Bruce Hood - The Domesticated Brain - A Pelican Introduction (Pelican Books)

Of course, the circumstances that led up to the Holocaust are extremely complicated and there were many contributing factors. It is easy with hindsight to pass judgement on others, but the ease with which people seemed to descend into moral depravity or at least an unwillingness to help the persecuted is a testament to the power of groups. Rather than dismissing a whole nation as apathetic, anti-Semitic or even evil, it is more sensible to look for explanations that address the way people behave once they identify with a group and consider themselves to be different.

Nothing has really changed, because history repeats itself with every ethnic conflict that arises around the world. If you take our built-in tendency to be members of a tribe and the prejudices that entails, and combine it with charismatic leaders who have an agenda to coerce the group to believe that they have a legitimate grievance against an out-group, then it is easier to understand how ordinary people with no political agenda and history of racism could turn on their neighbours. Automaticity of prejudice explains how groups of otherwise peaceful citizens become violent mobs seeking out enemies of the state in hate-fuelled witch-hunts for those who have been identified as out-group members. The ease with which we take sides also explains why other countries are reluctant to get involved in these non-domestic disputes unless their interests are directly threatened. One of the most disturbing aspects of mankind is that ordinary people will turn on others who they regard as different. This is especially true when they are perceived to be in competition for resources – a bias that is exploited by political groups to stir up hatred.

These examples seem to suggest that we are all sheep, prepared to go with the crowd even when that means behaving in an immoral way. Another more plausible interpretation is that we can reinterpret our behaviour as not being bad at all, but rather for the good of the group. Even in Milgram’s shocking studies, participants were more likely to comply with the instructions if they were told that it was necessary for the success of the study rather than simply told that they had no choice. Zimbardo had instructed how the guards should behave in his scientific study. It may be that these examples of extreme obedience and compliance are less about people blindly following orders but rather persuading others to believe in the importance of what they are doing. This creates a diffusion of accountability, where the individual no longer feels responsible for their actions. As British social psychologists Steve Reicher and Alex Haslam, who repeated Zimbardo’s prison study in 2002, point out, ‘People do great wrong, not because they are unaware of what they are doing but because they consider it to be right. This is possible because they actively identify with groups whose ideology justifies and condones the oppression and destruction of others.’ 37

Primate prejudice

It is often assumed that the prejudices that fuel group conflicts are attitudes that we have to learn. When you consider that for much of our civilization there has been constant conflict between groups of different economic, political and religious identities, then it is tempting to think that the prejudice that accompanies such conflicts must come from indoctrination. After all, national identity, political perspectives or religious beliefs are cultural inventions that we pass on to our children. And as we noted in the last chapter, we are inclined to believe what we are told. Surely we must learn to hate from others around us. However, when you look at other social animals you find evidence that prejudice is not uniquely human.

My colleague Laurie Santos at Yale wanted to know whether rhesus macaque monkeys were prejudiced. 38Like nearly all primates, macaques live in social groups with hierarchies that are relatively stable, with dominant individuals and familial ties. The macaques Santos studies live on the beautiful Caribbean island of Cayo Santiago, a sanctuary for animals that had previously been used in US laboratories. The island is now home to around 1,000 free-ranging macaques who have formed into six distinct groups. Their social order has been well-documented, but Santos and her colleagues wanted to know if in-group members displayed evidence of prejudice against out-group members.

First they tested how individual macaques responded to static photographs of in-group and out-group members. When given a choice, macaques looked longer at the out-group individual in comparison to the in-group member. This was not because this out-group monkey was unfamiliar, because they also looked longer at a monkey who had previously spent much of its time as a member of the group before it switched allegiance to join another group. The most likely reason why they were paying extra attention to the out-group monkey was that they were being vigilant for a potential threat.

Not only do they look longer at out-group monkeys, they also associate them with unpleasant experiences. Using an ingenious technique to measure each monkey’s emotional response to pictures of in- and out-group members, they found that monkeys were quicker to associate positive images of delicious fruit to pictures of in-group members and negative images of spiders with out-group members. (Like humans, monkeys hate spiders.) Not only do they aggress against out-group members, they do not like them either.

Recognizing your own group is important, but why does it feel good to belong? Humans have evolved rationality and logic to calculate the benefits of living in groups as opposed to being alone. Why do we need to feel emotions towards others as well? Feelings and emotions are two sides of the same coin. Emotions are short-lived, outward responses to an event that everyone around can read, like a sudden burst of anger or fit of laughing, but feelings are the internal lingering experiences that are not always for public consumption. We can have feelings without expressing them as emotions. They are part of our internal mental life. Without feelings, we would not be motivated to do the things we do. Feelings we get from others are some of the strongest motivations that we can have. Without feelings, there would be no point getting out of bed in the morning. Even pure logic needs feelings. When we solve a puzzle, it is not enough to know the answer – you have to feel good about it too. Why else would we bother?

It is through our social interactions that most of us find meaning in life – through the emotional experiences they generate. Pleasure, pride, excitement and love are feelings largely triggered and regulated by those around us. When we create or strive, we are not just doing it for ourselves – we seek the validation and praise of others. But others also hurt us when they cheat, lie, scold, mock, belittle or criticize. Living in groups has its ups and downs.

Social norms

Since we are social animals, it is in our collective interest not to lie, cheat or take advantage of each other in our group. This is something that good persuaders and con artists manipulate. They know that most people are kindhearted and willing to give others the benefit of the doubt when there is conflict of interest. These expectations form the basis of social norms of behaviour – what is expected by members of a group. Social norms can be so powerful that we will even apologize for something that is clearly not our fault. Anthropologist Kate Fox deliberately bumped into commuters and jumped queues at Paddington Station in London to provoke characteristic responses that she calls the ‘grammar’ of social etiquette. 39As you might have already guessed, Fox found that there is almost an automatic reflex to say ‘Sorry’ when we bump into strangers in the street. Failing to apologize in such a situation would be considered rude – the violation of a social norm.