The cognitive biology of empathy and war

An NPR affiliate, KBPS, broadcast this interview on February 10, 2016 with a cognitive neuroscientist who is working on understanding what generates and stifles empathy among individuals in groups who have a potential to enter into a new conflict. The scientist's comments at the end of the interview suggest that existing conflicts may be beyond the reach of cognitive science to affect.

The following are taken from the 15:26 interview at the times indicated. The comments speak for themselves about the fundamentally subjective nature of human cognition and how we both distort and think about the world and world events.

5:40-6:10: As humans, we have biases that we may not always be willing or able to admit to. A large portion of our brain is implicit and what happens we don't have conscious control over (including our biases or prejudices). This aspect of how our brain works is to respond to the world and guide behavior without our knowledge or ability to control the process.

6:10-6:40: An empathy gap can arise when people in one group encounters opinions or arguments that run counter to the group's beliefs. That tends to make even well-reasoned counter opinions not persuasive for most people.

6:40-7:32: There are biases that prevent people from reasoning objectively and lead instead to subjective reasoning. This happens all the time in politics where democrats and republicans have completely different interpretations of the exact same event. In those situations, people tend to uncritically accept arguments and interpretations of event that favor their opinions while critically examining opposing interpretations and arguments. These biases are endemic and part of who we are. It isn't inevitable that biases always dominate, but our brains are potentiated or sensitized to think and act in accord with personal biases.

7:33-7:54: Research has found some people who can overcome their group prejudices but what drives that is not understood and being studied now.

8:50-9:32: Conflicts that arise in different places, cultures and contexts appear to have more in common than not in terms of brain function and the influence of human biases. Externalities such as different languages, religions, reasons for conflict and ethnic groups seem to be less important as drivers of conflict.

9:35-10:18: Our biases are biological and real, not something intangible. However, the brain is plastic or can change and there is evidence that once people become aware of their own biases, they can overcome them to some degree.

10:20-10:57: Can knowledge of biases and how they work be used to reduce conflicts and increase empathy among groups in conflict situations? That does happen in some people and if that anecdotal evidence could be used to understand this aspect of our cognitive biology then that knowledge may be translatable to most people in groups in conflict.

Objective politics: A short definition

American politics is mostly subjective and personal to the individual. Both facts and logic are personal too. That's why disagreements between liberals, conservatives and other competing ideas and interests never resolve. The combatants simply do not understand each other, or if they do, differences among personal morals prevent agreement. Political subjectivity is a major component of what's tearing America apart.

The Founding Fathers are a great example: They bitterly disagreed on many or most major issues and their differences (i) never resolved in their lifetimes and (ii) still echo today in the endless, unresolvable left vs. right or liberal vs. conservative disputes. Political fights over subjective ideology and morals are more like religious disputes than reasoned debates on secular topics. That's why subjective political ideology or morals is more bad for politics than good. Being objective would be much better.

Political objectivity defined

To be at least reasonably objective within the limits of human cognitive biology, politics has to be (1) based on facts (reality) and logic (common sense) that are as unbiased by subjective personal political ideology or morals and/or self-interest as human cognitive biology can reasonably allow and (2) those unbiased facts and logic must be focused on service to an objectively defined conception of the public interest (general welfare).

There is at least one way to make the mostly subjective public interest concept materially more objective. One does that by subjecting all significant subjective ideology or moral beliefs to a transparent competition among policy choices to find the best choice based on the unbiased facts and logic, i.e., all policy choices have to win on the objective merits, not on people's subjective beliefs. Human cognitive biology does not allow for near-perfect objectivity, except maybe for a very few people with unusual brain structure or function, so this is about the best that be done in view of (i) how the human brain evolved and works and (ii) a political system that is dominated by constitutionally protected spin (lies, misinformation, deceit, opacity, withheld information, etc) and detachment from both unspun reality and unbiased common sense.

All significant ideological/moral political beliefs in American politics currently includes liberal, conservative, capitalist, socialist, libertarian and various strains of Christianity and Judaism. Moderate beliefs are not included because moderates mostly hold a mix of extreme liberal and conservative morals or ideological beliefs. Apparently, there are few or no real political moderates in America.

If anyone can conceive of, or is aware of, a better conception of how to inject more fact- and logic-based objectivity into politics based on current understanding of our fundamentally intuitive-subjective (and morally judgmental and intolerant) human cognitive biology, Dissident Politics would very much like to hear about it. 

Is evidence-based politics possible?

If one asks conservatives, liberals and others if their personal politics and policy choices are mostly rational and evidence-based, most (maybe about 95%) would say yes. If one asks one side whether the opposition's politics is mostly rational and evidence-based, most (maybe about 90%) would say no. It is reasonable to assume that about 35% of adult Americans are more or less liberal, about 35% are more or less conservative and about 20% are a mix of the two or something else.

Presumably most people, > 50%, in the mixed/other group sees maybe about half of liberal and conservative politics and policy choices as mostly rational and evidence-based, with the other half not so rational and evidence-based.

From Dissident Politics' objective point of view[1], that situation is reasonably accurate. It constitutes compelling evidence that the politics and policy choices of at least 50% of Americans is not mostly rational and evidence-based. That's just simple math and logic.

Evidence-based politics is possible in theory

If there is a political will politics can be made to be much more objective than it is now. In a recent article, In Praise of Human Guinea Pigs, The Economist observed that to "live in a modern democracy is to be  experimented on by policymakers from cradle to grave." Citing education and prison policy and experimental medicine, The Economist went on to argue that "without evidence, those setting policy for schools and prisons are little better than a doctor relying on leeches and bloodletting. Citizens, as much as patients, deserve to know that the treatments they endure do actually work."

The Economist was arguing for using the randomized controlled trial concept that guides new medicine development to political policy development. DP has argued for the about same thing. The concept of evidence-based politics is simple, easy to apply and injects a degree of objectivity into politics that currently doesn't exist.

From DP's public interest point of view, there is no logic in opposing evidence-based politics. 

Evidence-based politics is impossible in practice . . . .

because American politics is not public interest-oriented

Unfortunately, there are "rational" arguments to not implement evidence-based politics from other points of view. Those points of view are personal ideology and/or economic self-interest.

Despite a powerful rationale to adopt evidence-based politics in American politics from an objective point of view, it simply isn't possible now. Overwhelmingly powerful forces oppose both objective evidence and unbiased reason in politics. For example, conservatives and/or threatened special interests oppose generating data that they believe would undermine their ideology and/or economic interests. That is true for gun control, objective policy analysis, climate science and other topics. Research shows that the political power of economic (and maybe ideological) special interests backed by money utterly trumps both public opinion and any desire for objectivity:

“In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule—at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover … even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.”

That sad reality reflects the fact that American politics is dominated by wealthy, organized special interests who want their own needs and desires attended to. Service from the two-party system to those interests occurs with little or no regard to objective evidence or an objectively defined conception of the public interest. Instead, special interests simply assert what they want best serves the public interest and our political leaders and both parties in power provide the demanded services in return for the money.

Other than parties, politicians and special interests in the two-party system, no one denies that American politics is a pay-to-play system:

"There's no shame anymore. . . . . We've blown past the ethical standards; we now play on the edge of the legal standards. . . . . money and its pursuit [have] paralyzed Washington. . . . . Nothing truly important for the country is getting done."

Reason or logic and evidence have nothing to do with the situation. That's why evidence-based politics is impossible for the time being.

Footnote:
1.  An objective point of view: Politics has to be (1) based on facts (reality) and logic (common sense) that are as unbiased by subjective personal political ideology or morals and/or self-interest as human cognitive biology can reasonably allow and (2) those unbiased facts and logic must be focused on service to an objectively defined conception of the public interest (general welfare).

There is at least one way to make the mostly subjective public interest concept materially more objective. One does that by subjecting all significant subjective ideology or moral beliefs to a transparent competition among policy choices to find the best choice based on the unbiased facts and logic, i.e., all policy choices have to win on the objective merits, not on people's subjective beliefs. Human cognitive biology does not allow for near-perfect objectivity, except maybe for a very few people with unusual brain structure or function, so this is about the best that be done in view of (i) how the human brain evolved and works and (ii) a political system that is dominated by constitutionally protected spin (lies, misinformation, deceit, opacity, withheld information, etc) and detachment from both unspun reality and unbiased common sense.

All significant ideological/moral political beliefs in American politics currently includes liberal, conservative, capitalist, socialist, libertarian and various strains of Christianity and Judaism. Moderate beliefs are not included because moderates mostly hold a mix of extreme liberal and conservative morals or ideological beliefs. Apparently, there are few or no real political moderates in America.

If anyone can conceive of, or is aware of, a better conception of how to inject more fact- and logic-based objectivity into politics based on current understanding of our fundamentally intuitive-subjective (and morally judgmental and intolerant) human cognitive biology, Dissident Politics would very much like to hear about it. 

Fear and fairness: Impediments to knowledge

Most issues in politics are more complicated than most partisans think. It is usually hard to know enough to make a truly informed decision among competing policy choices. To make matters more complex, competing policy choices are almost always backed by either by (i) different sets of facts and spin, and/or (ii) insufficient information for a reasonably informed decision. 

Most voter opinions on most issues are based on a combination of false facts and personal political ideology or morals. Personal political ideology-morals, e.g., liberalism and conservatism, fosters false fact beliefs in most people. That is an inherent aspect of the largely intuitive biology of human cognition. Most policy choices are therefore overwhelmingly subjective-emotional and error prone relative to what's best for the public interest.

To be more objective-rational than subjective-intuitive, personal policy choices need to be based as much or more on unbiased, unspun facts and reason, than on subjective personal ideology or morals. Unfortunately for average citizens there are several major barriers that make access to unbiased facts difficult or impossible. Two barriers are fear and fairness.

The fear barrier

For people with deeply held political beliefs or ideology-morals, it can be frightening or impossible to honestly face facts. Unbiased facts are independent of personal beliefs and they often undermine personal beliefs. An excellent way to avoid facing facts is to block the work or research needed to obtain relevant facts about an issue. That is a tactic that conservatives have used, sometimes to great effect. It is not clear if liberals resort to this fact-blocking method.

Examples of research killing include a very successful effort by pro-gun politicians, mostly conservatives, gun manufacturers and the pro-gun lobby to squelch federal funding for research into the public health impacts of gun ownership. That coordinated effort began in 1996, three years after an article in The New England Journal of Medicine showed that gun ownership was a risk factor for homicide in the home. Groups such as the NRA continue to block federal funding for research.

Conservatives have also blocked or tried to block federal funding for (i) independent, objective analysis of various technical issues to inform congress and (ii) NASA’s research on climate science based on false arguments.

Efforts to block research that conservatives believe would undermine their ideology are based more on fear of what unbiased facts would show than anything else. There is no other obvious credible explanation.

The fairness barrier

Obtaining unbiased data often requires controlled experiments with different groups, control and/or experimental groups, being subject to different conditions. Controls are usually needed for comparing the effect of one test condition with another. Without controls, it is hard or impossible to objectively measure and compare one condition or policy choice with another. Despite the need for controls in experiments or policy option tests, resistance sometimes crops up because it is perceived to be unfair to treat different groups of people differently.

The Wall Street Journal reported an example of fairness barrier interference with research and how it can be overcome at least sometimes. A researcher was interested in seeing if there would be academic and attendance differences between students attending an urban high school who received a free lunch compared to students who didn’t. The researcher wanted to randomly pick students who would get the free lunch but the school blocked the research arguing it was unfair to not give all students a free lunch. Fairness blocked research.

A few months later the researcher went back to the same school but informed administrators that he had only enough money to give half the students a free lunch and the administrators could pick who got the free lunches. The administrators suggested randomly picking which students got the free lunches and which didn’t. The researcher got his experiment because it was framed as sufficiently fair from the point of view of the people with the power to allow or block the research.

Again, the relevance of the subjective-intuitive nature of human cognition to politics makes itself abundantly clear. The open question is whether American society is ready to accept the basic nature of how our brains see and think about the world and conclude it is time for a different, smarter way of doing politics.