How our minds evolved to understand other people, and why we overestimate this ability

Individuum recently published the bookThe inner storyteller. How brain science helps you write exciting stories»Will Storr - on how the human mind creates stories and how film studios and writers manipulate our subconscious. With permission from Lifehacker Publishing, he publishes an excerpt on the development of the brain and our social skills.

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Like all animals, our species is only able to perceive a narrow slice of reality directly related to our survival. Dogs live mainly in the world of smells, moles live in tactile sensations, and black knife fish live in the realm of electrical impulses.

The human world, in turn, is mostly filled with other people. Our highly social brain is specially designed to better control our fellows.

People are gifted with a unique ability to understand each other.

To control our environment, we must be able to predict the behavior of other people, the gravity and confusion of which dooms us to possess an insatiable curiosity.

We've been social for hundreds of millennia

animals and our survival was directly dependent on interaction with other people. But it is believed that over the past thousand generations, social instincts have been rapidly honed and strengthened. The Domesticated Brain, Bruce Hood (Pelican, 2014). . A "sharp increase" in the importance of social traits for natural selection, according to a specialist in the field of age psychology of Bruce Hood, gave us a brain “delightfully designed to interact with each other friend. "

In the past, for people living in a hostile environment, aggressiveness and physical qualities were critically important. But the more we began to interact with each other, the more useless these traits became. When we moved to a settled lifestyle, such qualities began to deliver even more problems. People who know how to find a common language with each other began to achieve greater success than physically dominant aggressors.

Social success meant greater reproductive success The number of copies of genes passed on to the next generation, which is also capable of reproduction. , and so gradually a new kind of man was formed. The bones of these new people became thinner and weaker than those of their ancestors, muscle mass decreased, and physical strength almost halved ‘The Domestication of Human’, Robert G. Bednarik, 2008, Anthropologie XLVI / 1, p. 1-17.a . The special chemical structure of the brain and the hormonal system predisposed them to behavior designed for sedentary cohabitation.

The level of interpersonal aggression has decreased, but the psychological ability to manipulate has increased, which is necessary for negotiations, trade and diplomacy. They have become specialists in social environment management.

The situation can be compared to the difference between a wolf and a dog. The wolf survives by interacting with other wolves, fighting for dominance in its group and by hunting prey. The dog manipulates its owners in such a way that they are ready to do anything for it. The power that my beloved Labradoodle Parker has over me is frankly embarrassing. (I even dedicated this damn book to her.)

In essence, this is not just an analogy. Some researchers, including Hood, argue that modern humans have gone through a process of "self-domestication." Part of the argument in favor of this theory is the fact that our brains have shrunk by 10-15% over the past 20,000 years. Exactly the same dynamics was observed in all 30 (or so) animal species, domesticated human. As with these animals, our domestication means that we are more submissive than our ancestors, better at reading social signals, and more dependent on others. However, writes Hood, "none of the animals have been domesticated to the same extent as ourselves."

Our brains may have evolved initially to “cope with the threatened world of predators, food shortages and adverse weather conditions, but we now rely on it to navigate an equally unpredictable social landscape. ”

These are unpredictable people. That's what stories are made of.

For modern man, keeping the world under control means controlling other people, and this requires understanding them. We are designed to be captivated by others and gain valuable information by reading their faces.

This passion arises almost immediately after birth. Unlike monkeys, who hardly look at the faces of their cubs, we cannot tear ourselves away from the faces of our babies. Evolutionary Psychology, Robin Dunbar, Louise Barrett, & John Lycett (Oneworld, 2007) p. 62. . In turn, people's faces attract On the Origin of Stories, Brian Boyd (Harvard University Press, 2010) p. 96. newborns are like nothing else, and within an hour after birth, babies begin to imitate them. By the age of two, they already know how to use a social smile. The Self Illusion, Bruce Hood (Constable and Robinson, 2011) p. 29. . During their growing up, they master art so masterly read othersthat are automatically calculated 'Effortless Thinking', Kate Douglas, New Scientist, December 13, 2017. character and status of a person, without spending more than one tenth of a second on it.

The evolution of our extraordinary, highly obsessed brain has led to bizarre side effects. The obsession with faces is so frantic that we see them almost everywhere: in the flames of a fire, in the clouds, in the depths of ominous corridors, and even on toasted bread.

In addition, we sense other minds everywhere. Just as our brain creates a model of the world around us, it also creates models of the mind.

This skill - a necessary weapon in our social arsenal - is known as the "human mental state model" or "theory of mind". It enables us to imagine what others are thinking, feeling and plotting, even if they are not around. Thanks to him, we can look at the world from the point of view of another person. According to psychologist Nicholas Epley, this ability, obviously key to storytelling, gave us incredible opportunities. “Our species conquered the Earth through its ability to comprehend the minds of others,” writes Mindwise, Nicholas Epley (Penguin, 2014) p. xvii. it, - not because of the protruding thumb or dexterous handling of tools. "

We develop this skill at about four years old. It is from this moment that we are ready for stories; become equipped enough to understand the logic of the story.

Human religions were born of the ability to bring imaginary versions of other people's minds into our minds. Shamans in the hunter-gatherer tribes fell into a trance state and interacted with the spirits in an attempt to establish control over the world. Ancient religions tended to be animistic: our storyteller brain projected a human-like mind onto trees, rocks, mountains, and animals, imagining that the gods are sitting in them, responsible for the course of events, and they need to be controlled through rituals and sacrifices.

In truth, we never grow out of our inherent animism.

Who among us has not hit the door in revenge on the door that has pinched our fingers, believing at this moment of blinding pain that the door did it on purpose? Who hasn't sent the hell out of an easy-to-assemble cabinet?

Whose storyteller brain itself did not fall into some kind of artistic trap, touchingly allowing the sun to infuse optimism about the day ahead, and the thickening clouds, on the contrary, catch up with melancholy? Statistics claim that people who endow their car with elements of personality are less likely to sell it. Mindwise, Nicholas Epley (Penguin, 2014) p. 65. . Bankers endow the market with human qualities and make deals based on this Mindwise, Nicholas Epley (Penguin. 2014) p. 62. .

Nevertheless, no matter what success people achieve in the art of understanding other people's minds, we still tend to significantly overestimate our abilities. Let the attempts to drive human behavior into the strict framework of absolute numerical values ​​should be recognized absurd, some researchers claim that strangers are able to read your thoughts and feelings with precision in 20% Mindwise, Nicholas Epley (Penguin, 2014) p. 9. . Friends and family? Only 35%.

Our misconceptions about other people's thoughts are the cause of many troubles. As we move down our path in life, mistakenly predicting what other people think and how they will react to our attempts to control them, we unfortunately provoke civil strife, clashes and disagreementsfueling devastating fires of unexpected changes in our social spaces.

Many comedies, be written by William Shakespeare, John Cleese British actor, comedian and director, co-founder of the Monty Python troupe. - Approx. per. or Connie Booth American actress and screenwriter who has worked on English television, including with Monty Python. In 1995 she left show business to become a psychotherapist. - Approx. per. are built around such errors. But regardless of the way they are told, well-thought-out characters always make guesses about their thoughts. other heroes, and since we are still talking about a dramatic work, their assumptions often turn out to be wrong. All this leads to unexpected consequences, and with them to an increase in the dramatic effect.

Writer Richard Yates uses a similar error to create a dramatic turning point in his classic novel, Road to Change. The artwork depicts Frank and April Wheeler's falling apart marriage. When they were young and in love, they dreamed of a bohemian life in Paris. But by the time we met with them, the midlife crisis had already overtaken them. Frank and April have two children and will soon have a third; they moved into a typical house in the suburbs. Frank works for his father's old company and is gradually getting used to a life of booze-flavored lunches and the convenience of a wifea housewife. But April doesn't share his happiness. She still dreams of Paris. They swear violently. Do not sleep together anymore.

Frank is cheating on his wife with a girlfriend from work. And here he makes a mistake from the point of view of the theory of reason. In an attempt to break the impasse, Frank decides to confess his infidelity to his wife. The model of consciousness he built for April implies that recognition will lead her into a state of catharsis, after which she will stop hovering in the clouds. Yes, of course, it will not do without tears, but they will only remind him to the old woman why she still loves him.

This is not happening. After listening to her husband's confession, April asks why?

Not why he cheated, but why bother telling her about it? She doesn't care about his affairs. This is not at all what Frank expected. He wants her to be worried about this!

“I know what you want,” April tells him. - I think I would care if I loved you; but the point is that it is not. I don’t love you, I never did and until this week I never really understood it. ”

Will Storr is a British writer and journalist and author of the bestselling Selfie. Why we are fixated on ourselves and how it affects us. On Neuropsychology and the Art of Storytelling, his new book, The Inner Storyteller, is worth reading for more than just for writers and screenwriters, but also for everyone who loves cinema and fiction, and is also interested in how our brain.

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