Book Review: The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives

In his recent book The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives science journalist Shankar Vedantam argues that our unconscious thoughts and emotions, for example our implicit sexism, racism and conformity to the behavior of others in a group, govern behavior we explicitly despise. Many Americans have a racial bias against Africans and African-Americans not because of biology but because of culture, says Vedantam. We grow up watching television and quickly learn who the most successful leaders in our country are. We are taught that the stereotype of a successful leader is a white male. We implicitly think that people of color and women are inferior to white males. In stressful situations our implicit biases quiet down our rational inner voices and take control of our decision making. Michael Richard’s racist rant during a 2006 stand-up appearance is an example of how our true temperament may suddenly rear its ugly head. Vedantam does not think that Michael Richard is significantly more racist in his beliefs than any one of us. The difference is a matter of degree, he says.

According to Vedantam, our unconscious mind fuels most of our decisions to act the way we do. Vedantam explains how the hidden impulses of a large crowd of onlookers fueled the horrible events that took place on the Belle Isle Bridge in Detroit on the morning of August 19, 1995, where Deletha Word, college student and mother of a 13-teen year old, was beaten up beyond belief by Martell Welch in front of crowd of onlookers who not only failed to intervene but also failed to notify the police. Some allegedly cheered him on as he beat up Deletha and tore off her clothes. Why didn’t the onlookers put an end to it? Because people unconsciously mirror the reactions of others in a crowd. Even though they understand at a rational level that they ought to notify the authorities or stop the incident, their hidden world of learned behavior prevents them from doing so.

One of the most fascinating sections of Vedantam's book is the discussion of how two transgendered biology professors at Stanford University underwent a complete change, not just sexually but also in how they were treated professionally, when they changed their appearance. One of the professors went from being a woman to being a man, and the other went from being a man to being a woman. The one who became a man suddenly was taken more seriously and was treated with a whole new kind of respect. The one who became a woman found that she was taken less seriously, and her pay fell significantly relative to her peers, all as a result of changing her sex.

As the book progresses Vedantam becomes increasingly more free in his interpretations of the scientific data. He moves from discussions of how our unconscious attitudes shape small-scale behavior to our unconscious resistance to famine relief and the hidden brain's seductive powers in suicide bombings and presidential elections. Despite the leap from solid evidence to more creative hypotheses about what drives our political and social decisions, the later sections of the book raise the important philosophical questions of whether we are responsible for behavior driven by our brain's hidden impulses and whether we can change our tendency to act on our predilections.

Though Vedantam remains optimistic about our capability of changing our inclinations by bringing our implicit biases to light and by using reason rather that gut feeling to guide our decisions, he doesn't really offer much by way of insight into how we should go about changing our ways. He also does not really answer the question of to what extent we should be held liable for behavior governed by our unconscious biases. But on a whole The Hidden Brain offers an insightful treatment of the delicate question of why we make the horrible decisions we do when they could have been avoided with a bit of confidence in the light of reason.

Woman Bashing

I just read Stanley Fish' interesting column on Hillary-bashing (thanks to Susanna Schellenberg for the link). Though not his main focus Fish draws attention to the fact that sexism is not always a crime committed by old bearded men. Women are just as actively engaged in the recent Hillary-bashing as their male companions. Perhaps sexism is not the driving force behind the hatred but it seems at least partially responsible. Unlike their male counterparts women may not come right into your living room and say that Hillary is a power-addict who has "pimped out" her daughter. No -- female woman bashers won't do that. That's too blatant, not nearly as effective. Female woman bashers tend to be more subtle and more insidious. It's the high-school phenomenon. Girls who put girls in their "right" place. Smart girls were never in fashion -- for whatever reason. Perhaps it's time for a change. As one of Fish's commenters nicely puts it:

Sure, don’t we all hate those smart girls who always make the right move, the teachers pets, the one with all the answers, the one who may be smarter than us? But that is who we need in leadership!

Hansen and Hendricks on the Copenhagen Fashion Fair

Pelle Guldborg Hansen and Vincent Hendricks just published a paper in the Danish newspaper (Dagbladet Information) about fashion (the Copenhagen fashion fair just ended), consumption, pluralistic ignorance, knowledge, information cascades, norms and preferences. People are going crazy over this. The link is here in case you missed it.

Digby Wins Progressive Blogger Award

Joe Wilson, Digby, Rick Perlstein

No one knew the progressive blogger Digby's real identity -- until today, where she received the Progressive Blogger Award at the Take Back America conference. You can listen to her speech here.

Norman Finkelstein: Tenure Denied

The much-discussed Norman Finkelstein case ends dramatically with denial of tenure.

Finkelstein, the son of Holocaust survivors and a Princeton graduate, was denied tenure at DePaul for exposing the exploitation of Jewish suffering. Finkelstein has published several book-length critiques of issues relating to the Holocaust and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Finkelstein discusses, among other things, how prominent spokesmen for the Holocaust have turned the Holocaust into a money-making Industry. Elie Wiesel, a spokesperson for the Holocoast, charges a standard fee of $25,000 for revealing the secrets of the Holocoast, while real survivors such as Finkelstein's mother (a survivor of Majdanek camp and slave labor camps) received only $3,500 in compensation.

Finkelstein posted a letter from Depaul's president Dennis Holtschneider on his website two days ago. The letter alleges that tenure was denied because Finkelstein's scholarship is "deliberately hurtful" and clashes with the work of other scholars.

(Thanks to Matt Bell for the links)

UPDATE: Leiter has published a report covering the case. The petition mentioned by Leiter can be found here. There is also a student petition in support of Finkelstein.

Abortion

Via Majikthise: one father's experience.

Arkansas' Sibilant 's' (Salerno)

Do you have good grammar? Not so much? You can always become an Arkansas lawmaker and change grammar. I quote from NPR today that

Rep. Steve Harrelson, a Democrat in the Arkansas legislature, yesterday introduced a resolution to declare the correct way to write the possessive form of the state's name. That would be, he says, "Arkansas's." ... Not everyone agrees, however, including the largest newspaper in Little Rock, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The daily stands by the Associated Press stylebook, which mandates that the state's possessive form is Arkansas'

There, see? The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette says he's wrong. Nice correction NPR!

Bush Funneling Money to al Qaeda-Related Groups

From Truthout:

Seymour Hersh reports that the Bush administration is funding anti-Shiite Sunnis linked to al Qaeda without Congressional approval and without appropriate appropriation. Hersh speculates that the money is coming from the pallet-loads of cash floating around Iraq and has already reached "three Sunni jihadist groups." He says, flatly, that the president is "supporting groups indirectly that are involved with the same people that did 9/11."

Denmark to Withdraw From Iraq

From Truthout:

The Associated Press reports from Copenhagen of Denmark's plan to withdraw troops from Iraq. The Danish announcement came Wednesday as British Prime Minister Tony Blair said his country would withdraw about 1,600 troops in the coming months, if local forces can secure the southern part of the country.

Hillary for President?

From Truthout.

Cindy Sheehan writes:

This occupation of Iraq can't be won by being smarter - it was lost before we went in. The US, again, was a big loser in a capricious military expedition, with the support of Senator Clinton. She is an amazingly brilliant person, and she cannot say that she was fooled by George. We, the American public, can be brilliant too, and we can't buy that baloney.

Images of Hanging Make Hussein a Martyr

From Truthout:

In the week since Saddam Hussein was hanged in an execution steeped in sectarian overtones, his public image in the Arab world, formerly that of a convicted dictator, has undergone a resurgence of admiration and awe. At the heart of the sudden reversal of opinion was the symbolism of the hasty execution, now framed as an act of sectarian vengeance shrouded in political theater and overseen by the American occupation.

Read more here.

Justices Weigh Race School Admissions

From Truthout:

Supreme Court deliberations are private, but yesterday's oral arguments on whether it is constitutional to allow school systems to use race in making school assignments became as much a public debate between the divided justices as a questioning of lawyers. The ultimate decision is likely to be one of the most defining of the court headed by the new chief justice, John G. Roberts Jr., and a powerful statement about where the nation stands more than 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education demanded an end to segregated schools.

Bush's Danish Allies

In 2003 the Danish government was informed by Danish intelligence that there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In spite of this, the Danish government decided to join George W. Bush when he invaded Iraq. An editor and two reporters for the Danish Newspaper Berlingske Tidende are now on trial for publishing the classified information showing that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction in 2003. As Majikthise notes, "this prosecution feels like payback".

(Via Majikthise and BBC)

CNN Reports on Canada's Drug Policy

CNN features a short article about the two Canadian University Professors, Douglas Hutchinson (University of Toronto) and Brian MacLean (York), who after a legal battle won a right to smoke marijuana at work. Both professors suffer from a chronic medical condition that can be eased by smoking marijuana. In Canada 1,492 people are currently authorized to possess marijuana for medical purposes.

Stanley on Un-American Universities

Jason Stanley has an interesting post arguing that American universities are responsible for developing "one of the most impenetrable class hierarchies in the first world".

America's Money-Addicted and Legacy-Loving Universities

Jason Stanley has posted a link to this very interesting article from the Economist over at the Leiter Reports. The article is a review of Daniel Golden's book The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges - and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates. As the article reports, Golden's book draws attention to the fact that in many cases students are admitted into elite universities, not because of their intellectual abilities, but because they happen to be related to (in)famous politicians, rich alumni, or other "legacies". The article also points out that poor whites and members of minority groups are frequently "held to higher standards" than the sons and daughters of the "legacies".

Danish Cartoons: Racist Provocation or Free Speech?

Ever wondered what the Danish cartoon controversy was really about? This article from Green Left Weekly gives an interesting perspective on the controversy.