Translator: Tanya Cushman Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
There is a huge gap
between why people think they behave in a certain way
and the real reasons for their behavior.
And in order to understand something about these processes,
you need to understand how to bring processes and values information.
So, one of the tools we use in our own lab
is called electroencephalogram, or EEG for short.
It's a neuroimaging technique
which allows us to measure fast neural responses in the brain.
So this first example of today is by Junghofer, et al.
They invited 20 men and 20 women to participate in a scanning session
in which their brain activity, their brain waves,
were measured with EEG.
And they put them in front of a TV screen,
and the TV screen showed, in random order,
pictures of motorcycles and shoes.
And you have to realize it takes about 250 milliseconds
before your visual information is being processed
and our conscious mind is able to say,
"Well, that's a shoe and that's a motorcycle."
But what this study showed is that -
so 250 milliseconds -
but as early as 120 milliseconds,
so, that's way before we are consciously processing what we're looking at -
all the women's brains paid more attention to shoes,
and out of 20 men,
19 men had more attention for motorcycles.
(Laughter)
Now, the paper doesn't mention anything about this one guy
with more attention for shoes,
unfortunately,
but that's not my point.
The point is, before we are consciously processing what we're viewing,
the brain is already making decisions for us.
So, now I want to do an experiment with you, the audience,
and keep this effect in mind.
So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to show you two pictures,
and these are pictures of U.S. congressional election candidates.
I want to ask you -
They are competing against one another.
I'm going to ask you to rate their competence from their faces.
I'm only going to give you one second to do it.
Okay, so this requires -
Is everybody ready?
Here we go.
That's pretty short, right?
Who thinks - I want to see some hands -
who says person A is the more competent?
That's a lot, right?
Who says person B is the more competent?
That's not so much.
So you, as an audience,
just correctly predicted the winner of this election debate.
And the funny thing is it only took you one second.
(Laughter)
So, you have to realize, these guys are debating one another on TV,
on a rational level.
Let's try another one - so here's a second example.
Is everybody ready?
Here we go.
Okay, now who thinks person A is the more competent?
Who thinks person B is the more competent?
Yeah.
That's impressive, right?
And they tested this with many, many, many elections,
and they've even been able to reduce the time necessary
to judge competence from faces
from one second to just 300 milliseconds.
And in 300 milliseconds,
ladies and gentlemen -
we here in the Netherlands even -
we can predict U.S. congressional election outcomes correctly
more than 70% of the cases.
Ah, yeah, that's interesting because if you ask a person
"Why did you vote for a particular candidate?"
they always come up with these elaborate, intelligent-sounding stories,
and nobody says, "Well, I just whoosh and uh ... "
(Laughter)
But to be honest,
that's really what's going on here.
I hope, by the way, that this worries you.
For this next example -
So, it's difficult for us to reflect on our own behavior.
That's what this study shows.
So we come up with elaborate stories but these are post rationalizations.
That's my point.
The second example - I'm going to need your help again.
Now, I'm going to ask you to predict your own behavior.
So imagine you're sitting at home,
on the couch, watching the telly.
The doorbell rings.
There's a lady standing in front of your door,
and she's asking you for a donation for a good cause.
In this case, it's a research foundation for heart disease.
She's wearing a polo,
but would you care,
for the amount of money that you're going to donate,
whether there's an expensive Lacoste logo on the polo or not?
So, we're going to do some voting again because it's important to show that ...
Okay, I'm going to explain it later.
Who says, "I don't care about a person's clothing,
I care about a cause.
If it's an important cause, I'm going to give a higher amount;
if I don't care at all, I'm just going to close the door."
Who says, "I don't care about clothing"?
Let's see some hands.
That's a lot of people.
Who says, "If there's an expensive logo, I'm going to donate the higher amount"?
Really?
(Laughter)
It's not a lot of people, right?
Who says, "If there's expensive clothing, I'm going to donate a smaller amount"?
That's quite some people.
Mmm.
I think the results of this study are going to surprise you.
This study was conducted in the Netherlands here in Tilburg;
there were four students;
they swapped the polo every now and then;
they were completely oblivious to the aim of the study,
but whenever the logo was present on the polo
people donated twice as much.
(Laughter)
We doubled the amount.
And imagine, if you could go back to a person,
we could ring the doorbell and say, "Sir, you just donated six Euros.
Can you explain why you donated six Euros?"
"Well, first I went back in and got three Euros,
and I saw the expensive logo,
was really impressed,
went back and ... "
(Laughter) (Applause)
No way, right?
The conscious mind probably doesn't even perceive or process the logo,
but our subconscious mind did.
And when our subconscious mind sees an expensive logo,
yeah, we kind of categorize that person as a higher socioeconomic status,
and we start showing compliance behavior.
And that's what's going on here.
And let's rewind one minute
because I asked the audience to predict your own behavior,
and let's be honest, it's not rocket science.
Is there a logo or no logo.
And the audience - me myself, as well -
we're completely off.
So, it's very difficult to predict our behavior in certain situations.
So that leaves us with a big enigma.
Now, if our conscious mind is not totally in control of our behavior,
then what is?
I only have 15 minutes so I'm going to zoom in
in one of the most important structures in the brain,
and it's called reward-processing;
it plays a highly dominant role in our behavior.
In order to understand something about reward processing,
this rat is a particularly striking example, if you ask me.
Researchers, they drilled a tiny hole in the skull of the rat,
and they placed an electrode on its nucleus accumbens,
the reward center of the rat's brain.
Now it has a small bar in its cage,
and there are lights in the cage,
and whenever the lights were on
it signals that the battery is connected to the wire,
and it could press the bar to activate its own reward centers.
So, the rat sort of has a happy-button in its cage.
So, whenever the lights are switched on,
100% of the rats, they run to the bar in the cage,
start pressing the bar like a maniac,
and most rats continue pressing the bar
until they drop died from exhaustion.
(Laughter)
Yes, it's a pretty dramatic effect, right?
(Laughter)
I'm going to take it one step further
because in this next experiment is this setup:
they put a rat here, they put his food over here,
and in the middle -
who's got one of these rackets with which you can electrocute mosquitoes midair?
Nice, right?
Now imagine they put a racket in the middle -
so these electric wires.
In this situation,
about 95% of the rats,
they are too afraid to jump the electric wires.
As a consequence, they die from hunger.
However - this is not my experiment -
(Laughter)
However, if it was these rats,
and they were trained to operate a happy-button
as soon as the light is turned on,
100% of the rats, and within one second,
they jump the electric wires,
they jump over the food bowl,
and start pressing their own ...
(Laughter)
happy-buttons again.
So why is this relevant for you?
Well, because if we look at the evolution of the brain,
and I would be able to take this neocortex
and lift it from the brainstem,
what we see underneath is what we like to call
"the reptilian complex."
It's our ancient brain,
and it's still operating in humans.
So, humans have got two systems:
it's an old ancient system and a more modern brain,
and these two are competing and fighting one another to produce behavior.
But what's fascinating about this process
is that whatever happens in the old brain happens completely outside of our control
and mostly outside of our awareness.
So, I think we've been talking enough about nucleus accumbens now;
this is an excellent moment to activate it.
It's not going to be for everybody, but it's going to be my best effort.
So, here we go.
(Laughter)
Okay.
Now imagine I've got 50 Euros in my hand here, in cash,
and I could give it to you right now,
or we could have an agreement that in three months from now,
I'm going to put 80 Euros in your account.
What would you prefer right now?
I'm going to do some voting again.
Who would prefer to have 80 Euros in three months?
Who says I want 50 Euros right now?
(Laughter)
That's a lot of people.
And maybe the others don't trust me or something -
they could have a case -
but I found this fascinating paper,
and the title of this paper is:
"Do pretty women inspire men to discount the future?"
(Laughter) (Applause)
It's a remarkably simple design:
They had two groups of men,
and they gave these groups of men a shoe box of pictures.
Now the first group of men had a shoe box of pictures
with exceptionally beautiful women.
And the other group of men, they had a shoe box with average women.
And they were asked to rate the attractiveness of the pictures.
So of course, this first group of men -
it's more like ...
"Praise the Lord.
That's amazing, you know" -
9.5
And the other group of men:
"Uh huh, okay, that's a 7.6,
next one, uh huh ..."
So this continued for like 15 minutes,
and then the experimenter walks up to the table and says,
"Thank you for participating in our study the entire day.
As a reward, we can give you 50 Euros right now,
or we could put 80 Euros in your account in three months."
Maybe some of you know what's going to happen.
Those guys who were viewing exceptionally beautiful women,
far and more often choose to throw away 30 Euros,
and they want instant gratification
now!
(Laughter)
So ...
these pictures of pretty women,
they activate our nucleum accumbens,
and when it becomes active, it sort of hijacks our more modern brain,
and we start wanting things, and we want them now.
(Laughter)
This nucleus accumbens is playing a really important role in our work.
So, what we do in our laboratory is we test TV commercials,
and we monitor activity in the reward centers
because if a commercial activates your reward centers,
we know that you're going to buy the product in the future.
So, just one predictor of your behavior.
And actually, last year, we were working for the government,
and we were scanning the brains of civilians -
sounds a bit spooky,
but what we were really doing is - they gave us their commercials
and these commercials were designed
to stop you from using social media when you're driving a car.
And it seems that it's a particularly difficult behavior to change,
and ask yourself now,
if you're driving a car,
why am I putting my life on the line to see that:
okay, you just had a hamburger in McDonald's and ...
It's useless, right?
But why do we do it?
And to understand this, there's a pretty striking study, I think.
This took place in two days.
On the day one, the participants were put on video for ten minutes,
and were told that the next day they would receive feedback
from the psychologist about their personality.
They also filled in a Facebook intensity skill.
So if you have a high score, you're obsessed with Facebook;
that's basically what it measures.
The next day,
they were asked to participate in a brain scanning session,
and while their brain activity was monitored
they were playing card sorting games,
and they could win money.
Now the first result is that when we win money,
yes, the nucleum accumbens becomes active;
we experience a reward.
When we receive positive feedback about our personality,
our nucleus accumbens becomes even more active.
And the last result, those subjects that got nearly horny
when they received positive feedback about their personalities,
those turned out to also be the ones that are obsessed with using social media.
So again, this study shows that if you're addicted to social media,
this also has something to do with your nucleus accumbens.
Okay, now taking a birds-eye view of this talk,
we're not really in control of our behavior,
and we can't really reflect well on our own behavior,
but, yes, we humans can apply reason;
we can apply scientific rigor.
I mean, we landed a robot on a comet -
it takes intelligence.
But the take-home message of today
is people, please,
in your every day decision-making,
rationality only plays a marginal role.
And when you're sitting in a car,
driving your car, putting your life on the line
to see how many likes your new profile picture has,
our behavior, in a sense, resembles that of the rat -
the rat who's jumping electric wires
just to be able to press his own happy-button,
again.
Thank you very much for your attention.
(Applause)