Bruce Hood - The Self Illusion

It is worth pointing out a lesson to be learned. In this day and age where we increasingly need to share our limited living space on the planet, most people entertain a belief that they are considerate, reasonable and fair. Not many would readily accept that they are prejudiced, unreasonable and racist. However, we can easily harbour many stereotypes and distortions that shape the way that we behave and think. We are certainly more pliable through the influence of others than we ever thought. If we wish to be fair and just individuals, I think a good starting alternative is to accept that prejudice may be the norm, and not the exception, and is inherent in group psychology as Tajfel and others claimed. The first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging that you have one to begin with and so long as we entertain a self illusion, we are not going to accept just how much external circumstances have shaped us in the past and continue to exert an influence throughout our lives. We don’t see this because our cognitive dissonance is constantly shielding us from our failings by trying to maintain an integrated self belief – an idealized story of who we think we are.

Answer to Figure 9: There is a gorilla next to the pencils.

7

The Stories We Live By

I looked around, it was like a horror movie, people were mounted on each other, the smell of burnt skin and people’s insides was gagging. I kept thinking about my fiancé, about our wedding, I wanted to wear that white dress and swear my love for him. Something gave me the strength to get up. I believe today that it was my fiancé on his way to heaven.

Tania Head

1

Who can forget the day they saw the attack on the Twin Towers? You didn’t even have to be there. It was the first live televised terrorist atrocity witnessed by the world. I was at work in Bristol, England, and recently had a television mounted on my office wall that I used to review research videos, but that afternoon I had it turned it on to watch the horror unfold on that crisp, sunny September morning in New York. It was surreal – it couldn’t be happening. I remember trying to be disconnected from it – as if it was just another piece of news. I did not want to think too hard about what I was seeing. And yet I will not forget that day. It is seared into the memories of all who witnessed the events that have simply become known as 9/11.

As discussed, memories are not recordings but stories we retrieve from the compost heap that is our long-term memory; we construct these stories to make sense of the events we have experienced. They change over time as they become distorted, merged, turned over, mixed in and mangled with other experiences that eventually fade. But some memories remain as vivid as the day they happened or at least they seem so – those episodes that refuse to decompose. These are the events that we can’t forget. When we witness something that is truly terrifying, then a memory can be branded into our brain, like a hot searing iron that marks our mind forever. This is because emotionally charged memories are fuel-injected by the electrical activity of the limbic system. 2Arousal, triggered in the amygdala, produces heightened sensitivity and increased attention. The dilation of our pupils reveals that our vigilance systems have been put on high alert to look out for danger. The world suddenly becomes very clear and enriched as we notice all manner of trivial details that we would not normally care about. It’s like the scene has suddenly been illuminated by bright light – as if some paparazzi photographer has lit up the world in a brilliant blaze of light during our moments of terror – which is why these recollections are called ‘flashbulb’ memories. 3And we experience the emotion – we feel the past. It is the heightened arousal and emotional significance that seems to lay down the life-track in the brain that becomes a flashbulb memory.

We usually lament our loss of memory as we age but sometimes it is better to forget. While many flashbulb memories are associated with the more joyous events in life such as births and weddings, most are generated by the horrors. Victims and survivors typically experience traumatic memories that they can’t erase – a common symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Following 9/11, one in five New Yorkers living in the vicinity of the Twin Towers developed PTSD. 4They were haunted by nightmares and constantly ruminated on the events of that terrible day. Our emotional systems seem compelled to never let us forget the worst things that can happen to us. In truth, details of flashbulb memories can be as false as any other memory, but they just seem so accurate. For example, many people (including George Bush) remember seeing the plane hit the first tower on 9/11 even though video footage did not emerge until much later. Maybe flashbulb memories serve some form of evolutionary value to always remember the worst case scenario. When it comes to surviving, it would seem that Mother Nature has decided that it is more important to remember how we felt when endangered compared to the pleasures of life.

One way to combat PTSD is to administer a beta-blocker such as propranolol immediately after the event. 5Beta-blockers dampen the arousal of the limbic system so that events are not encoded with the same degree of emotional kick. People still remember what happened but feel less upset. Currently, there is research underway at Yale Medical School by Deane Aikins to determine whether propranolol alleviates PTSD in combat troops but some have even suggested that the drug should be given to all soldiers. This raises concerns. Do we really want to have a moral morning-after pill that shuts down a system that usually prevents us from doing things that might lead to remorse and regret? 6Some have even suggested giving propranolol to soldiers before they go into battle as a prophylaxis. If you have no pangs of guilt then you could become immune to suffering. But do we really want blind obedience without a moral compass in our solders? Remember the lessons of Milgram and Abu Ghraib. There is a big difference between inoculating against PTSD and helping those to overcome events out of their control and no fault of their own. This future of the psychopharmacological treatment of PTSD is a moral minefield.

In any event, the scale of the emotional devastation created by 9/11 was unlikely to be solved so easily with a pill, and certainly not for those who had managed to escape the collapsing towers. The survivors of 9/11 were left traumatized and tormented by their flashbulb memories. Initially, the nation joined them in their grief as everyone tried to comprehend the sheer horror of 9/11 but, eventually, things started to return to normal. Memories started to fade and people wanted to move on, but not those who had been there. Two years after the event, survivors sought each other out and met up in small meetings to share their experiences, nightmares and pain. There was a lot of guilt that they had survived and they needed to talk. Gerry Bogacz, who co-founded the Survivors’ Network, explained: ‘After a while, you can’t talk about this anymore with your family. You’ve worn them out. Your need to talk is greater than their ability to listen.’ The Survivors’ Network began to expand their meetings across Manhattan. More and more sought the solace and comfort of fellow survivors because only those who had undergone the same ordeal themselves could relate to the legacy left by 9/11. At these meetings, they would exchange stories and, with each retelling, it seemed to help unleash or ease the feelings and emotions that had been bottled up.

Very soon, one particular story started to spread among the groups. It was the story of Tania Head who had survived the attack on the South Tower. She had been on the seventy-eighth floor, waiting for an elevator, when United Airlines flight 175 slammed into her tower. Tania had been badly burned by aviation fuel but managed to crawl through the rubble and even encountered a dying man who handed her his wedding ring, which she later returned to his widow. She would be only one of nineteen above the impact point who would survive that day. Tania recalled how she was rescued by twenty-four-year-old volunteer firefighter, Welles Crowther, who always wore a red bandanna. Witnesses say he was later killed making his fourth return to the collapsing tower to save more victims trapped in the debris. But Tania was not entirely without loss. Though she was saved, she later discovered that her fiancé, Dave, who had been in the North Tower had been killed. The wedding, for which she had bought her dress only weeks earlier, was never to be.