefs my

22:02

sometimes be wrong. And so when

22:05

I was in that car right

22:07

recognizing that the other driver had

22:10

illegitimate you know a genuine feeling

22:12

of victimhood meant that I might

22:14

be the the villain. I might

22:17

be the perpetrator there. And that's

22:19

a tough pill to swallow. So.

22:26

He looks at how we believe that

22:28

our opponents are stupid and that our

22:30

opponents tate. as you say. that another

22:33

believe that we hold about our opponents

22:35

is whether they care about democracy and

22:37

they care about our shared civic values.

22:39

Talk to me about the Swiss as

22:42

good. A. Team of

22:44

scientists have found that. Although. People

22:46

generally support democracy. Everyone

22:49

in America. Generally

22:51

supports democracy. We've vastly

22:53

over inflate. How

22:55

much people on the other side? Don't.

22:59

Want to support democracy So

23:01

our side is pro democracy.

23:03

Their side is is not

23:06

anti democracy. At least willing

23:08

to let democracy slide to

23:10

win. It politics.

23:13

That. Perception means that now we feel

23:15

threatened. Now we're in a war,

23:17

they are trying to destroy democracy

23:19

and so in a war we

23:21

have to fight dirty to and

23:23

the perception that the other side

23:25

is anti democratic. Licenses.

23:28

Our side. To. Also

23:30

do anti democratic things. Because

23:33

they're willing to see elections for us to even

23:35

stay in the game, we should be willing to

23:37

bend the rules as well. That's right, I'm

23:40

wondering, how would you make. Us A recent events

23:42

in the United States of for example, if

23:44

you think about the January Sixth insurrection, how

23:47

would you think about that? I think many

23:49

democrats would look at that and say you

23:51

know very clearly these are people who actually

23:53

tried to overturn the election included. The are

23:55

anti democratic. It's not just a perception in

23:57

my head. The

24:00

The January Six. Example.

24:03

Is a great one because from

24:05

the outside it seems like these

24:07

are the folks who are just

24:09

trying to destroy democracy. But. I

24:11

think from the inside. If. You look

24:13

at it from their perspective. They.

24:16

Think that they're upholding

24:18

democracy because they. Were.

24:20

Led to believe that the election was

24:22

stolen. And. Maybe what they're

24:24

doing. Is. In stem a craddock. But

24:26

as they. Thought. That democrats

24:29

kind of fired the first shot.

24:31

They're just retaliating. But. In

24:33

that case there is a

24:36

difference between what everyday people

24:38

things and was. Political.

24:41

Elites. Are. Doing. So.

24:43

I think when it comes to

24:46

the behavior of the many people

24:48

who went up. To. The

24:50

Capital on January Six. It's easy

24:52

to see how. Their. Worldview

24:54

supports the idea that they

24:57

are standing up for democracy.

24:59

And for freedom. I'm not

25:02

sure that I would be as sympathetic

25:04

to some elites who are propagating that

25:06

idea. So

25:08

we've looked at how people think the

25:11

other side a stupid. The other side

25:13

is irrational. The other side is anti

25:15

democratic. You recently published a study could

25:18

that reported on what Democrats and Republicans

25:20

in the United States believe about one

25:22

another when it comes to topics such

25:24

as murder, child pornography, and embezzlement. Tell

25:27

me about the study. Here

25:29

so that study. I should say it's

25:31

not yet published, but it is available

25:33

online. all the data and the manuscript.

25:35

And in that study, we wondered how

25:38

people would view the morality of the

25:40

other side. And of course we already

25:42

know. That. Progressive conservatives

25:44

disagree about hot button

25:47

issues. So. You might think

25:49

the other side is wrong about. Abortion

25:52

about capital punishment

25:54

or immigration but.

25:57

there are many moral issue that seem

25:59

totally controversial, like murder

26:02

or embezzlement or, as you say, child

26:04

pornography. And so the

26:07

question is, what do people

26:10

think about those on the other side when it

26:12

comes to those issues? Would

26:14

Republicans think Democrats are okay

26:17

with child pornography or embezzlement or

26:19

infidelity and so forth? And

26:22

vice versa. So

26:25

when we look at the data, we find

26:27

that consistent with what

26:29

we've been talking about before,

26:31

people vastly overestimate how

26:34

much those on the other side

26:36

see these obvious moral wrongs as

26:38

acceptable. We show

26:41

that both Democrats and Republicans

26:44

think that 15% of the other side view child

26:49

pornography as acceptable. That's

26:53

crazy. The real answer

26:55

is basically zero. But

26:58

we really inflate how much

27:01

the other side is

27:03

evil and lacks a basic moral sense. So

27:06

I mean, we're in really deep waters

27:08

here because now our dislike

27:10

for one another is not just about policy

27:12

matters, and we're not even dressing it up

27:14

as being about policy matters. We're

27:16

actually saying our opponents now are just evil people who are

27:18

bent on just destroying the world. So

27:21

I think this rampant

27:23

polarization makes people endorse

27:26

something that we call a destruction

27:29

narrative where the

27:31

other side is motivated by

27:35

the urge to destroy our

27:37

side and also America. And

27:40

it's really the sense that the other side wants

27:42

to watch the world burn. I

27:46

should say that people think

27:48

that the other side is more stupid

27:50

than evil, more

27:53

misguided than demonic,

27:56

but it's still not a great place to be, obviously.

28:00

still a sense that the other side is motivated

28:02

by some destruction. When

28:05

the other side passes some

28:07

policy with some unintended

28:10

negative side effect, as all

28:12

policies have, some

28:15

research shows that people

28:17

think that those on the other side

28:20

intend those negative

28:22

policy consequences, that

28:24

they want to hurt people

28:26

on the other side. But

28:28

of course that's not true. Folks are

28:31

just trying to do the best they can when it comes

28:33

to these policy preferences. So

28:38

we've talked in different ways and offered

28:40

different examples of how in our political

28:43

discourse we want to see

28:45

ourselves as being the

28:47

victim, as being potentially harmed, and seeing the

28:49

other side as the perpetrator, the other side

28:52

as the villain, the people who are trying

28:54

to do us harm. And of course the

28:56

other side feels exactly the same way. But

28:58

it raises a really interesting point, which is

29:00

that the animating force in much of politics

29:03

might not be animosity and

29:05

aggression, but it might be a

29:07

feeling of victimhood, a feeling that we

29:09

are under siege, that we are under

29:11

attack. Can you talk about this idea? Because I think

29:14

that's not the way most people think about

29:16

politics, that people think about politics as

29:18

being a blood sport, very aggressive. But

29:20

the picture that you're painting, I think,

29:22

is slightly at odds with that, where

29:24

the feelings of vulnerability that we have

29:26

are in fact the dominant drivers of

29:29

our perceptions and behavior. That's

29:32

right. So when we think about the

29:34

motivations of others, we think that they

29:36

are aggressive. We think that they

29:38

are trying to destroy us. We think they

29:40

are motivated by some deep instinct

29:43

to hurt us. But

29:46

my reading of the

29:48

literature and my work suggests that ultimately

29:51

people are motivated by this desire

29:53

to protect themselves, to

29:56

guard against threats. They're motivated by

29:58

a sense of vulnerability. So

30:01

rather than a destruction narrative, I

30:03

think that politics is better

30:06

described by a protection narrative, where

30:08

people are trying to protect themselves

30:10

and their vulnerabilities. Where

30:12

do you think this comes from, this sort

30:15

of constant need to protect ourselves, to see

30:17

ourselves as under threat? Where do you

30:19

think this comes from, Kurt? I think our

30:22

desire to protect ourselves from threat

30:24

in politics and the modern world

30:27

comes from way back in human nature.

30:30

I think that the human

30:32

experience is ultimately an experience

30:34

of threat and fear

30:37

and worry about our

30:39

vulnerabilities. I'm

30:41

wondering, Kurt, if some people might say, you

30:43

know, that can't possibly be true. Humans

30:46

are at the apex of

30:49

the planet right now. You know, every

30:51

other species should fear humans, because in

30:53

fact, we are the most deadly predator

30:55

on the planet right now. But

30:58

you're making the case that humans, in fact,

31:00

are motivated almost entirely by fear, by vulnerability.

31:03

There seems to be a mismatch there. There

31:06

is a mismatch. And there

31:08

is no doubt that today we are

31:10

apex predators. We can

31:12

hunt wolves from helicopters. We

31:15

can remake the world. But

31:18

there is a fallacy in thinking that just

31:20

because we are predators today, that that's how

31:22

we have always been. And

31:25

in fact, if you look back

31:27

in the midst of time, where

31:29

our minds and our human

31:32

nature evolved, we were not predators at

31:34

all. Instead, we were prey. We

31:37

evolved not as predators, but as prey.

31:41

I understand that you had an incident in your own

31:43

life that brought home to you your own

31:45

vulnerability as an individual creature. Tell

31:47

me the story of what happened, Kurt. Before

31:51

I wanted to be a social psychologist,

31:53

I thought I wanted to be a

31:55

geophysicist. And a

31:57

geophysicist spends a lot of time out

31:59

there. doors in remote locations

32:01

looking for natural gas

32:04

or oil. And

32:06

so I was very far north.

32:09

So if you drive to the border between

32:11

Montana and Alberta

32:14

and you drive 18 hours straight north

32:16

and then you turn left and

32:19

drive for another hour, you come to

32:21

Rainbow Lake, Alberta. And

32:23

then from Rainbow Lake, which is extremely

32:26

isolated, you take

32:28

a helicopter ride, another 30 miles into

32:30

the bush, that's where we

32:32

were looking for natural gas. So

32:35

there was a crew of five of us, four

32:38

college students, and one old man

32:40

named Ian, who was at the

32:42

time 25, but he seemed like an

32:45

old man to us. And we

32:47

would spend our days in the middle of the

32:49

wilderness driving around on

32:51

snowmobiles and pounding stakes

32:53

into the ground to try to find natural

32:55

gas. On

33:00

one of these expeditions, Kurt and his team

33:02

had just finished a tough day's work. But

33:05

before the helicopter could come fetch them, bad

33:07

weather rolled in. The helicopter

33:09

pilot told them he'd come get them

33:12

the next morning. But

33:15

it was winter and it was very cold. The

33:18

five of us were literally

33:21

in the middle of nowhere and

33:23

had no water, no food, except some

33:26

leftover sandwiches from lunch. And

33:29

we had to spend the night

33:31

alone in the middle of the Canadian

33:33

wilderness. And

33:38

so we went off to the forest. We

33:40

built a lean-to. We

33:42

gathered some firewood. We lit it with gasoline,

33:45

which I wouldn't recommend unless that

33:47

was your only source of anything

33:49

flammable in the middle of the wilderness. And

33:52

then we just sat down to wait through the

33:54

night until the helicopter might be able to come

33:56

pick us up. assuming

34:00

it was pitched apart from the fire, it was pitch

34:02

dark. It was yeah, it was

34:04

pitch dark. It was minus 10

34:06

degrees Celsius. We had

34:08

no other blankets, we had no other

34:11

jackets other than our one

34:13

piece fire retardant, no max

34:16

coveralls. You know, we weren't

34:18

prepared to weather a night outside. So

34:21

we shared the remnants of our lunch, we

34:24

sat around the fire talking and then it was time

34:26

to go to bed. And so we all five in

34:28

a row, we spooned with each other to stay warm.

34:31

But that proved to be too cold in the

34:33

night. And so we eventually found our way back

34:35

to the fire. And we curled up around it

34:37

in a circle and tried

34:40

to sleep while the flames

34:42

were high and while we were warm.

34:44

And then when the flames died down, we

34:46

would wake up and we'd add

34:48

some wood to the fire and try

34:50

to sleep again. And we did that for 10,

34:53

12 hours. Now,

34:55

obviously, you know, there's no sort of, there

34:57

are no human predators out there, but presumably

35:00

there are animals. Before

35:02

this night, I had

35:04

never thought about predators, right?

35:06

I grew up in a city

35:09

in Canada. But there

35:11

was a couple of times when I woke up in the middle

35:13

of the night where I felt

35:15

uneasy. And you

35:19

might say, of course you felt uneasy because you were

35:21

stuck in the middle of the wilderness hoping not to

35:24

die, you know, of cold

35:26

or thirst or something like that. But

35:30

I just couldn't get the sense that, you know, there

35:32

was something out there and it's so

35:34

dark, you can't see beyond this little circle of

35:36

light. So you could look into the woods and

35:39

there was absolutely nothing but blackness. And

35:44

it's not like there's some serial killer out there,

35:47

right? It's not like a horror movie because

35:49

we're so far from civilization.

35:52

But I still got this uneasy

35:54

sense. And then bit

35:56

by bit, the sky turns gray, it's

35:59

still pretty cloudy. out and

36:01

we get up and we stretch and

36:03

as we walk around the campsite we notice that

36:06

there are paw prints all the way

36:08

around. Very close to where

36:10

we were sleeping and

36:14

they were lynx paw prints and

36:17

so what had happened in the

36:19

night was that some lynx had

36:21

heard us, had smelt us and

36:23

had crept close to us in the night. There

36:27

are overseas listeners who live in tropical climates, can

36:29

you tell me what they are? Lynx

36:32

are big fluffy bobcats.

36:36

I don't think they could take down an adult

36:38

man but I think

36:40

they could probably eat a small

36:43

child and certainly they could

36:45

rip out the throat of

36:47

someone who's sleeping in the

36:49

darkness and that realization

36:52

hit home to me

36:54

as we sat there in the morning waiting to

36:56

get picked up by the helicopter. And

37:00

we couldn't have done anything to prevent this because

37:02

humans are weak and

37:05

we don't have nails and we don't have teeth and

37:07

if there had been a real predator, if it

37:10

had been a mountain lion then

37:12

we wouldn't have stood a chance.

37:16

Not very long ago this was not unusual

37:18

at all. 150 years

37:20

ago and earlier stuff like this

37:22

happened probably all the time in all parts of the

37:24

world. We were living in

37:27

close proximity to nature and

37:29

in fact were vulnerable in ways that we

37:31

simply don't feel today. Absolutely.

37:33

So for the

37:35

last millions of

37:38

years of our evolution we

37:40

have been vulnerable to predation and it's

37:42

really only in the last hundred,

37:46

couple hundred years that that threat has

37:48

basically dropped down to zero for most

37:50

of us. For

37:52

a long time people were hunted by wolves,

37:56

tigers, bears,

37:59

but even And today, in

38:01

our industrialized world, many people are

38:03

still vulnerable to predators. There

38:06

was a case in Canada several years

38:08

ago of a pop

38:10

singer going for a walk through Nova

38:13

Scotia forest, and

38:16

she was killed and

38:18

partially eaten by a pack of

38:20

coyotes. I'm

38:23

wondering what effect this has on our

38:25

minds, the fact that in some ways

38:27

we've had a very long evolutionary history

38:29

where we are vulnerable and potentially under

38:31

threat, and a very recent

38:34

evolutionary history where that threat has receded.

38:37

What has that done to our minds, Kurt? Our

38:40

long-standing vulnerability to predation has

38:43

really shaped our psychology

38:45

in our modern world.

38:47

Even if we don't think about predators today

38:49

very much, we are

38:51

still fundamentally concerned with

38:53

protecting ourselves from threats. And

38:57

those threats might not be sitting in

38:59

the forest or in the jungle behind

39:01

our houses, but

39:04

we are constantly bombarded with threats

39:07

today when it comes to politics,

39:09

when it comes to morality. So

39:12

we bring forward this long-standing

39:15

evolutionary feeling of threat

39:18

into our modern political realm. And

39:20

this is why we typecast the other

39:22

side as predators. And

39:24

I think it's important to recognize this because

39:28

fundamentally those folks on the other

39:30

side who we see as predators

39:33

also feel like prey.

39:36

Even the other driver in the parking

39:39

lot that night, he felt like the

39:41

victim, like the prey. Of

39:49

course, that doesn't mean that liberals and conservatives have to

39:51

define harm the same way. What

39:53

you might consider harmful might not necessarily be what

39:55

I consider harmful, which is why we can be

39:58

worried about different issues. That's

40:00

exactly right. So, in

40:02

my research, we find

40:05

that liberals might emphasize

40:07

harms to the

40:09

environment, or

40:12

they might emphasize harms to members

40:14

of disadvantaged groups, whereas

40:16

conservatives might emphasize harms to

40:20

social order, to those trying

40:23

to protect our society,

40:25

like police, and

40:27

perhaps to religious entities,

40:30

like God or the Bible. You

40:33

can see this very well, even

40:35

with hot-button issues, like immigration.

40:39

So progressives might worry about

40:41

the harm done to undocumented

40:43

immigrants, who they perceive as

40:45

vulnerable, whereas conservatives might

40:47

worry about the harm done

40:49

by undocumented immigrants, who might

40:52

be criminals or drug traffickers in

40:54

America. So both of those

40:57

positions are motivated by a desire

40:59

to protect us from harm. They

41:01

just emphasize competing harms in that

41:03

issue. It's

41:09

a problem we face in nearly every dimension of our

41:11

lives. Our brains

41:13

were sculpted by evolution over thousands of years.

41:16

Our minds today are the product of

41:18

those evolutionary forces. We are

41:20

walking around with machines that were designed, if you

41:22

will, in the Stone Age. Unsurprisingly,

41:25

there are mismatches between what those brains

41:28

were designed to do and the challenges

41:30

we confront today. When

41:33

we come back, how understanding the

41:35

psychology of our political conflicts can

41:38

help to bridge seemingly intractable divides.

41:43

You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar

41:45

Vedantan. It's

41:55

easy to get distracted by email

41:57

alerts, texts and phone calls. But

42:00

psychologist Gloria Mark says there's another

42:02

source of distraction. That's just as

42:05

insidious Self

42:07

interruptions And

42:10

we find that when the

42:12

number of external interruptions goes

42:15

down in the next

42:17

hour the number of self-interruptions

42:20

goes up so

42:22

it's almost as if people want

42:24

to maintain this level of Interruptions

42:27

and if you're not being interrupted

42:30

by something external to yourself You

42:34

self-interrupt Learn

42:36

how to rebuild your attention span in our recent

42:38

episode Finding focus you

42:41

can find it right now in this podcast feed or on

42:44

our website hiddenbrain.org

42:56

You This

43:01

is hidden brain, I'm Shankar Vedantam Psychologist

43:04

Kurt Gray studies the science of political

43:07

polarization in

43:09

a number of studies he and other

43:11

researchers have found that Democrats and Republicans

43:13

in the United States and Partisans in

43:15

other countries have very strong and very

43:18

wrong views about their opponents We

43:21

tend to think our opponents are idiotic and

43:23

irrational. That's the mild stuff We

43:26

also think they're anti-democratic evil and

43:28

are okay with children being harmed.

43:31

We ask ourselves What is wrong with those

43:33

people? How can any decent person

43:35

have such terrible and misguided thoughts? Our

43:38

certitude about our moral superiority means we don't

43:41

have to understand our opponents or give them

43:43

the benefit of the doubt So

43:49

you've done a lot of work Kurt sort of

43:51

looking at ways in which we can turn down

43:53

the temperature on Political

43:55

polarization and you say that

43:58

one of the first and most practical things

44:00

that we can do is to

44:02

frame our positions on issues in

44:04

terms of harm. So

44:07

in other words, we think that facts

44:09

are what bridge divides, but in fact,

44:11

it's our shared concern about harm that

44:13

actually is what bridges divides. That's

44:15

right. And we have

44:17

a big paper with 15 studies that

44:20

shows that people think

44:22

that facts are the key to bridging

44:24

divides, but when you actually give people

44:27

facts in heated conversations about morality, it

44:29

doesn't work. Instead, what does

44:31

work to bridge divides is allowing

44:34

people to talk about

44:36

their own concerns with harm, to

44:38

talk about their own worries

44:41

about threats and the pain that they

44:43

or their family may have suffered. And

44:46

that makes them seem less like sheeple.

44:48

It makes them seem less stupid and

44:50

less evil. Even though

44:52

they disagree with you, they have

44:54

the same concerns about harm. So

44:56

they're similar to you, but

44:58

it also makes sense that they would make this

45:01

decision. And so now they're

45:03

not voting against their own self-interest. They're not

45:05

being irrational. What they do

45:07

makes sense, and that makes people willing to

45:10

respect them and have conversations with them. Cote,

45:13

one of the things you say is that it's important for

45:15

us to remind ourselves that the

45:17

other person's feelings about harm are

45:19

genuine, even if those feelings of

45:21

harm seem unfounded to us. Why

45:24

is this hard to do and why is it helpful? It's

45:27

so hard to recognize that

45:29

the authenticity of other people's

45:32

perceptions of harm, especially

45:34

when those perceptions are

45:37

opposite to our own. And that's

45:40

because our perceptions of harm are

45:42

deeply intuitive. We feel them in

45:44

our gut. If

45:47

you're a pro-choice person thinking

45:50

about the abortion debate, in

45:53

your gut, you know it's

45:55

about protecting women. But

45:58

if you're a pro-life person, then you're... gut,

46:00

you know it's about protecting unborn

46:02

children. And the power of those

46:05

intuitions about harm make it difficult

46:07

to realize that the other person

46:09

is authentically trying to protect someone

46:11

from harm. But

46:13

it's so crucial, because that's

46:16

what we need to do to recognize

46:18

that those on the other side are

46:20

motivated by protection and not destruction.

46:29

You also talk about an idea

46:31

called moral humility, which you say

46:33

is different from intellectual humility. Yeah.

46:37

There's been a lot of discussion

46:39

these days about intellectual humility. And

46:42

I think it's important to recognize that

46:44

you might be wrong about how the world

46:46

works. But it's

46:48

much harder to think

46:51

that your moral judgments might not be

46:53

100% right. We are deeply motivated to

46:58

think that we are good

47:00

people. And yet moral humility

47:02

is appreciating that even

47:04

if we are good people, other

47:07

people might be good too. And even

47:09

if they disagree with us, they're still

47:12

good. And so what that means is

47:14

that we might not be 100% right about our moral

47:17

judgments. And it's hard to have that kind of

47:19

humility. I

47:24

want to talk about a demonstration

47:26

of moral humility that was in

47:28

a recent documentary called Guns and

47:31

Empathy. It was produced by a

47:33

nonprofit organization called Narrative 4

47:35

in partnership with New York Magazine. And

47:37

during this documentary, one of the participants

47:40

was a woman named Carolyn Tuft, who

47:42

was shot three times in a mass

47:44

shooting at a mall in Salt Lake

47:46

City, and her 15-year-old daughter was killed.

47:49

I want to play you a little

47:51

clip of what Carolyn said. could

48:00

actually lose their business, lose

48:03

their house, lose their family. You

48:05

know, I think that that gun would not have

48:08

so much, so much

48:10

hold. And a

48:12

little while later, Kurt, there was another

48:14

person who spoke at the same event.

48:17

Her name was Jillian Weiss, and she had a

48:19

very different view on guns. She was

48:21

born with a disability, and she bought

48:23

a pistol after she was stalked. And

48:26

after she learned that disabled women were

48:28

much more likely to be sexually assaulted

48:30

than women without disabilities. Let me

48:32

play you a clip of Jillian. I

48:34

have my gun with me in my home, and

48:37

I feel so much safer

48:39

knowing that should anything happen, I

48:42

can defend myself. What

48:44

is the effect of hearing these two different

48:46

stories on people who are listening?

48:48

What's happening in their minds? Listening

48:51

to these stories might not persuade you, but

48:54

it does make you see the position

48:57

of the person telling these stories as

49:00

rational, as something

49:02

that makes sense, and it

49:04

makes you respect that position, and

49:06

makes you willing to interact more with that

49:08

person. And those feelings

49:11

of respect and the willingness to

49:13

engage are essential in

49:15

our pluralistic democracy, right?

49:18

We depend on compromise,

49:21

on open dialogue in our society,

49:23

and so these stories of harm are

49:26

a good first step at motivating

49:28

the kind of respect that we

49:30

need to decrease polarization

49:33

and increase our willingness to engage

49:35

with others. It

49:37

often seems to many people, Kurt, that the

49:40

divides that we have in

49:42

our country and in many countries around the

49:44

world are so intractable, so painful, that it

49:46

can seem as if there

49:48

is no way out, there are no solutions out,

49:51

that there's no hope in sight, and I think

49:53

that's understandable because the temperature has

49:55

been turned up to such a pitch. But

49:58

you cite a historical example. of

50:00

a moment when people put aside their differences

50:03

and truly saw the humanity of the other

50:05

side. And it occurred in 1914 in the

50:08

First World War. Can you tell us what happened?

50:11

It was the first Christmas of

50:14

the First World War. And,

50:16

you know, the sides were

50:18

dug in in their trenches. They

50:21

had the barbed wire up. And

50:24

even though they were supposed

50:27

to be killing each other, as

50:29

Christmas approached, they

50:32

started being kinder to each other. Right? They

50:34

would hear each other singing Christmas carols in

50:36

the trench over and might

50:40

wave at each

50:42

other. Right? Shout some pleasantries.

50:45

And eventually the situation

50:48

got so positive

50:51

that the Germans and the Allies

50:53

decided to have a soccer game

50:55

in no man's land where

50:57

they exchanged gifts. And so this

50:59

is really an act of defiance

51:02

against, you know, the generals

51:04

who wanted them to kill each other.

51:06

And it was an act of camaraderie

51:08

and bridging divides that I think is

51:11

remarkable even today. Their

51:15

mission was to literally murder

51:17

each other. And yes, they

51:20

found space to come together and

51:23

see past their disagreements. I

51:27

think it holds powerful, applicable

51:29

lessons for our own time.

51:32

The elites in our government and in the

51:34

media are telling us to hate each other

51:37

and telling us that we should hate each other.

51:40

But we already know from all

51:42

the scientific work we talked about today that the

51:44

other side actually doesn't hate us as much as

51:46

we think. And so this

51:48

should be an inspiration that even in

51:51

war, real war, people can rise up

51:54

and come together and we can too. Kurt

52:04

Gray is a psychologist and neuroscientist at

52:07

the University of North Carolina at Chapel

52:09

Hill. He plans to publish a

52:11

book about these ideas in 2025. The

52:14

book is going to be titled, Outraged,

52:16

Why We Fight Over Morality and

52:19

Politics. Kurt, thank you so much

52:21

for joining me today on Hidden Brain. Thanks

52:23

for having me. Have

52:27

you tried to talk with someone who disagrees with

52:29

you about politics? Have you found effective

52:31

ways to get through? Have you

52:34

lost friends over political disagreements? If

52:37

you'd be willing to share your stories with the

52:39

Hidden Brain audience, along with any questions you have

52:41

for Kurt Gray, please record a voice

52:43

memo and email it to us at ideas

52:46

at hiddenbrain.org. That

52:48

email address again is ideas

52:51

at hiddenbrain.org. Use

52:53

the subject line, politics. Hidden

52:57

Brain is produced by Hidden Brain Media. Our

53:00

audio production team includes Bridget McCarthy,

53:02

Annie Murphy-Powell, Kristen Wong, Laura

53:05

Querell, Ryan Katz, Autumn Burns,

53:07

Andrew Chadwick, and Nick Woodbury.

53:10

Tara Boyle is our executive producer. I'm

53:13

Hidden Brain's executive editor. Next

53:17

week in our Us 2.0 series,

53:19

the mistakes we make when we try to

53:21

change someone's mind, and a

53:23

better way to talk to political opponents. If

53:26

you're asking somebody to give up their moral

53:29

values, people are willing to fight and die

53:31

for their values, right? Like people really, really

53:33

are invested in not changing their minds about

53:35

that. I'm Shankar

53:37

Vedantham. See you soon.