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What does
a brain need to be healthy?

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Well, it needs nutrients
from the food you eat,

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it needs oxygen from your blood,

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plenty of water but there's something
else, something equally as important.

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It needs other people. Human beings
are extremely social creatures.

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We come together, we team up, we share
moments of intense joy and disappointment.

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We don't just seek out other
people to have a good time.

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Your brain function depends on
the social web that you're in.

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Your neurons require other people's
neurons to thrive and survive.

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I want to show you how our brains are
fundamentally wired to work together...

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How this social network that envelops
us from birth is vital for our survival.

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Yeah? Ok!

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Understanding how
brains deal with each other allows us

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to understand what bonds our species,
driving us to help one another.

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And what makes us hate...
What allows acts of human violence.

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It helps us to make sense of our
past and holds the key to our future.

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There are 7 billion people living today--
7 billion brains moving, choosing, acting,

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believing, and connecting
with other brains.

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Brains are traditionally
studied in isolation.

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But, in fact, much of circuitry of
the brain has to do with other brains.

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We're fundamentally
social creatures.

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And our society is
a complex web of interaction.

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On any normal day, we intersect
with an enormous number of people.

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Our lives are built on these intersections,

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not just between us and our family
and friends and work colleagues,

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but also between them
and the people they meet.

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Even the most basic encounter...
Like getting a cup of coffee...

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Relies on trust with a stranger.

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- Can I get a latte, please?
- Definitely. Thanks.

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Everywhere we look,
we see complex social interactions--

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relationships forming and breaking, bonds
of love and support, social networking.

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We clump into large groups
to share our knowledge.

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We got all these random
spots in your brain

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that get wired up into an
associative neural network.

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We work to impress each other.

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And we swap ideas. I'll stick around
for any questions that anyone has.

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Thank you.

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Most research looks at
one brain at a time,

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but that misses the fact that a
great deal of our brain activity

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is dedicated to communicating with
each other, interpreting each other.

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Our social drive is deeply
rooted in our neural circuitry.

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Take a look at
this film from the 1940s.

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What do you see
happening here?

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Is this just a simple animation
of some shapes or something more?

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Do you see a chase? A fight the big one
seems to be pushing the little one around.

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Seems like the two triangles are
in a little bit of a squabble.

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There are relationships here in terms
of one is more dominant than the other.

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Back in the 1940s, psychologists
Fritz heider and marianne simmel

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created this film
as part of an experiment.

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The ball doesn't seem
to want to be in there.

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It's freaking out. It's scared.
It looks like a trap to me.

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It looks like the small triangle is being
shut out and, like, trying to peer in.

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They are paired in a
way that seems friendly.

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- Yeah! This is really fun.
- It's fun, right? Ha ha!

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What heider and simmel found, as I did,
is how easy it is to look at moving shapes

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and to see meaning and motives and emotion
all in the form of a social narrative.

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I kind of get the sense
that they're cats and dogs.

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It seemed like the big one might have
been, like his, his dad or something.

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Just call it more of, like, a mating ritual
two competitors going for one possible mate.

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These are just shapes on a screen, but we
can't help but tell stories about them.

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Why? It's because our brains are
so primed for social interaction

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that we look for intention
and relationships all around us.

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One way we navigate the social world is
by judging other people's intentions.

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Is she trying to be helpful?
Are we a trustworthy team?

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Our brains are good at making
these sorts of judgments.

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And we do it constantly.

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But do we learn this skill from life
experience, or are we born with it?

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To figure out which one it is,

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I've invited over some people who don't
have much experience with the world.

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I've invited them to a puppet show.
These babies are all under 12 months old.

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They're just beginning to
explore the world around them.

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You could say they're all a
little short on life experience.

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We decided to run a simple experiment
developed at Yale university.

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Here's a duck struggling
to open a box.

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One bear helps the duck.
The other is mean to the duck.

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Ok, bowie, here you go.
There are two puppets...

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When the show's over, I let the
babies choose a bear to play with.

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...want to play with?

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Yeah? Ok, is that the one
you want? All right.

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Almost every one of them chooses
the bear that's been kind.

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These babies
can't walk or talk.

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And yet they already have the tools
to make judgments about others.

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Yeah? Ok!

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It's often assumed that
trust is something

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that we learn from
our experience in the world.

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But these experiments demonstrate
that even as babies, we come equipped

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with social antennae for feeling
our way through the world.

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The brain comes
with inborn instincts

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for figuring out who's
trustworthy and who's not.

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As we grow, our social challenges
become even more subtle and complex.

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Understanding others is one of
the most demanding operations

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that our brains perform.

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They have
to interpret words.

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And, more than that, inflection,
facial expressions, body language.

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"Does she like me?" "Is he interested in
what I'm saying?" "Do they want my help?"

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Society runs on our ability to
read each other's social signals.

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Take that ability away and the
world becomes a very strange place.

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Car enthusiast John robison has
always struggled to read other people.

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When I was a little boy,
I was bullied and rejected by other kids.

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And that didn't happen
with machines.

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You know, I could stand, by,
a tractor on my grandparents' farm.

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And I could learn how
to adjust it.

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And it wouldn't tease me
or do anything bad.

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It wouldn't run away.
It would always be there.

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And I could count on it.

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And i--i guess I learned to
make friends with the machines

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before I learned how to
make friends with other people.

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In time,
John's affinity for technology

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took him to places
his bullies could only dream of.

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By 21, he was
a roadie for the band kiss.

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This was me back
with, kiss in the seventies.

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I look older and fatter
and stuff.

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I don't look the same anymore.

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Surrounded by legendary
rock and roll excess,

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his outlook remained
different from other people's.

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People would come up
to me all the time.

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And they would say, "what's this guy
like," or, "what's that guy like?"

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I would say, "yeah, their stage setup,
they had sunn 2000s bass amps," or...

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Or, "gene played sunn coliseums, "and
we had seven bass amps chained together.

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We had 2,200 watts
in the bass system for that."

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But I maybe couldn't
tell you the first thing

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about the musicians
who sang through them.

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Now I realize that shows that I did kind of
live in a different world all those years--

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a world of machines
and equipment.

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When he was 40, John was diagnosed
with asperger's-- a form of autism.

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Many regions of the brain are
engaged during social interaction.

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But in autism that brain
activity isn't seen as strongly.

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And that's paralleled
by diminished social skills.

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I didn't really understand that
there were complex messages in faces

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until I was well into adulthood
and learned about autism.

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I knew that people could,
display signs of crazed anger.

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But if you, um, asked
about more subtle expressions--

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you know, "I think you're sweet,
"and I wonder what you're hiding,"

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or, "I'd really like to do that," or,
"I wish you'd do this..." Or that.

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I...i had no idea
about things like that.

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But then came a transforming
moment in John's life.

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In 2008, he was invited
to Harvard medical school

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to take part in an experiment on his brain
overseen by Dr. Alvaro pascual-Leone.

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It was an attempt to try to
understand how activity in one area

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affects activity in an area... In another
area and how that affects behavior.

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The experiment was only meant to help
the scientists gain greater knowledge

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about the autistic brain,
but then something unexpected happened.

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John was given transcranial
magnetic stimulation or tms.

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Magnetic coils
were placed next to his head

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to generate minute electrical currents
in the brain and alter its activity.

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The researchers targeted different regions
of John's brain to see whether interfering

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with his brain activity
had any effect on his behavior.

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They would
test me after the session.

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I would go home kind of
not knowing what to expect.

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At first there was no result.

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But then they targeted the
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex--

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a region involved in flexible
thinking and abstraction.

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And something dramatic happened.
Somehow I became different.

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He contacted us--very excited to say,
you know, "the effects of the stimulation

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"seemed to have
unlocked something.

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"And the effects is still
lasting.

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And I now can do things
that I could never do."

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After tms, I was able to,
sort of read signals from other people

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and understand
what was going on.

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So I listened to that, fascinated by
it, and thought, "ok, well, whatever.

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It'll go away."
But it didn't. It...

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It actually, um,
remains something

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that--that had really
fundamentally changed in... In him.

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Somehow, and entirely accidentally, the tms
had unlocked a whole new world for John.

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...vegetable sandwich
to bring home.

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What have
you got...

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I'd be tempted to say,
"I couldn't read people and now I can,"

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but that's not really true.

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Ok. How about a
full-size one of them...

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Sure.

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It's more accurate to say I had no idea
there were these messages emanating

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from other people.

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Tms
showed me those messages.

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And now that I'm aware that they're out
there, everything I do is different.

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All of a sudden,
you can walk around and engage the world.

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And it's a big, big thing.

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Ok, thanks!

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We don't know exactly what
happened neurobiologically. Um...

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But I think it now
offers the opportunity for us

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to understand
what behavioral modifications,

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what interventions
might be possible

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to learn from him
that we can then teach others.

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John's transformation is a reminder that
all the activities of the human brain,

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including the subtle interplay
of emotions and relationships,

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are rooted in the detailed patterns of
trillions of electrochemical signals.

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Somehow, humans can look
at each other and study

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the arrangement of facial muscles
and then process that information

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into an understanding of other
people's thoughts and emotions.

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It's an astonishing skill
because the cues are so subtle.

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And the processing is so rapid that the
whole operation runs under your radar.

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It only takes 33 milliseconds for your
brain to process basic information

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about someone's facial expression
and start reacting to it.

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So we're gonna put one electrode right above
your eyebrow... So how does it do that?

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And the other right
on your cheek.

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Here we go.
Great...

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I've invited a group of
people to run an experiment.

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I've wired them up to a machine that
measures movements in their facial muscles.

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And I've asked them to look
at photographs of faces.

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When participants are looking at a
photograph with a smile or a frown,

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we see this
activity on the graph

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which indicates that their
own facial muscles are moving.

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Why? Well, it turns out that they are
automatically mirroring with their own faces

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the expressions
that they're seeing.

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That was fun, right?
The last one?

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- Yeah.
- Yeah, it was a fun test.

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But what purpose does
this mirroring serve?

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I've invited
a second group of people.

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They're similar to the first
group, except for one thing.

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This is the most lethal
neurotoxin on the planet.

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If you were to ingest
even a fraction of this,

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your brain could no longer tell
your muscles how to contract

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and you would die
of total paralysis.

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So it seems unlikely that anyone

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would pay to have this injected
into themselves, but they do.

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This is known as
botulinum toxin or Botox.

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If you put it into your forehead muscles,
it paralyzes them to reduce wrinkling.

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But there's a less
well known side-effect.

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When our participants with Botox
went through the same tests,

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their facial muscles
responded less.

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No surprise there.

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But replicating an experiment
out of Duke university,

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we had both groups
look at facial expressions.

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And now they were
asked to choose the word

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that best described
the emotion they were seeing.

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Panic. Panicked. Upset.

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On average, the Botox group was worse
at identifying the emotions correctly.

227
00:19:00,433 --> 00:19:01,900
Skeptical?

228
00:19:02,000 --> 00:19:05,600
It seems that the lack of
feedback from their facial muscles

229
00:19:05,700 --> 00:19:10,200
impairs their ability
to read other people.

230
00:19:10,300 --> 00:19:13,700
The paralyzed faces
of Botox users

231
00:19:13,800 --> 00:19:17,700
not only makes it hard for us
to tell what they're feeling,

232
00:19:17,800 --> 00:19:23,633
those same frozen muscles make
it hard for them to read us.

233
00:19:23,733 --> 00:19:26,467
And that tells us something.

234
00:19:26,567 --> 00:19:32,533
When I'm happy or sad, part of that
feeling relies on the unconscious feedback

235
00:19:32,633 --> 00:19:34,167
from muscles in my face.

236
00:19:34,267 --> 00:19:39,300
And our social brains take advantage of
that-- so when we're trying to understand

237
00:19:39,400 --> 00:19:43,533
what someone else is feeling, we
try on their facial expression.

238
00:19:46,633 --> 00:19:54,667
This automatic mirroring of expressions is
just one way in which we understand others.

239
00:19:54,767 --> 00:20:00,333
The brain also has a deeper way-- one
that's best explained at the movies.

240
00:20:08,300 --> 00:20:13,567
One ticket, please.
Thank you.

241
00:20:15,700 --> 00:20:20,200
When we go to the movie theater,
we know full well that it's make-believe.

242
00:20:20,300 --> 00:20:26,967
The people on the screen are just acting.
And yet we still react.

243
00:20:27,067 --> 00:20:31,867
We gasp and flinch and cry.
Why do we fall for it?

244
00:20:37,900 --> 00:20:41,200
To understand why we care
about other people getting hurt,

245
00:20:41,300 --> 00:20:45,033
you need to understand what happens
in your brain when you get hurt.

246
00:20:45,133 --> 00:20:49,167
So imagine that somebody were to
stab your hand with a syringe needle.

247
00:20:49,267 --> 00:20:54,200
That activates a network of areas in
your brain that we call the pain matrix.

248
00:20:56,233 --> 00:21:01,800
There's no single spot in the
brain where pain is processed.

249
00:21:01,900 --> 00:21:09,333
Instead, the perception of pain arises from
several different areas networking together.

250
00:21:09,433 --> 00:21:15,800
Strangely enough, this pain matrix is at
the heart of how we connect with others.

251
00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:21,200
Now, when you watch
someone else get stabbed,

252
00:21:21,300 --> 00:21:25,200
your pain
matrix becomes activated.

253
00:21:25,300 --> 00:21:28,833
Not the parts that tell you
you've actually been touched,

254
00:21:28,933 --> 00:21:33,333
but the parts involved in the
emotional experience of pain.

255
00:21:33,433 --> 00:21:36,200
In other words,
watching someone else in pain

256
00:21:36,300 --> 00:21:40,900
and being in pain
use the same neural machinery.

257
00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:43,500
And that's the basis of empathy.

258
00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:57,633
To empathize with another person
is to literally feel their pain.

259
00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:06,167
You run a compelling simulation of what it
would be like if you were in that situation.

260
00:22:06,267 --> 00:22:14,200
And our capacity to do this is why stories
and movies and novels are so absorbing

261
00:22:14,300 --> 00:22:17,133
and why they're so pervasive
across human culture.

262
00:22:17,233 --> 00:22:21,933
Because whether it's about total
strangers or made-up characters,

263
00:22:22,033 --> 00:22:26,600
you experience their agony
and their ecstasy.

264
00:22:26,700 --> 00:22:33,367
You fluidly become them and live their
lives and stand in their vantage points.

265
00:22:34,833 --> 00:22:38,433
You can tell yourself that
the stories aren't real,

266
00:22:38,533 --> 00:22:42,367
but some neurons deep in your
brain can't tell the difference.

267
00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:57,333
Our capacity to feel another person's
pain is part of what makes us

268
00:22:57,433 --> 00:23:00,333
so good at taking
other people's perspective--

269
00:23:00,433 --> 00:23:04,167
to step out of our shoes and into
their shoes, neurally speaking.

270
00:23:07,433 --> 00:23:10,467
We can't
help but connect with others.

271
00:23:10,567 --> 00:23:17,100
We're hardwired to be extremely social
creatures. And that raises a question.

272
00:23:17,200 --> 00:23:22,667
What would happen if the brain
were starved of human contact?

273
00:23:29,433 --> 00:23:32,967
In 2009,
peace activist Sarah shourd

274
00:23:33,067 --> 00:23:35,533
and her two companions
were hiking in the mountains

275
00:23:35,633 --> 00:23:40,033
of northern Iraq--an area
that was at the time peaceful.

276
00:23:40,133 --> 00:23:45,200
But they accidentally strayed into
Iran, and they were arrested.

277
00:23:45,300 --> 00:23:50,333
They pulled us apart and threw us in
separate cells and slammed the door.

278
00:23:50,433 --> 00:23:58,400
And, um, that was the beginning of-- of
the next 410 days of my life in that cell.

279
00:24:04,967 --> 00:24:06,800
Well, in the early weeks
and, really, months

280
00:24:06,900 --> 00:24:11,167
of solitary confinement,
you're reduced to an animal-like state.

281
00:24:11,267 --> 00:24:14,467
I mean, you are an animal
in a cage.

282
00:24:18,400 --> 00:24:21,567
And the majority
of your hours are pacing.

283
00:24:24,700 --> 00:24:34,533
And the animal-like state sort of eventually
transformed into a more plant-like state...

284
00:24:37,033 --> 00:24:42,633
When your mind starts to slow down
and your thoughts become repetitive.

285
00:24:49,433 --> 00:24:51,333
Shourd, voice-over:
Your brain turns on itself.

286
00:24:51,433 --> 00:24:57,733
And it becomes the-- the source of
your worst pain and your worst torture.

287
00:25:04,967 --> 00:25:07,567
I would relive every
detail of my life.

288
00:25:09,100 --> 00:25:12,033
And eventually,
you run out of--of memories.

289
00:25:12,133 --> 00:25:16,533
And you've told them all to yourself so
many times, and it doesn't take that long.

290
00:25:16,633 --> 00:25:21,800
Extreme social depravation
causes deep psychological pain.

291
00:25:21,900 --> 00:25:26,067
Without interaction,
the brain suffers.

292
00:25:27,333 --> 00:25:31,600
Solitary confinement
is designed to eat away at

293
00:25:31,700 --> 00:25:35,633
and really attack
what essentially makes us human.

294
00:25:37,867 --> 00:25:45,600
Sarah's brain used the scant sensory
information it had to construct a reality.

295
00:25:45,700 --> 00:25:51,433
The sun would come in at a certain time
of day at an angle through my window.

296
00:25:51,533 --> 00:25:56,333
And all of the little dust particles
in my cell were illuminated by the sun.

297
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:01,000
I saw all of those
particles of dust as being

298
00:26:01,100 --> 00:26:04,733
other human beings
occupying the planet.

299
00:26:04,833 --> 00:26:06,500
And they were
in the stream of life.

300
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:09,433
They were interacting. They
were bouncing off one another.

301
00:26:09,533 --> 00:26:11,700
They were doing
something collective.

302
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:20,100
And I saw myself
as off in a corner, you know,

303
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:23,667
walled off by--by myself
out of the stream of life.

304
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:35,167
In September 2010 after 410
days in solitary confinement,

305
00:26:35,267 --> 00:26:39,500
Sarah was finally released
and allowed to rejoin the world.

306
00:26:41,300 --> 00:26:46,233
But for a long time, she suffered
from extreme post-traumatic stress.

307
00:26:49,833 --> 00:26:54,100
The philosopher Martin heidegger
said we can't talk about being.

308
00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:57,700
We can only talking
about being in the world.

309
00:26:57,800 --> 00:27:03,000
In other words, the world around
you is a part of who you are.

310
00:27:03,100 --> 00:27:07,200
In a vacuum,
you lose your sense of self.

311
00:27:10,433 --> 00:27:13,167
It's not easy
for science to study people

312
00:27:13,267 --> 00:27:16,267
while they're experiencing
solitary confinement,

313
00:27:16,367 --> 00:27:21,567
but a simple experiment designed by
neuroscientist Naomi eisenberger can give us

314
00:27:21,667 --> 00:27:27,033
an insight into what's happening
in the brain when we feel excluded.

315
00:27:29,267 --> 00:27:31,767
It's based on a game of catch.

316
00:27:33,567 --> 00:27:37,300
While volunteers
played a computer game of catch,

317
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:40,767
eisenberger and her team
scanned their brains.

318
00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:47,300
The volunteers thought the other characters
were controlled by other participants,

319
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:50,333
but, in fact, they were just
part of the computer program.

320
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:55,767
At first, the other
characters played nicely,

321
00:27:55,867 --> 00:27:59,867
but after a while, they'd cut
the volunteer out of the game

322
00:27:59,967 --> 00:28:04,167
and simply play
between themselves.

323
00:28:04,267 --> 00:28:10,367
She found that being left out of
the game activated the pain matrix.

324
00:28:15,100 --> 00:28:19,133
Not getting the ball might seem
insignificant, but to the brain,

325
00:28:19,233 --> 00:28:23,533
social rejection is so
meaningful that it hurts.

326
00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:31,367
But
that pain, in turn, is useful.

327
00:28:32,667 --> 00:28:45,000
It pushes us in the direction of bonding
with others. We all seek out alliances.

328
00:28:45,100 --> 00:28:51,333
We join with friends,
with family, with colleagues.

329
00:28:51,433 --> 00:28:54,200
It could be
which team we support...

330
00:28:55,633 --> 00:29:01,033
What style we go for...
What our hobbies are.

331
00:29:01,133 --> 00:29:05,000
It gives comfort
to belong to a group.

332
00:29:05,100 --> 00:29:11,433
And that gives us a critical clue
into our success as a species.

333
00:29:11,533 --> 00:29:15,733
Survival of the fittest
isn't just about individuals.

334
00:29:15,833 --> 00:29:22,500
It's also about groups. We're safer. We're
more productive. We overcome challenges.

335
00:29:24,533 --> 00:29:28,400
The drive to work in groups has
helped human populations thrive

336
00:29:28,500 --> 00:29:33,500
across the planet and
build entire civilizations.

337
00:29:37,533 --> 00:29:41,467
And yet there's a flipside
to this drive to come together.

338
00:29:41,567 --> 00:29:46,100
Because for every
"in" group, there are outsiders.

339
00:29:49,267 --> 00:29:53,200
And the consequences
of that can be very dark.

340
00:29:57,100 --> 00:29:59,500
History is plagued with examples

341
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:05,533
of one group turning on another that
was defenseless and posed no threat.

342
00:30:09,233 --> 00:30:10,967
If you were to look
at my family tree,

343
00:30:11,067 --> 00:30:15,567
you would see that most of the
branches end in the early 1940s.

344
00:30:15,667 --> 00:30:19,000
This is because my family
is ethnically Jewish.

345
00:30:19,100 --> 00:30:25,433
That small social marker was
enough to prompt Nazi genocide.

346
00:30:28,267 --> 00:30:30,133
Under normal circumstances,

347
00:30:30,233 --> 00:30:33,633
you wouldn't find it conscionable
to go murder your neighbor.

348
00:30:33,733 --> 00:30:40,967
So what is it that allows hundreds or thousands
of people to suddenly do exactly that?

349
00:30:41,067 --> 00:30:43,133
What is it about
certain situations

350
00:30:43,233 --> 00:30:48,000
that short-circuits the normal
social functioning of the brain?

351
00:30:52,500 --> 00:30:58,533
While the Nazi holocaust was on an
unprecedented scale, it wasn't unique.

352
00:30:58,633 --> 00:31:02,800
Genocide continued
to occur all over the world.

353
00:31:02,900 --> 00:31:08,067
And within a generation,
it returned to eastern Europe.

354
00:31:08,167 --> 00:31:11,300
This time, it was in yugoslavia.

355
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:26,467
The Bosnian war from 1992 to '95
saw atrocities on both sides.

356
00:31:26,567 --> 00:31:31,133
In one of the worst, more
than 100,000 Bosnian muslims,

357
00:31:31,233 --> 00:31:33,967
known as Bosniaks,
were slaughtered

358
00:31:34,067 --> 00:31:38,333
by serbians in actions
known as ethnic cleansing.

359
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:44,567
One of the most horrible incidents
happened here at srebrenica.

360
00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:55,800
Over the course of just 10 days,
8,000 people were systematically killed.

361
00:31:55,900 --> 00:31:58,600
How does something
like this happen?

362
00:32:00,233 --> 00:32:06,133
Here in 1995, thousands of Bosniaks took
refuge inside this united nations compound,

363
00:32:06,233 --> 00:32:10,800
because this village
was surrounded by siege forces.

364
00:32:10,900 --> 00:32:18,233
But then on July 11th, the u.N. Commanders
made the decision to expel all the refugees.

365
00:32:18,333 --> 00:32:20,567
And they delivered them right
into the hands of their enemies,

366
00:32:20,667 --> 00:32:23,800
who were waiting
just outside this gate.

367
00:32:23,900 --> 00:32:30,967
Women were raped, and men were
executed, and even children were killed.

368
00:32:31,067 --> 00:32:33,667
And this was just
the beginning of what would be

369
00:32:33,767 --> 00:32:38,200
the largest genocide on European
soil since the holocaust.

370
00:32:47,500 --> 00:32:53,267
The Dutch were there. I mean,
the world was there. You know, the u.N.

371
00:32:53,367 --> 00:32:56,733
The Serbs were there as perpetrators.
Everything was mixed.

372
00:32:56,833 --> 00:32:59,733
The refuges were there,
the babies were crying.

373
00:32:59,833 --> 00:33:04,400
I was there being protected
with that u.N. I.D. Card

374
00:33:04,500 --> 00:33:08,233
that said "u.N. Language
assistant," whatever.

375
00:33:08,333 --> 00:33:15,800
Hasan nuhanovic's status as a u.N Translator
made him part of a protected group.

376
00:33:15,900 --> 00:33:22,467
But his family members were marked
out by their identity as muslims.

377
00:33:22,567 --> 00:33:26,033
At that very moment when my family
was being sent out of the compound

378
00:33:26,133 --> 00:33:31,767
to actually die, I lost my-- I lost
my mother, my brother, and my father.

379
00:33:31,867 --> 00:33:37,667
You know, like, you are in a situation
when your family is being killed.

380
00:33:37,767 --> 00:33:44,100
And I was thinking, my god...
I mean, why?

381
00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:49,733
One of the most striking things is that
the perpetrators weren't strangers.

382
00:33:49,833 --> 00:33:54,733
They were people with whom his family
had previously shared a great deal.

383
00:33:56,900 --> 00:33:58,733
The continuation,
you know, of...

384
00:33:58,833 --> 00:34:07,833
Of the killings, of torture, was
perpetrated by our neighbors. You know?

385
00:34:07,933 --> 00:34:12,167
The very people we have been
living with for decades.

386
00:34:13,667 --> 00:34:17,033
They were capable of killing
their own school friends.

387
00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:23,200
I remember they said they arrested
a dentist who was a bosniak,

388
00:34:23,300 --> 00:34:25,167
the best dentist
in the town.

389
00:34:27,067 --> 00:34:31,700
They tied him up from a light pole,
like this in front of the post office.

390
00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:37,133
He was hanging there like this.
And they beat him with a metal bar.

391
00:34:37,233 --> 00:34:38,967
They broke his spine.

392
00:34:39,067 --> 00:34:45,267
And he was there dying for days
while serb children went to school,

393
00:34:45,367 --> 00:34:49,433
walking by his body,
you know?

394
00:34:51,267 --> 00:34:53,267
I mean, there are
universal values.

395
00:34:53,367 --> 00:34:57,933
And these universal values
are kind of very basic:

396
00:34:58,033 --> 00:35:07,067
Don't kill... April '92,
this don't kill suddenly disappeared.

397
00:35:07,167 --> 00:35:12,000
It was like, "go and kill." It
was, allowed to kill.

398
00:35:23,067 --> 00:35:25,967
This is where
hasan's family is buried.

399
00:35:26,067 --> 00:35:30,267
And each year, there are new bodies
that are found and identified,

400
00:35:30,367 --> 00:35:31,400
and they're brought here.

401
00:35:31,500 --> 00:35:34,633
Many of these graves
are fresh.

402
00:35:36,833 --> 00:35:42,233
And across the human species,
this is just one genocide of many.

403
00:35:42,333 --> 00:35:48,300
Genocides keep happening--
Rwanda, Darfur, nanking, Armenia.

404
00:35:48,400 --> 00:35:51,100
And my interest is
in understanding why.

405
00:35:53,900 --> 00:35:55,533
Traditionally we
ask this question

406
00:35:55,633 --> 00:36:00,300
through the lens of history
or economics or politics.

407
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:02,800
And those are
all important vantage points.

408
00:36:02,900 --> 00:36:06,533
But I think for a complete
picture, one more lens is needed.

409
00:36:06,633 --> 00:36:10,800
We need to understand
genocide as a neural phenomenon.

410
00:36:16,867 --> 00:36:19,633
I've been researching
this back in my laboratory.

411
00:36:19,733 --> 00:36:24,733
And here is my main question,
when we interact with someone,

412
00:36:24,833 --> 00:36:30,300
does our brain function differ
according to which group they are in?

413
00:36:31,933 --> 00:36:36,433
For every "in" group we belong to,
there's at least one group that we don't.

414
00:36:36,533 --> 00:36:47,433
And that division can be based on anything--
race or gender or wealth or religion.

415
00:36:52,633 --> 00:36:56,500
We put 130 participants
in this scanner.

416
00:36:57,833 --> 00:37:01,233
And here's what they saw--
six hands on the screen.

417
00:37:01,333 --> 00:37:03,500
And the computer randomly
picks one of these.

418
00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:07,233
And then that hand gets
stabbed by a syringe needle.

419
00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:13,367
Now, that activates
the pain matrix,

420
00:37:13,467 --> 00:37:18,000
which is what comes on line when you're
in pain or you see someone else in pain.

421
00:37:21,033 --> 00:37:25,500
Now, here's the trick-- we now
added a label to each hand--

422
00:37:25,600 --> 00:37:30,100
Jewish, Christian, Muslim,
hindu, atheist, scientologist.

423
00:37:30,200 --> 00:37:36,600
Would they care as much when they see a
member of their out group getting stabbed?

424
00:37:45,300 --> 00:37:49,233
So here's what we found:
Here's a subject.

425
00:37:49,333 --> 00:37:52,167
And when he watched a
member of his "in" group

426
00:37:52,267 --> 00:37:55,767
getting stabbed, there was a large neural
response in this area of his brain.

427
00:37:55,867 --> 00:37:58,633
But when he watched a member
of one of his "out" groups

428
00:37:58,733 --> 00:38:03,000
get stabbed, there was
essentially a flat line.

429
00:38:05,033 --> 00:38:07,200
We scanned
a range of volunteers.

430
00:38:07,300 --> 00:38:11,500
And there are individual
differences, but the trend is clear.

431
00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:17,933
A single word label is enough to change
your brain's basic pre-conscious response

432
00:38:18,033 --> 00:38:22,500
to another person in pain-- in other
words, how much you care about them.

433
00:38:22,600 --> 00:38:27,667
Now, you might have opinions about
religion and its historical divisiveness,

434
00:38:27,767 --> 00:38:33,367
but even atheists here care more about
other atheists' hands getting stabbed

435
00:38:33,467 --> 00:38:35,100
than they do about other people.

436
00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:39,800
So it's not really about religion.
It's about which team you're on.

437
00:38:44,633 --> 00:38:49,567
This is just the first step in
understanding how we get to this.

438
00:38:56,733 --> 00:39:01,100
To understand how groups
of people can commit atrocities,

439
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:05,367
it can help to look at the behavior
of individuals like psychopaths.

440
00:39:06,767 --> 00:39:11,367
Some of the most callous,
inhumane crimes ever recorded

441
00:39:11,467 --> 00:39:14,300
have been committed
by psychopaths.

442
00:39:16,467 --> 00:39:21,567
But what's different about their brains
that allows them to act that way?

443
00:39:24,467 --> 00:39:31,367
There are networks in the medial prefrontal
cortex that underlie social interaction.

444
00:39:31,467 --> 00:39:37,100
When we interact with other
people, this area becomes active.

445
00:39:37,200 --> 00:39:40,933
But in the brain of someone
with extreme psychopathy,

446
00:39:41,033 --> 00:39:44,300
this area has
a lot less activity.

447
00:39:45,533 --> 00:39:48,933
A psychopath
doesn't care about you.

448
00:39:49,033 --> 00:39:53,533
He might be able to run a simulation of what
you're going to do or how you might react,

449
00:39:53,633 --> 00:39:56,367
but when it comes to
an emotional understanding

450
00:39:56,467 --> 00:40:00,367
of what it's like to be you,
he doesn't get that.

451
00:40:00,467 --> 00:40:04,767
To him you're just an obstacle to
be worked around or manipulated

452
00:40:04,867 --> 00:40:08,267
rather than
a fellow human being.

453
00:40:08,367 --> 00:40:13,567
So what accounts for genocide?
Is it driven by armies of psychopaths?

454
00:40:13,667 --> 00:40:17,033
Well, that can't be it because
psychopaths only make up

455
00:40:17,133 --> 00:40:18,767
a small fraction
of the population,

456
00:40:18,867 --> 00:40:22,800
but genocide typically
engages a wider community.

457
00:40:22,900 --> 00:40:27,767
So here's the question: How do you
get ordinary citizens on board?

458
00:40:34,033 --> 00:40:37,233
At the university
of leiden in Holland,

459
00:40:37,333 --> 00:40:40,367
Dr. Lasana Harris has
been conducting an experiment

460
00:40:40,467 --> 00:40:43,200
to understand a piece
of this puzzle.

461
00:40:54,200 --> 00:40:57,333
So now we're going
to start the experiment.

462
00:40:57,433 --> 00:41:01,100
What you're going to see is a bunch
of pictures of different people.

463
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:04,267
Your job is just to react
naturally to those pictures.

464
00:41:04,367 --> 00:41:12,100
Lasana is looking at activity in the brain
areas involved in human social interaction,

465
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:15,733
in particular
the medial prefrontal cortex.

466
00:41:15,833 --> 00:41:18,867
This comes on line when
we think about other people.

467
00:41:18,967 --> 00:41:24,100
It's less active when dealing with
something inanimate, like a cup.

468
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:29,500
What lasana found is that this
region has a similarly low response

469
00:41:29,600 --> 00:41:34,000
when we deal with
certain types of other people.

470
00:41:36,700 --> 00:41:42,800
What he sees now are stereotypical images
of people from different social groups.

471
00:41:45,733 --> 00:41:49,300
What we see here is at
this network of brain regions,

472
00:41:49,400 --> 00:41:52,333
including medial
prefrontal cortex,

473
00:41:52,433 --> 00:41:56,133
is less active when our participant
looks at the homeless people.

474
00:41:56,233 --> 00:42:00,900
So what this pattern of activity
suggests is a type of mental avoidance.

475
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:06,100
They are not thinking about the mind of the
homeless person in the same way they thought

476
00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:10,400
about the mind of the college students
that they saw or the businesspeople.

477
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:17,400
So if, for instance, you imagine that
interacting with a homeless person

478
00:42:17,500 --> 00:42:20,200
will be unpleasant, it
will make you will feel bad.

479
00:42:20,300 --> 00:42:23,133
You may feel some demand to
donate some of your money

480
00:42:23,233 --> 00:42:27,133
and all of these unpleasant
pressures that come along with it.

481
00:42:27,233 --> 00:42:31,600
By shutting off those systems,
you never experience those feelings.

482
00:42:34,300 --> 00:42:39,333
To a brain that responds this way,
homeless people are dehumanized.

483
00:42:39,433 --> 00:42:45,100
They're viewed more like objects.
And that can enable us to not care.

484
00:42:48,567 --> 00:42:51,200
Of course if you
don't properly diagnose

485
00:42:51,300 --> 00:42:54,333
this person as a human being,
which is happening here,

486
00:42:54,433 --> 00:43:00,133
then the different moral rules we have that
are reserved for human people may not apply.

487
00:43:03,933 --> 00:43:10,467
So under the right circumstances, our brain
activity can look more like a psychopath's.

488
00:43:10,567 --> 00:43:14,700
But to understand
how we can get to genocide,

489
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:19,767
we need to understand one
more thing about group behavior.

490
00:43:19,867 --> 00:43:25,733
Genocide is only possible when
dehumanization happens on a massive scale.

491
00:43:25,833 --> 00:43:30,733
Not just a few individuals,
but whole sections of the population.

492
00:43:30,833 --> 00:43:36,167
We're talking about a group
of people committing atrocities.

493
00:43:37,767 --> 00:43:41,900
And if all the members of that
perpetrating group are complicit,

494
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:47,067
it's as if they've all somehow experienced
the same reduction in brain activity

495
00:43:47,167 --> 00:43:49,700
when they think
about their "out" group.

496
00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:55,933
This can be understood and
studied like a disease outbreak,

497
00:43:56,033 --> 00:44:01,800
a kind of group contagion-- one
that's most often spread deliberately.

498
00:44:05,700 --> 00:44:09,400
The perfect tool
for this job is propaganda.

499
00:44:09,500 --> 00:44:13,467
It plugs right into neural networks,
and it dials down the degree

500
00:44:13,567 --> 00:44:16,000
to which we care
about other people.

501
00:44:16,100 --> 00:44:22,467
Just like all sites of genocide, that's
what happened in the former yugoslavia.

502
00:44:22,567 --> 00:44:24,733
The people who went
on to torture and kill

503
00:44:24,833 --> 00:44:29,500
their neighbors
were bombarded with propaganda.

504
00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:32,333
State-controlled
broadcasters demonized

505
00:44:32,433 --> 00:44:36,233
the Bosnian muslims
with distorted news stories.

506
00:44:36,333 --> 00:44:41,300
I read you--from the beginning that somebody
is, helping muslims, and arming them.

507
00:44:41,400 --> 00:44:46,233
They went so far as to claim that the
muslims were feeding Serbian children

508
00:44:46,333 --> 00:44:48,533
to the lions at the zoo.

509
00:44:52,000 --> 00:44:56,500
Across place and time, the language
of propaganda changes very little.

510
00:44:56,600 --> 00:45:00,533
It always plays the familiar
tune of dehumanization:

511
00:45:00,633 --> 00:45:05,000
Make your enemy less than
human, make them like an animal.

512
00:45:07,867 --> 00:45:10,100
Propaganda is a weapon.

513
00:45:12,767 --> 00:45:18,833
And over the course of human history,
it's become an art and a science.

514
00:45:18,933 --> 00:45:22,767
And it's become
ever more dangerous.

515
00:45:28,300 --> 00:45:32,500
In our connected age,
any extremist group

516
00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:36,467
can reach millions of people
with a keystroke.

517
00:45:36,567 --> 00:45:40,467
The Internet is the perfect
carrier for propaganda messages

518
00:45:40,567 --> 00:45:45,067
to reach the people most likely
to act upon them-- young men.

519
00:45:48,733 --> 00:45:56,900
The political agendas around us actually
manipulate the brain activity inside of us.

520
00:45:57,000 --> 00:46:03,467
So is there any way to stop what's happened
in the past from continuing into the future?

521
00:46:06,300 --> 00:46:10,467
One possible solution
lies in a 1960s experiment

522
00:46:10,567 --> 00:46:15,000
that was conducted not
in a science lab but a school.

523
00:46:17,767 --> 00:46:24,767
It was 1968, the day after the
assassination of Martin Luther King.

524
00:46:29,233 --> 00:46:33,800
Is there anyone in this United States
that we do not treat as our brothers?

525
00:46:33,900 --> 00:46:34,900
- Yeah.
- Who?

526
00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:37,467
- The black people.
- The black people. Who else?

527
00:46:37,567 --> 00:46:41,200
Jane Elliott was a teacher
in a small town in Iowa.

528
00:46:41,300 --> 00:46:45,100
And she wanted to show her class
what prejudice really felt like.

529
00:46:45,200 --> 00:46:46,633
How are
black people treated?

530
00:46:46,733 --> 00:46:50,067
- They don't get anything in this world.
- Why is that?

531
00:46:50,167 --> 00:46:52,100
Because they're
a different color.

532
00:46:54,300 --> 00:46:57,967
These
two men were in that class.

533
00:46:58,067 --> 00:47:00,567
This was Rex back then...

534
00:47:02,567 --> 00:47:04,700
And this was ray.

535
00:47:06,867 --> 00:47:09,933
How many in
here have blue eyes?

536
00:47:10,033 --> 00:47:12,900
Ok. How many in here
have brown eyes?

537
00:47:13,000 --> 00:47:16,067
Jane says we're going
to have this exercise.

538
00:47:16,167 --> 00:47:18,600
And she right away
launches into the propaganda

539
00:47:18,700 --> 00:47:21,433
of blue eyes
are better than brown eyes.

540
00:47:21,533 --> 00:47:26,033
Blue-eyed people are better
than brown-eyed people.

541
00:47:27,467 --> 00:47:31,467
Ray
and Rex both have blue eyes.

542
00:47:31,567 --> 00:47:37,200
You brown-eyed people are not to play with
the blue-eyed people on the playground

543
00:47:37,300 --> 00:47:40,333
because you are not as
good as blue-eyed people.

544
00:47:40,433 --> 00:47:44,367
The brown-eyeds were denied
privileges given to the blue-eyeds,

545
00:47:44,467 --> 00:47:46,067
and they had to wear
special collars.

546
00:47:46,167 --> 00:47:49,200
You'll begin to notice today that
we spend a great deal of time

547
00:47:49,300 --> 00:47:51,533
waiting for brown-eyed
people.

548
00:47:59,767 --> 00:48:05,133
Do you remember... What your own
behavior was like when you were on top?

549
00:48:05,233 --> 00:48:10,167
- I was tremendously evil to my friends.
- How so?

550
00:48:10,267 --> 00:48:16,167
I was going out of my way to
pick on my brown-eyed friends

551
00:48:16,267 --> 00:48:19,600
for the sake of
my own promotion.

552
00:48:19,700 --> 00:48:22,867
What did you do?

553
00:48:22,967 --> 00:48:30,300
I recall telling Mrs. Elliott, Jane,
that she should keep the yardstick at hand

554
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:32,533
in case those brown-eyeds
got out of control.

555
00:48:32,633 --> 00:48:36,367
- I don't see the yardstick. Do you?
- It's down over there.

556
00:48:36,467 --> 00:48:39,300
Hey, miss Elliott,
you better keep that on your desk.

557
00:48:39,400 --> 00:48:43,500
Don't let the brown-eyed
people get out of hand.

558
00:48:43,600 --> 00:48:46,867
At that time, my hair was quite
blond and my eyes were quite blue.

559
00:48:46,967 --> 00:48:50,033
And I was
the perfect little Nazi.

560
00:48:50,133 --> 00:48:55,600
I looked for ways to be
mean to my friends,

561
00:48:55,700 --> 00:49:01,367
who minutes or hours earlier
had been very close to me.

562
00:49:03,233 --> 00:49:07,267
But the next day,
there was a reversal of fortune.

563
00:49:07,367 --> 00:49:13,033
Yesterday I told you that brown-eyed
people aren't as good as blue-eyed people.

564
00:49:13,133 --> 00:49:16,667
That wasn't true.
I lied to you yesterday.

565
00:49:16,767 --> 00:49:25,167
Boy... The truth is that brown-eyed
people are better than blue-eyed people.

566
00:49:25,267 --> 00:49:30,600
A person you trust
stands before you and says, "I was wrong.

567
00:49:30,700 --> 00:49:36,633
Now here's the truth," takes
your world and shatters it

568
00:49:36,733 --> 00:49:40,600
like you've never had
your world shattered before.

569
00:49:40,700 --> 00:49:44,733
You blue-eyed people are not to
play with the brown-eyed people.

570
00:49:44,833 --> 00:49:48,100
Blue-eyed people go to the back.
The brown-eyed people come to the front.

571
00:49:55,267 --> 00:49:59,167
Tell me a little more about what it was
like when you were in the down group.

572
00:49:59,267 --> 00:50:03,467
You have such a sense of loss--
of personality and self--

573
00:50:03,567 --> 00:50:08,433
that it makes it almost impossible to
function with what's going on in the room.

574
00:50:08,533 --> 00:50:13,200
Should the color of some other person's eyes
have anything to do with how you treat them?

575
00:50:13,300 --> 00:50:15,200
- No, no.
- All right.

576
00:50:15,300 --> 00:50:18,167
- Then should the color of their skin?
- No.

577
00:50:18,267 --> 00:50:20,733
Should you judge people... No...

578
00:50:20,833 --> 00:50:24,367
- By the color... No... Of their skin?
- No.

579
00:50:24,467 --> 00:50:27,267
If I were just gonna riff--
guess at it--it's that,

580
00:50:27,367 --> 00:50:29,900
one of the most important things we
learn as humans is perspective taking.

581
00:50:30,000 --> 00:50:35,267
And kids don't often get a really
meaningful exercise in that.

582
00:50:35,367 --> 00:50:37,067
And when you're forced
into understanding

583
00:50:37,167 --> 00:50:39,367
what it's like to stand
in someone else's shoes,

584
00:50:39,467 --> 00:50:42,133
that opens up a lot of
cognitive pathways for you.

585
00:50:42,233 --> 00:50:47,033
I remember saying something to my
dad about a comment he made, saying,

586
00:50:47,133 --> 00:50:49,967
"no, that's
not appropriate."

587
00:50:50,067 --> 00:50:53,300
And it did change
within the family.

588
00:50:53,400 --> 00:50:58,300
But you talk about a little kid
making that statement, it's huge.

589
00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:03,733
But it reaffirmed that you could do
that-- you could begin to change.

590
00:51:10,167 --> 00:51:13,867
The brilliance of the blue
eyes/brown eyes experiment is

591
00:51:13,967 --> 00:51:17,800
that the teacher, Jane Elliott,
switched which group was on top.

592
00:51:17,900 --> 00:51:22,033
And that allowed the students
to extract the larger lesson,

593
00:51:22,133 --> 00:51:25,167
which is that systems of
rules can be arbitrary.

594
00:51:25,267 --> 00:51:29,567
They learned that the truths
of the world are not fixed,

595
00:51:29,667 --> 00:51:31,867
and they're not
even necessarily truths.

596
00:51:31,967 --> 00:51:33,700
And this is
what empowered the children

597
00:51:33,800 --> 00:51:39,733
as they grew to see through the smoke and
mirrors of other people's political agendas

598
00:51:39,833 --> 00:51:41,900
and to form their own opinions--

599
00:51:42,000 --> 00:51:46,100
surely a skill that we should be
teaching to all of our children.

600
00:51:46,200 --> 00:51:49,900
Should the color of some other person's eyes
have anything to do with how you treat them?

601
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:51,467
No.

602
00:51:54,200 --> 00:51:59,300
When people are armed with an
understanding of how propaganda works,

603
00:51:59,400 --> 00:52:02,767
the power of propaganda
is reduced.

604
00:52:02,867 --> 00:52:08,167
As we come to understand the
deep importance of cooperation,

605
00:52:08,267 --> 00:52:13,067
we stand a chance not only
of reducing dehumanization,

606
00:52:13,167 --> 00:52:15,733
but achieving our
potential as a species.

607
00:52:19,333 --> 00:52:22,767
Genocide
doesn't have to be the norm.

608
00:52:29,667 --> 00:52:37,500
Instead our fundamentally social nature can
hold the key to our success as a species.

609
00:52:38,867 --> 00:52:44,300
Our future, our survival is
intimately, permanently bound up

610
00:52:44,400 --> 00:52:47,267
with that of the people
around us.

611
00:52:50,400 --> 00:52:52,567
Our social
drive is at the root

612
00:52:52,667 --> 00:52:58,067
of extraordinary acts
of bravery and generosity.

613
00:53:00,333 --> 00:53:03,967
Who you are has everything
to do with who we are.

614
00:53:04,067 --> 00:53:06,867
Our brains are so
fundamentally wired to interact

615
00:53:06,967 --> 00:53:11,100
that it's not always clear where
each of us begins and ends.

616
00:53:15,800 --> 00:53:23,567
Our species is more than just 7 billion
individuals spread out across the planet.

617
00:53:23,667 --> 00:53:29,700
We're something more like
a single vast super-organism.

618
00:53:29,800 --> 00:53:34,233
Because what your
friends know and love as you is

619
00:53:34,333 --> 00:53:42,133
really a neural network embedded in a
far larger web of other neural networks.

620
00:53:44,833 --> 00:53:47,333
In this age
of digital connection,

621
00:53:47,433 --> 00:53:51,567
we desperately need to understand
the links between humans.

622
00:53:51,667 --> 00:53:54,467
If we want our civilizations
to have a bright future,

623
00:53:54,567 --> 00:53:58,300
we'll need to understand
how human brains interact--

624
00:53:58,400 --> 00:54:00,300
the dangers
and the opportunities.

625
00:54:00,400 --> 00:54:02,433
Because there's
no avoiding the truth

626
00:54:02,533 --> 00:54:07,800
that's etched into our neural
circuitry: We need each other.