This is the edited transcript of the interview.

Good evening Dr. Susan Blackmore.
Could you tell us about your journey from being a believer in the paranormal to becoming a skeptic. How difficult was it?

I had an amazing Out of Body Experience once after I had smoked some dope and it seemed to me that there was something more out there. It looked like I was going down a tunnel towards a bright light. I felt some spirit went out of my body and roamed around and it actually seemed so real and so intense. I became so involved in this and I wanted to know more. I wanted to prove all my lecturers wrong as I thought there was more to mind, beyond the brain. So I started studying Parapsychology. But when I started my experiments and it showed no evidence, it was quite difficult. All the results could be explained as chance and when I investigated other claims it turned out to be not true either. Sometimes it was even fraud. It amounted to changing everything about what I thought; but you know, I was more interested in truth than anything else. It was difficult but it was possible! And when it is done once, it is easier to do it again. So I was no longer frightened of being wrong. Whenever I had a theory or I was trying out an experiment and it turned out to be wrong, I told myself ‘Okay I will do it again.’

So has it happened? Have you found out again that you have been wrong on some other occasions?

Oh yes! I had tried various theories of Consciousness and I found that I was wrong. But I kept moving on. Because that is what Science is all about. You find out one thing and you build on that; but when you go wrong, you start again. It is always changing.

After your fascinating Out of Body Experience, you decided that you wanted to study Parapsychology against the advice of your lecturers and other researchers. And you had invested a lot of yourself, in terms of time, money and ego in your research. So when you were confronted with evidence, rather the lack of it, what was your initial reaction? How did you find the courage to keep going?

Yes of course, my lecturers did advise. But well, I did not believe that I could be wrong. Initially I thought if that does not work, I am sure this does. And if this doesn’t then may be this does; so I was always looking for something that would work. I kept on thinking, ‘just this once more I would experiment,’ because I had built a lot of hope. But then it failed again and again. And then there came a point when, I can even remember where I was – in my house, in the bath, when I thought: ‘What if it is all rubbish? What if none of it is true?’ That was a very hard moment to come to. But I just had to get on to the truth.

So are you saying it was one final dawning moment?

Yes, I think so. I kept on building and building and at one point, phut… everything fell down. I suppose it was made harder by the fact that I had given up the possibility of a career. I had made myself unemployable, atleast that was what I thought; it actually turned out not so bad after all. But I didn’t care…I didn’t care about any of that, you know. I just wanted to find out.

Coming to Memetics, why do some Memes survive and spread while some do not? Is there an equivalent for fitness like in genes?

Yes I think so. Fitness is very complex. Some memes survive because they are true or good or beautiful or useful. Others survive because they parasitize us; because they get themselves into our minds and stay there and pass on. I suppose it is like bacteria. Some bacteria survive because they harm us; some because they help us. A meme embeds itself in the brain and survive through us; memes use the human brain as carriers.

How do you think the meme of ‘Atheism’ can spread against the contrary meme of ‘Religion’ which is quite well-entrenched?

If I knew that I’d be spreading it as often as I could. So I don’t know the answer. Part of the answer is teaching children comparative religion. When my two children were small they had religious education in school. One week they’d study Buddhism, the next, Islam, the next Hinduism, and they’d quickly conclude that all of them can’t be true. That simple conclusion starts a general scientific approach and scientific enquiry develops. That spirit of inquiry would hopefully inform all aspects of life.

Define Consciousness – How would you suggest we explain it in simple terms to someone who thinks Consciousness survives Death.

There is no one generally accepted definition of Consciousness. ‘What it is like to be me; who I am; why do things look like this and feel like this.’ You can say it is awareness; it is subjectivity. So it covers all from being in here and experiencing the world. I think that if we ever fully understand Consciousness, that would undermine religion in a big way.

Legalization of Drugs – Don’t you think subsequent enforcement of regulations would be very difficult and there would be several cases of addiction.

If all the recreational drugs in Britain and the US were made legal, I think addiction would drop. That is only a guess. But what we know for sure is that crime would drop dramatically – there would be no gang wars; the prisons would only be half full. Imagine what it would mean to have only half the number of prisoners and those there are in the prisons we would be able to rehabilitate. Imagine the poor farmers in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in South America who are terrorized by gangs running the drug trade – they would be able to sell their drugs legally to us, to be able to sold in shops in correct doses and with regulations. Children would have true education about drugs and would be told the truth instead of being told lies you know instead of being just told ‘say no to drugs.’ I hope children would grow up in a culture understanding which drugs do what, which drugs can be used safely, which ones are harmful and addictive and so on…all of these. I think it is the most important thing we could do to change the world today.

But don’t you think addictions would increase?

No I don’t think so; addictions would dramatically decrease. That’s the point. I will tell you why. In Britain before the 1971 drugs law, there were only 17,000 heroin addicts in Britain. They could all get prescriptions from their doctor and many were able to live reasonably normal lives. When the new law was imposed on us by the USA this stopped, and addicts had to get their drugs from criminals. As a consequence we now have countless hundreds of thousands of addicts. We don’t know how many, where they are, and they cause huge levels of crime and distress. Many die because the heroin they get is unclean and unpredictable. The problem is caused not primarily by the drug itself but by making it illegal. We could avoid all that by legalizing recreational drugs and educating people about it.

As a growing community of freethinkers, we encounter many people who think there just might be some truth in some paranormal phenomenon like telepathy or ESP. How do you suggest we talk to them without coming across as ‘closed-minded’ people?

Oh that is too difficult. I always get very angry. Only thing I can say is ask for evidence for their claims.

Thank you, Dr.Blackmore, It was a pleasure talking to you.

Related posts:

1. Nirmukta Exclusive: Interview with Daniel Dennett.
2. Science and Skepticism Interview: Dr. Steven Novella
3. Interview: Dr. Prabhakar Kamath On His Consumer Rights Activism in India
4. Nirmukta Radio Podcast Episode #4: Interview – Blair Scott, Affiliate Director for American Atheists
5. An Interview with James Randi
6. An interview with Basava Premanand

Introduction

I’ve written about the social psychological underpinnings of victim blaming before. Essentially, the Just World bias makes us believe that people deserve what they get, and that if bad things happen to someone, they must have done bad things for it to happen. Now, when somebody says “victim blaming”, the classic picture that comes to mind is that of a horrible wicked person saying “You deserved it!”. In real life, this seldom happens. For one, such people are smart enough to know that in today’s more enlightened world, you simply cannot say such things in intelligent company and get away with it. Secondly – and this is the insidious thing about victim blaming – even well-intentioned people can blame the victim without realising it.

Below we’ll take a look at a case study of victim blaming, where the following pattern emerges:

1. The Spotlight: The focus of discussion is on the victim, not the perpetrator. This is true literally in terms of the number of words devoted to each, and also in terms of where the writer is focusing their research/investigation.

2. The Burden of Change: The responsibility of prevention/solution is put on the victim, not the perpetrator. This is usually implicit rather than explicit, and is often intermixed with point number 1.

3. Denial / Protestations to the Contrary: The person will claim that they are not blaming the victim, while proceeding to do just that (via points 1 and 2).

Time Magazine on the Charlie Hebdo Arson Attack

On 2nd November 2011, the Paris office of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was destroyed in a petrol bomb attack. It isn’t yet known who did it, but given that their previous issue had mocked radical Islam, was jokingly renamed “Sharia Hebdo” and was “guest-edited” by the prophet Muhammad, it is a reasonable guess that Islamists were behind it.

Time Magazine published an online piece about the bombing, titled Firebombed French Paper Is No Free Speech Martyr. I recommend you read the article in its entirety, for it is quite remarkable. Let’s see how it fares with respect to the victim blaming pattern I mentioned above:

1. The Spotlight: The article focuses exclusively on Charlie Hebdo’s behaviour. First it talks about the magazine issue in question and its contents. Then it looks back into the magazine’s past – did you know that in 2007 they reprinted the “controversial” Danish Muhammad cartoons? Shocker. It goes on to criticise the magazine’s insolence, calling it “self-indulgent” and “wilfully injurious”, and continues with heaps of concern about abuse of free speech, Islamophobia, burqa ban, etc. There is hardly a word about the people who bombed a building because they didn’t like the words that came out of there. You would think journalists would want to look into why someone would do that – interview some terrorism experts and psychologists perhaps? Nope, not here.

2. The Burden of Change: This is implicit throughout the article – it all but screams “Don’t mock Islam and they won’t bomb you”. No mention of “Don’t bomb people” anywhere. I.e., the burden of change is implicitly on the critics of Islam, not the Islamists.

3. Denial / Protestations to the Contrary: There are three points in the article where the author offers support to Charlie Hebdo – in a sense saying “I’m not blaming you or anything”:

“Sorry for your loss, Charlie, and there’s no justification of such an illegitimate response to your current edition–”

 “[I]t’s just as clear that intimidation and violence must be condemned and combated for whatever reason they’re committed—especially if their goal is to undermine freedoms and liberties of open societies.”

 “And within a climate where violent response—however illegitimate—is a real risk–”

That’s three sentences of support – qualified support in fact – amidst a 1,229 words-long article. Blink and you’ll miss them. After reading the article, the overarching sense one gets is: Charlie Hebdo was wrong and had it coming. They should change their ways or expect things like this to happen to them.

And then there’s the concluding sentence, which starts with some more support, but then undoes it all with a moral equivalence so revolting it beggars belief:

“So, yeah, the violence inflicted upon Charlie Hebdo was outrageous, unacceptable, condemnable, and illegal. But apart from the ‘illegal’ bit, Charlie Hebdo’s current edition is all of the above.”

Once you learn to identify this pattern of victim-blaming, you will notice it time and again. The recent statements by high-ranking Indian police officials attributing rape to the clothes women wear, for example, focused on what women wear, implicitly putting the burden of change on them. And the spotlight – the media storm that followed – focused on this issue, not the men who are doing the raping.

Another trope that is often seen in victim-blaming is what one might call the helplessness of the perpetrator. While the spotlight is on the victim most of the time, it is shone on the perpetrator for an all too brief moment either to commiserate with or to bemoan the helplessness of the perpetrator, who is cut some slack, as if to say, “What else could you expect, in the light of such behavior by the victim?” The crime is cast as a natural reaction, even Greek tragedy. And thus the seam between the perpetrator and victim dissolves, and their roles become equivalent in the eyes of society. This New York Times report on the gang rape of an 11-year old girl offers an appalling example:

“The case has rocked this East Texas community to its core and left many residents in the working-class neighborhood where the attack took place with unanswered questions. Among them is, if the allegations are proved, how could their young men have been drawn into such an act?

 “‘It’s just destroyed our community,’ said Sheila Harrison, 48, a hospital worker who says she knows several of the defendants. ‘These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.’”

No one is immune to victim-blaming; but by identifying victim-blaming bias in ourselves, we can start a process of self-examination – of second-guessing our words and actions, like a freethinker should. So the next time you’re discussing some injustice with a friend, and you find yourself talking more about the victim than you are about the perpetrator, stop for a minute and ask yourself: Am I blaming the victim?

Related posts:

1. The God Delusion in Action: My Indian travelogue.
2. Dress Is Not A Yes

Liberty as a means of fending off despotism

Liberty means the protection of the people from the tyranny of those who rule over them. In ancient times, the people were ruled by one individual or several individuals who were bestowed the position by virtue of being conquerors or by hereditary right (save for the Greeks). The rulers were in essence, double-edged swords: their power could be used to fend off enemies or could be directed at the proletariat. Thus to prevent such machinations, the people sought to limit the power exercised over them by the aforementioned rulers in two chief ways: political liberties were granted and if these were violated, retaliation was justified and by the means of constitutional checks and balances (introduced subsequently as democratic frameworks replaced existing regimes).

But as the ages passed, rulers no longer occupied a position antagonistic to the position of the people they ruled over. Rather the people wished their masters be appointed and removed solely at their pleasure and so the above concepts of liberty had to be suitably revised. A democratic set-up assumed that the people needn’t be protected from themselves, but over time the individuals who assume power may no longer be representative of the individuals who elected them to office and may come to represent only a majority rather than being all encompassing. Therefore among other societal evils, the tyranny of the majority is one to be wary of.

Social tyranny and its influence on liberty

However, society itself- the collective rather than the individual- can tend towards tyranny and manifest it in manners besides elected political officials. Social mandates can be imposed on society with negative consequences because it will try to penalize the individual whose ideas and rules of conduct deviate from those deemed acceptable by the majority. Thus social tyranny can be equally formidable or more so than political tyranny as the former seeps into the finer details of daily life. A limit must therefore be discussed and drawn such that collective opinion does not encroach upon individual opinions and preferences.

But what exactly is this is limit and how is it drawn up? The author believes that the question is yet to be correctly addressed. He then says that guidelines that deal with human conduct are often dictated by personal opinions rather than by hard reasoning. Indeed, one’s own opinion is often the golden standard of judgment and one sympathizes with beings who share that worldview. But if these individuals decide the rulers, do they not also impose on individual liberties, vicariously, through the government they create? The author simply states that the interference of the government is “improperly invoked and improperly condemned”.

The essay tries to point out that the reason for imposing control and coercing the individual or in essence interfering by means of physical force, legal penalties or the like is for self-protection. The only occasion where power can be exercised forcefully against the wishes of a member of a civilized community is in order to prevent harm from befalling others. The author however has a different opinion for societies that are still ruled by barbarians and opines that the principles of liberty do not apply in a time when free and equal discussion is nonexistent. But once such a society comes of age (even if it was guided by the hands of a despot), compulsion is no longer viewed favorably, save in the case of protection of others.

Freedom to be yourself

The introductory is concluded with what liberties are granted for the individual. They include the liberty of thought and sentiment, the absolute freedom of opinion on all areas including moral or theological, the liberty of living one’s lives as one sees fit without impeding the lives of others and also the freedom to unite with other individuals for any purpose (whilst adhering to the caveat of not inflicting harm upon others).

To truly summarize the essence of the introductory and to whet the reader’s appetite to pursue the remainder of the work (freely available online), I quote Mill:

No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is free, whatever may be its form of government; and none is completely free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified. The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.

Related posts:

1. Beyond the Shadow of ‘Role Models’ and Rogue Mannequins – Lessons from the Ramayana revisited

Ever since “Elevatorgate” broke earlier this year, there has been an increased focus on the prevailing sexism within the atheist community. The fallout caused by this incident has been fueled by persistent hostility towards Rebecca Watson and people who support her. The problem is very much alive, dividing freethinkers into two broad camps – those who think sexism is a real problem in our community and those who disagree (at least in the West). A recent spate of articles about harassment of women online show us that hate-filled verbal abuse directed against women and anyone who speaks out against sexism, is universal.

This article is a statement of solidarity with Rebecca Watson, Jen McCreight and others who have spoken out against misogyny and sexism in the atheist and freethought community.

How does the issue affect those of us in India and the developing world? There seems to be a general perception amongst some atheists in the West that feminism is now only relevant to communities in the developing world. It is certainly true that misogyny is rampant in the developing world. But this in no way diminishes the very real misogyny that American women (for instance) also experience. Indulging in oppression olympics is typically a silencing tactic, one that deserves to be called out.

On Nirmukta’s social networks on Facebook, we run into our own home-grown sexists – the ones with the propensity to call a woman a “bitch” the moment she says something that is unacceptable to them; the tendency to sexualise women as either doormats or devis; the ones who glorify motherhood to the point of nausea and others who regularly commit the just world fallacy: “there is no need for feminism, all we need is equality”.

Such people are probably thinking, “so what? What does any of that have to do with atheism?”

Here’s the thing. We at Nirmukta are more than just atheists – we are Secular Humanists. Secular Humanism is a life stance that combines naturalism with a strong commitment to ethics, justice and human happiness. Feminism is one of the many causes under this umbrella, along with anti-racism, anti-casteism and so on.  In the article linked above, Tom Flynn explains his stance nicely, saying:

“When people ask me whether I’m an atheist, I say, ‘Yes, but that’s just the beginning’”.

Harassment and abuse directed against other members is considered grounds for strong moderation in the Nirmukta forum and facebook groups. This is an example of behaviour that would lead to an immediate ban in any of Nirmukta’s online community forums. Sometimes a warning or ban seems harsh – after all, the person might be a smart atheist who’s contributed well in other threads. But our humanistic principles mean that we do what’s best for the community. We have lost a few members due to such policies, but the force of our convictions has already turned around several brilliant atheists who were previously unaware of the way systemic forces work to perpetuate a culture that reinforces the dynamic between the oppressor and the oppressed. We have people who were wary of feminism as recently as a year ago, now self-identifying as proud feminists. Nirmukta members strive to create an ambience where people are confident to express themselves without being made to feel vulnerable. This means that we do not tolerate violence in language or derailing tactics that are commonly employed. It is part of our stated purpose to make sure our community is a safe space not only for women but also for LGBTQ folk and other marginalized groups.

In addition to strong moderation, all Nirmukta members are encouraged to look for and challenge subtler, often subconscious instances of privilege and bias. For example, here is an incident where questioning an all-male admin team on an atheist group led to a heated discussion about why such a thing should not be acceptable, as well as further discussion in our own group about male privilege (some members were exposed to such a discussion for the first time). There have been other incidents in our groups – rape apologetics and victim-blaming in incidents of rape/sexual harassment for example – where we have taken strong action. Actively and consistently challenging such behaviour – whether it be sexism, racism or some other form of oppression –  is the right thing to do, and it is also the best way for our movement to grow without repeating the mistakes of other movements. A humanistic atheist-freethought movement is the only one worth having.

As Freethinkers with a humanistic agenda, our concerted efforts to promote science/skepticism and criticize superstition/religion is not just a matter of intellectual pursuit, but is rather central to our commitment to social justice. It is incumbent upon us all to practice self-examination – to recognize our biases and acknowledge and correct for them. It is also necessary for us to speak out in support of those whose voices are being shut out, and to stand up for an ethics of reason and compassion, in opposition to that fraction within the broader movement who stand in our way to a fully progressive and freethinking society.

No related posts.

“Prejudice squints when it looks and lies when it talks.”

~ Laure Junot

In 1913, a British philosopher named Earnest Belfort Bax published his book The Fraud of Feminism. In it, he presented arguments against everything from women’s suffrage to equal opportunity in the workplace. Despite the efforts of Bax and the majority of the men in power who were against laws permitting women be counted as equals in civil society, British women won equal voting rights in 1928, decades after slavery was outlawed in the United States.  Women everywhere began to be recognized as worthy of performing wage work in areas that were traditionally considered male territory. Few authors have been more wrong about the direction of history than Bax was. Most sane people today could easily dismiss his anti-woman views. It should, however, give us freethinkers food for thought that Bax was someone who rejected all organized religion and thought of himself as a Rationalist.

Almost a 100 years after Bax’s publication, “Men’s Rights” advocates are still making much the same arguments against gender equality, albeit with decades of data and scientific research in psychology, cognitive science and evolutionary biology from which to cherry pick. Indeed, blogs (1, 2, 3) across the manosphere trumpet Bax as one of the founders of the “men’s rights” movement, proudly proclaiming the book as the initiation of a push back against feminists who are out to deprive men of their rights!

The steady march of progress towards humanism and equal rights has been made harder because of a certain type of irrational thinking that permeates social groups of all kinds, leading groups of people to ignore, justify and dismiss privileges that they enjoy over other groups. Why do we make these errors in reason and how do they affect our beliefs? How can we avoid making them? If we could find answers to these questions, we’d have, at the very least, a better and more compassionate understanding of social issues, from a less biased perspective.

What Causes These Errors?

Before the 1970s the dominant models in social psychology and economics were premised on the belief that people’s decision making processes are essentially rational. A series of experiments brought into question this assumption that had been part of the fundamental framework of behavioral studies, until in 1972 Kahneman and Tversky introduced the idea that the brain uses short-cuts- heuristics- to get around the problem of having to quickly process large quantities of information. These heuristics could, it turns out, bias our decisions in certain situations, leading to inaccuracies in judgement. Thus was born the idea of cognitive bias.

Over the years cognitive scientists, social psychologists and behavioural economists have accumulated experimental evidence that people are subject to several distinct cognitive biases. Besides being errors in heuristic processing, biases are influenced by social dynamics. These biases influence major decisions that we make as individuals and in groups, and have a significant effect on our social, political and economic spheres.

Social Bias

“Culture influences everything that a person does, whether they are aware of it or not.”

~ Conrad Phillip Kottak

Experimental work done by Henri Tajfel in the 1960s gave behavioral psychologists unprecedented insight into the phenomenon of prejudice. Tajfel demonstrated that categorization can act as a heuristic that the brain uses indiscriminately, regardless of rational reasons. For example, if a group of people are arbitrarily divided into two, each individual behaves as though the other members of his/her group are more similar to each other than to the members of the other group. This effect applies even when making judgements about similar inanimate objects, when the rational mind knows there really is no difference between the objects in both groups.

In interactions between groups of people, the information relating to various observable events is parsed differently in different observers depending on which group they belong to. The misunderstanding and disagreement between those involved in such everyday conflicts are the result of predictable errors in belief formation, reinforcement and justification. This leads us to the somewhat startling conclusion that at least some of the causes of prejudice are related to universal cognitive processes, and that it is not just certain personality types that are prone to prejudice. We are all susceptible to the cognitive biases that influence our observations and reasoning when it comes to members of our group versus those in other groups.

Bias is Implicit

In 1998 a team of researchers at Harvard launched a program called Project Implicit, an initiative that brought together established ideas in cognitive science and social psychology. Project Implicit was an Implicit Association Test (IAT), designed to pick up on subconscious social biases. The test soon became very popular and was featured widely in the mainstream media, eventually appearing in 2007 in an episode of Scientific American Frontiers.

The IAT is an excellent way of evaluating subconscious prejudice. It turns out that people can have hidden prejudice about members of their own group, without even being aware of it. For example, Black people associating other Black faces (as opposed to White faces) with negative stereotypes and women associating household chores (as opposed to office work) with women in general. People are often surprised to learn about their prejudices. Most of us like to think of ourselves as just, if not also kind-hearted and reasonable. Yet the social cognitive biases that we are all affected by very often mislead members of groups in conflict, making it harder for the groups to find agreement in facts.

A large number of social cognitive biases have thus far been identified, and many of them are universally applicable. For the purposes of this article, here are some biases that have an influence when it comes to creating prejudicial attitudes between groups. The ones listed below are linked to their Wikipedia entries.

Hot/Cold Empathy Gap

Fundamental attribution error

Ultimate attribution error

Belief bias

Attentional bias

Bandwagon effect

Status Quo bias (system justification bias)

Egocentric bias

Just World bias

Intergroup bias

Outgroup homogeneity bias

Forer effect

False consensus effect

Halo effect

Bias and Privilege

Much has already been said about privilege in ideological debates on Facebook and elsewhere. There is no doubt that in some cases the word ‘privilege’ is abused, and freethinkers are right to be wary of such uses of the word. Like when it is invoked to prevent discourse and exploration of the facts, rather than to introduce a clear understanding of existing bias in a specific context. But very often even when privilege is brought up in a legitimate case, there is an unhealthy tendency to dismiss it without  giving it the thought it deserves. In intergroup conflicts, social cognitive bias leads to ignoring privilege, leading to inadequately addressing the issues of justice and rights.

Let’s analyze a few inter-group conflicts to see how cognitive bias is used to justify and dismiss privilege.

1. Race bias: The most studied inter-race relationship is between Black and White Americans. Given the history of these two groups it is quite easy for third parties to see the enormous amount of social, political and economic privilege that the latter holds over the former. In this now famous talk, author Tim Wise presents statistics detailing the deep and lasting effects that White privilege exerts. Yet when Whites and Blacks are asked about it, Whites are far more likely to feel that race is not an issue in America, and that White Americans are not privileged over minority groups. Many of the above mentioned cognitive biases are at work when it comes to race bias. In fact, data suggests that in relation to Whites things have not really gotten much better for Black Americans in America since the 1960s, and in some cases they have gotten worse.

The debate on race in America is a study in cognitive bias. Right from the beginnings of slavery, White colonialists justified the oppression by claiming that it was good for the slaves. It’s what the slaves really wanted, they claimed. It was even described as a mental disease if a slave tried to run away, and the “treatment” was cutting off their big toes. Guess what you can’t do anymore without your big toes?

2. Colour bias: In India and much of the world, even where dark skinned people are the majority, explicit and unapologetic light-skin bias exists. Lighter-skinned people have an advantage when it comes to everything from job opportunities to finding love. This is a privilege actively perpetuated by everyone, including most “victims” of this prejudice. From childhood dark-skinned people are taught they are inferior because of their colour, by both dark and light-skinned people. Evil characters, in mythology and contemporary cultural expression such as cinema, are invariable dark-skinned, in contrast with the light-skinned good ones. Multiple cognitive biases are involved in maintaining the beliefs that light-skin is inherently good, more attractive and a sign of higher intellect, making it more desirable overall. Despite the existence of widespread light-skinned privilege, due to the effects of cognitive bias it is not credited as being a privilege over dark-skinned people. Light-skinned privilege is simply not accounted for when conversations about economic justice and inequality are brought forward in India.

3. Caste bias: This is obviously relevant mostly in the Indian context, but such categorizations are found throughout much of the developing world. Although in the more metropolitan Indian cities explicit caste bias is frowned upon, caste-based prejudice still plays an important role in social organization. In Tamil Nadu, despite decades of strong anti-caste movements, the political and intellectual establishments are dominated by members of the “upper” castes, many of whom are subconsciously driven to favour their own in-groups.

There is a general belief that Brahmins are more intelligent than other Indians- an idea that is held true by many due to the effects of a confluence of cognitive biases. I once had a Brahmin girl try to convince me that Lamarckian evolutionary effects caused by a history of vegetarianism contributed to Brahmins developing more advanced abstract reasoning skills! Similar to Whites in America, “upper caste” members, while thinking of themselves as superior and taking pride in their influence over all major aspects of society, also claim they are the persecuted ones in India! Such propaganda is a cognitive bias-driven tactic to counter observed privilege, leading to an increase in in-group affinities and nepotism that ends in more “upper caste” dominance.

4. Religion bias: This is an easy one for freethinkers to identify. People in different religious groups are extremely biased in their assessment of themselves in comparison to those in other religious groups. Usually this bias is restricted to the religious beliefs, but sometimes people assign characteristics to the believers themselves- characteristics that have little to do with the beliefs. This is also seen with some non-believers.

Religion tends to be a very polarizing phenomenon, and therefore when religious categories are involved, cognitive biases such as intergroup bias and out-group homogeneity bias play an increased role. Different biases are involved depending on the situation. When one religious group is privileged over others in a particular population, there is powerful motivation to maintain the status quo. Some members belonging to religious majorities feel a strong urge to assert themselves in their culture, diminishing the cultural contributions of the minority religions. Worst of all is the exertion of religious privilege over non-believers.

In the US, every holiday season there is a renewed cry from the religious proclaiming that America is a Christian nation, rather oblivious to that nation’s explicitly secular constitutional history. Similar attitudes from India’s Hindus might seem less misguided, until you consider that Hinduism itself was the product of several cognitive biases acting on several groups of believers, under the influence of external groups that posed a threat to them all. In the Islamic world, meaning any country with a significant Islamic majority, Muslim privilege is often blatantly paraded as divine law. Religions, it turns out, have evolved mechanisms within scripture and in traditional practice to hijack our social cognitive biases, pitting humans against each other in order for the beliefs to effectively perpetuate themselves.

5. Gender bias: Unlike most of the other issues, gender roles have been culturally reinforced in all societies for as long as humans have existed. Sociologists describe modern human societies as patriarchal, although a few matriarchal societies have existed in hunter-gatherer cultures. The closest to matriarchy today is what are known as matrifocal cultures, where women have a central position in the family.

Male privilege that comes hand in hand with patriarchy is something that men everywhere are trained to internalize into their worldviews and consider the norm. It is a subject that much has been written about, while very little is part of the cultural narrative. Throughout history men have written and talked about justice and equality while dismissing the subjugation of half the population, thanks to cognitive bias. Of course, today the most patriarchal societies are often also the most religious ones. Religious authority is a powerful tool to control women’s minds and bodies. As religious influence over society fades, new reasons are being invented, often usurping scientific ideas and twisting them into tenuous propositions, for the continued perpetuation of a patriarchal system that privileges men on many fronts. Divine allotment of gender roles is supplanted with seemingly naturalistic reasons that justify the existing patriarchy.

“Even in the face of powerful structures of domination, it remains possible for each of us, especially those of us who are members of oppressed and/or exploited groups as well as those radical visionaries who may have race, class, and sex privilege, to define and determine alternative standards, to decide on the nature and extent of compromise.”

~ bell hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins)

Privilege Goes Both Ways.. Or Does It?

One of the common criticisms of the idea that men are privileged in society is that women also have privileges that we feminists ignore. To some extent it is true that women have certain privileges, and cognitive bias is at work when the non-existent caricature feminist denies that they do. But this is the privilege of the fish in the bowl, being in charge of the few cubic inches of its territory, while the boy who keeps the bowl by his window has the “responsibility” of providing for the fish, dealing with the “important” issues that concern fishkind. In essence, this argument being used to justify male privilege is simply a function of the cognitive bias that leads men to argue for extending the status quo of our patriarchal society.

The same criticism is also often made along racial lines in America, claiming that Blacks get to be explicitly racist because of their history of subjugation, a double-standard that privileges them over Whites today. Again, this line of reasoning is just more evidence of the cognitive biases that allow Whites to ignore the lasting systemic effects of the power they have historically exerted over American society, and the considerably more significant and real consequences of the privilege they thereby hold today.

What Can We Do As Freethinkers?

The study of how social cognitive biases contribute to justification of privilege can be similarly extended to many other issues. For example, sexual orientation, wealth, education etc are all factors that, in modern society, confer privilege to one group of people over others.

There certainly are both positive as well as normative elements involved in such matters, and we know that on a common biological level the foundations of our value systems are hard-wired. However, it is clear that our values themselves are shaped by who we are in society, in relation to others in the culture we are conditioned by. Our judgements on such issues as privilege are biased by default, trapped as we are within our social contexts.

Just as we freethinkers enthusiastically study logical fallacies to aid in argumentation and advocacy of our beliefs, and as we vociferously advocate for empirical evaluation of factual propositions, the analysis of cognitive biases and their effects should become part of the overall agenda. In the case of social issues, scrutiny of how our biases affect us can be extremely useful towards creating a society where the vestiges of irrational prejudice have as small an effect as possible on the lives of all humans. In the long run, such developments will no doubt become the focus of the freethought movement, as religious influence over culture gives way to a society built on secular values and humanistic ethics.

Refrerenes:

Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases.

Henri Tajfel, Cognitive aspects of Prejudice.

Related posts:

1. Privilege Blindness and the Just World Theory
2. Derren Brown’s ‘Crowd Experiment’: A Response from two Social Psychologists
3. Moral and Virtuous People Don’t Need God Or Mindless Religion
4. The Moral Consequences of Objectivism
5. Against Misogyny: In Solidarity with Jen McCreight and Rebecca Watson

The very term ‘superstition’ denotes that it is a conclusion not based on rational thinking and evidence, and hence has to be anti human rights. This is because human rights includes individual’s rights to hold beliefs, express them and also live a life of one’s choice. The superstitions are naturally against these. Most of the superstitions are linked to religion. Though religion is not all superstition and also the other way round, most of the organized religions are based on revelations made to an individual and hence irrefutable. That something is held to be irrefutable is per se against human rights, because it is a basic human right to believe or not to believe in something. Besides, the very concept that all human beings are equal is negated by many religions where things like caste are a basic tenet.

If one has to respect human rights then equality of all human beings regardless of their nationality, language, color, ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation should be considered, which none of the religious dogmas agree with. Again, all religions have dogmas which are beyond question. The very fact that something is beyond question is a negation of human rights. The only thing perhaps that one can consider irrefutable is the concept of human rights itself.

Let us examine some of these superstitions to understand how they are anti human rights. That all humans are equal is a fact that is negated by all religious dogma. Even those that preach the universal brotherhood of man qualify their statement by the term being applied to only to those who follow their irrefutable dogma! Some by their very definitions divide human beings into castes and specify functions for each one of them, which again negates human rights. These religions also use very derogatory terms for those who do not follow their system of faith or worship. Even after death the religious beliefs determine what happens to the body and the non existent soul! The very dignity of a human being after death is determined by many superstitious beliefs. The disposal of the mortal remains is again determined by these superstitions. The interred bodies have been even exhumed for these religious and other superstitions, and even the dignity of one’s mortal remains has not been maintained.

That all humans are equal has been accepted in the declaration of human rights, but this is not respected by superstition based religions. Though the human genome project has proved beyond any doubt that the genetic composition of all humans is the same but for very marginal variations, the superstitious do not let us accept it. There is a class of people who are said to be in closer contact with the so called power or powers that run the whole universe, and hence ordinary mortals have to seek the intervention of these often self-appointed agents of divinity. While the existence of such an entity is a matter that is questionable, even if one such exists it is debatable since only a few select ones can have access to it! So, the very concept of priesthood is a violation of human rights.

Every human being has a right to happiness in his/her own way as long as it is not causing any problems to others. But, the religious dogmas based on superstitions do not allow that. They expect human being to find happiness following the lines put down in their scripture, and follow them unquestioningly. Many of these lay emphasis on suffering and austerity for their followers (mind my word- followers –not for those who preach) promising them all delights in the life beyond- a total superstition, because there is not a shred of evidence that there is anything existing beyond death or before birth. The Karma theory is a total anti human rights concept, putting the blame or credit for what is happening in the present life to ones deeds in a previous incarnation, again a concept that is utterly non science.

Image source: http://www.bhamcropwalk.org/

Every human being has a right to express his/her views. There are blasphemy laws in superstition based societies that are against human rights. If one has the right to propagate one’s religion, then the non believer has the fundamental right to question it. This right is denied to the non believer by the blasphemy laws which are in force in many countries, some of which have made it a capital offence to question their book or their prophet. These laws are in existence even in a secular democracy like India- though not called exactly that! They have been given a different name like spreading hatred among different communities etc! The right to blasphemy is a human right and it must be accepted that as much as one has the right to put forward claims, others have also the right to question them. With a large number of the population turning out to be non believers their rights of non-belief cannot be suppressed.

Women constitute 50% of the human population and violation of their rights is that of half the population. The rights of women are always infringed upon by the superstitious practices followed by perpetrators of atrocities in the name of religion. The Abrahamaic religions all look down upon women as the one who had brought the downfall of mankind! The rights of women are trampled upon by the religions using various methods. This attitude is so morbid that when anesthesia was first discovered it was said to be all right in all its applications except for the alleviation of pain during childbirth because god had decreed that the woman shall bring forth children struggling and crying in pain. This is but one such example in which superstitions have made women as second rate citizens in many religion based societies. The position of women in many of the Islamic states is well known, and includes punishments like publicly stoning to death and such. Their bodies are used as trade offs in tribal feuds; women are treated as chattels, like cattle and denied the pleasure of their own bodies by practices like the genital mutilation etc. It is no better in the societies of India and Nepal where they claim that gods dwell where women are honored. The Manu Smriti keeps them as bonded slaves to men all their lives because of the superstition that women cannot be trusted to be independent! Their reproductive cycles are closely monitored as they are considered to be unclean during their menstrual periods, and are banned from all contact with their family members during menses! Some temples have a no entry policy for all women. All these superstitious practices are violations of their human rights. This gets carried to such an extent that even the statutory posts held by them are only as representatives of the men who control their lives. The reservation of some seats in elected bodies for women has resulted in them being only nominal members of the body. All the required decisions are taken by their men folk and these women are only rubber stamps. The basis for this is again the age old superstition that women are inferior to men!

The basic human right to have a sexual relationship between two consenting adults is again interfered with by the myriad of superstitions that are the bane of our society. This baggage of the primitive tribal past is carried even when the believers go to liberal, secular societies where the laws of land uphold human rights. There are honour killings, kidnappings, forced marriages, divorces and even public hangings. There are these primitive superstitions about consanguineous marriages between couples who are cousins to the nth degree on the paternal side. But, the same is not applicable to the maternal side! Anyway, these primitive superstitions have resulted in Kangaroo courts handing down sentences, like husband and wife should live like brother and sister, married couples should be put to death and so on. This has led to public lynching of the ‘guilty’ parties and even vendettas. These superstition-ridden societies are such a strong electoral lobby that no govt. in power or any of the opposition parties dare take them on! As for homosexual relationships, the superstition ridden mind sets have made it a disease because of their primitive attitudes that such relationships are ‘unnatural’, while celibacy which can also be said to be so is revered and celibate men in particular are worshiped. Those women who do not get married are shunned. The superstition that a widow is inauspicious has resulted in gross violation of their human rights. They are banned from wearing jewellery, taking part in religious functions and are shunned by the society. In some places they are branded as witches and their property usurped, their basic human right of ownership of property being taken away from them by the superstition mongering vested interests. Even in inheritance matters women were not allowed to inherit the ancestral properties till recently. The change in the laws of inheritance for Hindus, have made women co-parcenaries for the property of the Hindu undivided family but in some other religions like Islam they inherit only a fraction what their male counterparts get.

The violation of the rights of the child is an off shoot of the superstitious attitudes of the society. Since children are more vulnerable they are made victims very often? This victimization may be anything from the sacrifice of a child to its genital mutilation. Mentally, children are denied their human rights like, say, to education- which is a human right of every child. There are religious institutions which force them into becoming priests without their consent. Though this practice has come to an end in most of the civilized societies it is still prevalent in countries that are less developed. In India we see young children being forced into religious schools and denied proper education. Again we see superstitions being imposed upon young innocent children- it is a common idea that many blood thirsty gods and spirits need the blood of innocent, young children and we see instances of such ritual sacrifices in many parts of India to appease gods. Superstitious beliefs not supported by medical evidence and leave children open to infections by many preventable disease. That vaccinations cause a host of problems outweighing their beneficial effects is a common superstition in our country. The same is also applicable in cases where medical treatment is denied to children or replaced by some superstitious, irrational quack therapy. This is also a violation of human rights. In fact parents have been convicted of man slaughter for subjecting their children to quack therapies resulting in the death of the child.

Mental illness is a major cause of human rights violation connected to superstitions. In the primitive societies the mentally ill are said to be possessed by demons and spirits and their human rights are violated under the pretext that whatever abuse that is being done is to the spirit possessing the patient and not the patient! So, all sorts of torture, beatings, deprivation of liberty is done under the guise of exorcism. The patients are subjected to all sorts of human rights violations and no action is taken even if complaints are made by the victim. We have instances in India where psychiatric patients have been chained and were burnt to death when the premises caught fire. There are instances where beatings to exorcise demons have resulted in deaths of the patients. These human rights violations are ignored as the near relatives of the victims are also subject to these superstitious beliefs and think that these barbaric violations of human rights are an essential part of the treatment and are being done for the patient’s well being!

Here we have an overview of some of the major human rights violations in the name of superstitious practices. Many times they are given a cultural mask to remove the basic underlying superstition. These may be like playing religious music loudly at all times, blocking the right of way for other citizens, disturbing the peace by setting of noise makers like crackers etc. Many times these are claimed to be cultural practices going back centuries, though we know very well that technology driven things like sound amplifiers have come into use only a few decades ago. People are denied the basic human right of consuming the food which their usual diet under religious pretexts linked to superstitious beliefs, forced to wear dress which is not suitable for the climate etc.

So, if we have to develop as an economy and in terms of human development index we have to pay a lot of attention to human rights. Their violations should be dealt with very strictly and people must be educated that in a civilized society where there are laws, they override all religious and superstitious beliefs that are in violation of them.

Related posts:

1. Where We Get Superstitions From
2. Protesting The Valentine’s Day Attacks in Mangalore
3. To Err Is Human – A Skeptical Reading Of The Ramayana
4. Interview: Dr. Prabhakar Kamath On His Consumer Rights Activism in India
5. Karnataka- The National Leader In State-Endorsed Superstitions
6. Premanand in Mangalore

Editor’s Note: This is the fourth part of “Mind’s Matter”, a series by Dr. Jonathan Pararajasingham exploring the Neurobiological basis of behaviour.

Neuroscientists have discovered curious truths about religious experience and their potential enhancement through drugs, disease or even practice. In this article I explore the implications of the apparent malleability and non-universality of religiosity.

A relatively new area in neuroscience gaining momentum rapidly is neurotheology – a field which investigates the notion that within the brain are neural structures which give rise to the potential for religious experience. More studies are beginning to show not only that neural correlates exist, but that they have susceptibility to pharmacological and pathological modification and potentiation, much as the same as we have found for many of the complex emergent properties of the brain.

The neuroscientist VS Ramachandran has extensively investigated a curious condition known as temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Studies have shown that after TLE patients undergo an epileptic seizure, they uniquely describe having a profound “spiritual” experience. They claim to understand their place in the cosmos, and how everything suddenly becomes saturated with significance and meaning. Such experiences occur independently of prior beliefs held by the patient. Ramachandran has explained that the phenomenon is not evidence for “God module” as the media initially popularised. Rather that there are perhaps a variety of structures which work together to give rise to such spiritual experiences, which is the case with other specific systems of the brain. The visual system for example has many quite distinct components (colour, movement, object recognition, facial recognition) working together to produce vision, rather than a “vision module” located in a single area. TLE patients also show a reduced response to normally provocative images (such as sexual images), but a heightened response to religiously-loaded words or imagery.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The serotonin (5-HT) system has long been of interest in biological models of human personality. Psychopharmacological research has investigated the effect of psychedelic drugs in relation to religious experience. The drugs which have been studied include adrenaline derivatives (e.g. mescaline) and serotonin derivatives (e.g. LSD, psilocybin, DMT). It has been found that these drugs cause transcendental or spiritual experiences as well as intense visual hallucinations. The remarkable finding is that all of these drugs act on one specific type of neuroreceptor called serotonin 2A (or 5-HT2A) receptors, which are found all over the cortical surface of the brain. 5-HT2A receptors are stimulatory, which means when these drugs acts on them they increase production of serotonin in the brain, and this gross overstimulation of the 5-HT2A receptors leads to what are interpreted as religious experiences.

A second line of evidence regarding the serotonin system was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 2003 on the effect of 5-HT1A receptors, which are inhibitory. They showed that the binding potential of 5-HT1A receptors correlated inversely with scores for “self-transcendence”. Self-transcendence is a personality trait covering religious behaviour and attitudes originally described by Washington University psychiatrist Robert Cloninger. He found that spiritual people tend to share a set of characteristics, such as feeling connected to the world and a willingness to accept things that cannot be objectively demonstrated. This result implies that there is a dysfunction in the 5-HT1A receptors in spiritual people resulting in less inhibition of the effects of serotonin, which in turn would lead to increased susceptibility to spiritual experiences. This was further evidence that the serotonin system may serve as a biological basis for spiritual experiences.

In “Why God Won’t Go Away”, radiologist Andrew Newberg describes his studies on the religious experiences of Tibetan Buddhists in meditation and Franciscan nuns in prayer. Using PET scanning, Newberg revealed a number of mental traits which all seem to play a part in an overall religious experience in the brain. The most interesting of these processes is the feeling of cosmic unity. The parietal lobe contains an area called the “orientation association area” (OAA), which processes information about space and time, as well as the orientation of the body in space. It determines where the body ends and the rest of the world begins. The left OAA creates the sensation of a physically delimited body. The right OAA creates the sense of the physical space in which the body exists. An injury here destroys your ability to navigate around in physical space.

Sensory input is essential for the OAA to function, which is blocked during intense meditation or prayer. The left OAA cannot find any boundary between self and non-self, resulting in a sense of oneness. Without sensory input, the right OAA defaults to a feeling of infinite space, where meditators feel that they have touched infinity.

The obvious interpretation of such findings is that there is neural architecture in the brain which includes the temporal lobes that are specialized for what we understand as spirituality, which may be selectively and transiently enhanced by pathological (epileptic storm) and artificial (5-HT2A agonists) factors. However, it is quite specific in these studies that what is described is an overwhelming feeling of meaning or significance. I would speculate that such religious experiences feed into our mind’s innate teleological sense, eventually culminating in a deep religious belief which is used to elucidate the experienced emotions. The focus therefore is in meaning – an idea which ties in elegantly with native teleology, explaining the obsession with meaning and purpose explanations among intellectual theists.

The most significant question that arises from these discoveries is the implications on the theistic account of free will in choosing faith. In other words, the typical monotheistic description of a God who gives us the ability (free will) to choose to worship him becomes problematic, since we find that the capacity for religious experience seems to be as varied among the population as any other personality trait, individual characteristic or innate ability. Some people are simply born with a brain that has a greater chance of finding God, as they are “wired up” that way. We are restricted in our choice, much the same as we are restricted in our choice to prefer chocolate or vanilla, Bach or Mozart, men or women. Neuroscientific studies have consistently shown that all the choices we make in life are far more greatly influenced by genetic makeup, rather than our environmental influences. In this regard, we are certainly not equal in finding pathways to God.

The potential of religiosity to be enhanced through drugs, disease or even practice, reminds one of similar effects on other abilities such as music or art. Certain brain conditions such as autism or schizophrenia lead patients to express heightened artistic or musical abilities. Perhaps we should think of deeply religous individuals as having a keen “religious ability”, much like we do with other types of artistic temperament.

But like art, such religious abilities may be rationalised now as being secondary to natural rather than divine processes, though I concede that those with strong religious abilities would be unlikely change their view that their stunning experiences have no supernatural component. Having said that, I would still hope for an intellectual purification of such feelings, perhaps first by discarding words such as spiritual, transcendent or religious in their description, as these have all been tarnished by the brush of supernaturalism. Instead, I would propose we begin to use phrases such as “numinous ability”. We can learn to appreciate this creative numinous ability as something intrinsically rather than mystically stunning, much the same as we appreciate music or art without linking their intrinsic beauty with supernaturalism.

Related posts:

1. A Scientific View of the God Delusion and it’s Implications
2. Stress, The Mind, Belief Systems And Mental Blocks

Editor’s Note: This is the third part of “Mind’s Matter”, a series by Dr. Jonathan Pararajasingham exploring the Neurobiological basis of behaviour.

Every individual navigates through life producing a continuous stream of choices and decisions. A variety of disciplines examining behaviour have tried to elucidate the processes involved in how we make choices, but largely without assimilating their actual data and findings. Neuroeconomics is a unique interdisciplinary field which aims to change all that, by studying decision making with the use of mind sciences including psychology and neuroscience, as well as economic theory. The Israeli economist Ariel Rubinstein describes economics itself as a culture rather than a science – a collection of accepted ideas and conventions that are used in our thinking. For this reason neuroeconomics as an actual science will probably influence economics in a similarly positive way cognitive psychology and behavioural economics have.

While the nascent field of neuroeconomics has its teething problems, it certainly has potential uses. Once we have rationally exhausted our economic models for example, it would make sense to then begin to use models based on neuroeconomics data which could indicate how common particular decision-making behaviours are, as well help identify differentiate types of individuals that share certain behaviours.

Brain Areas Activated in Decision-Making

Neuroeconomics allows investigation of complex social processes such as reputation, trust, equality, and cooperation. Research has already begun to illustrate how social exchange can act directly on the brain’s reward system, how affective factors play an important role in play bargaining, reciprocal exchange and coordination/competitive games, and how the ability to assess another’s intentions is related to strategic play.

Dopamine system: It seems that the brain uses a reward system in making its choices. The dopamine system seems to be activated proportionally with reward, scaling directly with the magnitude of monetary reward or punishment.

Basal Ganglia: A particular group of brain structures known as the basal ganglia are responsible for initiation of movement, learning, and action selection i.e. choosing which of several behaviours to execute at any given time. They do this by inhibiting multiple motor systems and permitting one particular motor system to become active. The decision-making process of the basal ganglia is influenced by higher intellectual centres in the brain such as the prefrontal cortex. The human striatum (major input station for the basal ganglia) appears to be centrally involved in social decisions, tracking a social partner’s decision to reciprocate or not reciprocate cooperation, appearing to encode abstract rewards such as the positive feeling garnered by mutual cooperation.

Striatum: Reinforcement-learning mechanisms have been found in primate studies, which improve choices over time by continually updating the encountered reward and punishment outcomes. Reciprocated cooperation with another human leads to increased activation in the striatum as compared with a control condition where an identical amount of money is earned, whereas unreciprocated cooperation shows a corresponding decrease in activation in this area. In addition, activation is associated with increased cooperation in subsequent rounds, which suggests that the striatum may register social prediction errors to guide decisions about reciprocity.

Of course, social reward need not always be related to positive, mutually cooperative, actions. Players also may derive satisfaction from punishing defectors, even when this punishment leads to a financial loss to the player. Studies show this was associated with activation in the brain’s caudate nucleus (part of the basal ganglia), with activation greater when the punishment was real (involving a financial loss to the defector) than when it was merely symbolic. In studies examining altruism and charitable donation, the striatum was engaged by both receiving money and by donations to charity. Furthermore, activity was enhanced when charitable donation was voluntary as opposed to forced.

Emotional centres: Regulation of emotions also seems to be important in social decision-making. Emotional processes seem to reliably engage the reward-processing mechanisms and higher cortex. Negative emotional states occur as a result of both inequity and nonreciprocity, including unfair offers. These emotional reactions have been proposed as a mechanism by which inequity is avoided and may have evolved precisely to foster mutual reciprocity, to make reputation important, and to encourage punishment of those seeking to take advantage of others. Indeed, even capuchin monkeys respond negatively to unequal distributions of rewards by refusing to participate in a task that requires effort if they witness another monkey receiving equal reward for less work.

Anterior Insula: Other research demonstrates that the anterior insula is activated proportionally as the unfairness/inequity of an offer increases. Brain imaging studies have previously shown the anterior insula to be related to empathy, activating when witnessing pain in others. But activation of this area has now been shown to predict a player’s decision to either accept or reject an offer, with rejections associated with significantly higher activation than acceptances. Individuals with a stronger anterior insula response to rejection also show a higher frequency of defection. The implication here is the key role of the insula in distrust in social interactions.

Prefrontal Cortex: Transcranial magnetic stimulation was used to disrupt processing in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex increases acceptance rates of unfair offers as compared with control situations, indicating the importance of the higher intellectual centres in evaluating our choices.

Oxytocin: Oxytocin is a neuropeptide known to facilitate social affiliation in nonhuman animals and to modulate human social relationships. Intranasal administration of oxytocin has been shown to increase trust in social human interactions, but not in risk-taking or in games with random outcomes.

Theory of Mind: Interpreting the meaning of behaviour from another person is part of the brain’s ability to form a theory of mind (ToM). The medial prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex are found to be active when forming a ToM, and decision-making studies have similarly demonstrated activation in these regions when players are immersed in thinking, guessing and acting on the beliefs of others (i.e. intention detection). Other areas may be involved in these ToM processes, such as the tempo-parietal junction. Autistic patients, known to have deficits in empathy and forming ToMs, have also been found to fall short in making reasoned social decisions.

Brain areas activated in decision-making:

(A) Lateral view: dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), superior temporal sulcus (STS).

(B) Sagittal view: anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), posterior cingulate cortex (PCC).

(C) Coronal view (cut along line in A/B): insula (INS), amygdala (AMY).

Game Theory

Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics which aims to codify strategic behaviour in games/situations, where the success of a choice is affected by the choices of others. It can be seen as an extension of the use of decision trees and rational choice models which have been used in economic theory for many decades. Experimental economics utilises game theory, which proves to be a useful tool in investigating strategic interaction between decision-making players. Data so far shows a high amount of variability in how players interact, probably because of variation in how individuals assess the rationality of their opponents. The ultimate aim is to be able to use retrospective data to predict how decisions are made under controlled conditions, and then in the real world i.e. prescriptive decision theory.

Decision Theory: Prescriptive vs. Descriptive

Decision theory examines the decision-making process itself, and is therefore a field closely related to game theory. It assumes an ideal decision maker would be one that is perfectly rational, informed and accurate in their calculations.

Most of decision theory is prescriptive, attempting to identify the best decision to take. The practical application of this prescriptive approach (how people actually make decisions) is called decision analysis, and is aimed at finding tools, methodologies and software to help people make better decisions. The most systematic and comprehensive software tools developed in this way are called decision support systems.

Since people usually do not behave in ways consistent with axiomatic rules, often their own, leading to violations of optimality, there is a related area of study, called a positive or descriptive discipline, attempting to describe what people will actually do. Since the normative, optimal decision often creates hypotheses for testing against actual behaviour, the two fields are closely linked. Furthermore it is possible to relax the assumptions of perfect information, rationality and so forth in various ways, and produce a series of different prescriptions or predictions about behaviour, allowing for further tests of the kind of decision-making that occurs in practice.

Rational Basis for Cooperation

Despite huge efforts, understanding the mechanisms that create cooperating agents in a system is one of the most important and least well understood phenomena in nature.

In game theory, an important question is what do players need to know about their opponents in order to make the best and most rational strategic choices? Concepts in game theory at the moment include things like “default” reasoning (assume equal weight for the opponent’s strategies), backwards induction and forwards induction (what will an opponent do if they continue to play?). Repeated games produce interesting results, since players will have additional information about how their opponents have decided to play on previous games, and therefore their behaviour (rational or irrational) can be taken into account.

Even if all members of a group would benefit if all cooperate, individual self-interest may not favour cooperation. Economic experiments for high stakes support the claim that humans act more cooperatively than strict self-interest would dictate. A much researched experiment in economics which demonstrates this is the repeated/iterated “prisoner’s dilemma”, where non-cooperation leads to better outcomes in the short term, but to increased punishment when repeated.

Such natural developments of abstract cooperation may explain the natural selection of such behaviour in higher life forms, who will have increased chances of survival when cooperating. So while similar desires will clearly lead to cooperative behaviour, the chance of future encounters with the same individual will also lead to cooperation through the emotional mediation of trust. This makes cooperation even in the absence of an “objective” standard a rational enterprise.

References

Ariel Rubinstein, Comments on neuroeconomics Economics and Philosophy, 24 (2008) 485–494, Cambridge University Press

Alan G. Sanfey, Social Decision-Making: Insights from Game Theory and Neuroscience, Science 26 October 2007: Vol. 318. no. 5850, pp. 598 – 602

Daeyeol Lee, Game theory and neural basis of social decision making, Nature Neuroscience 11, 404 – 409 (2008).

Related posts:

1. Privilege Blindness and the Just World Theory
2. Introduction to “The God Market: How Globalization is making India more Hindu”
3. Review: The God Market- How Globalization Is Making India More Hindu, By Meera Nanda
4. Anatomy Of A Psychopath : The Neurobiological Basis Of Evil
5. Hard-Wired for Sin : Neuroethics and the Seven Deadly Sins

Editor’s Note: This is the second part of “Mind’s Matter”, a series by Dr. Jonathan Pararajasingham exploring the Neurobiological basis of behaviour.

Given the irrevocable reason-induced corrosion of religious justifications for morality, and the belief that there is a fixed, immutable human nature or conscience, it is perhaps of no surprise that some ethicists would look to the brain for answers to fundamental questions in ethics. But traditional formulations of ethics have held it to be axiomatic that if (human) behaviours are to be classified as either “good” or “bad”, i.e. if a system of ethics is to be constructed, then this system must hold that human actions are the result of free will, that they be the result of free, conscious intent. Research in neuroscience has given serious doubt however as to the axiomatic status of free will.

Indeed, some researchers have dispensed with the notion all together, speaking of an “illusion” of conscious will. If one examines this research with an open yet sceptical mind, one will discover a rich source of ideas, supported by empirical data that enables us to begin the construction of a system of ethics that is grounded entirely in neuroscience. The system has been referred to as `neuroethics’, and has attracted the attention of some philosophers and many in the legal profession. Neuroethics may allude to an unnerving perspective of human nature and personal identity, but it provides the toughest building blocks for constructing truly rational and scientific foundation for ethics.

The seven deadly sins or cardinal sins have had a long history of modification and editing over the centuries, from their initial descriptions dating back to around the 4th century, to their current known form first proposed by Pope Gregory I. So what can modern science tell us about each of these vices? Let us examine them each in turn.

Avaritia (Greed)

Can neuroscience explain the reason that some individuals crave wealth, even though they would have neither the time nor the energy to enjoy it? Certain regions of the brain have been identified as being involved in monetary decision-making. These include the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex. In addition, there is involvement of parts of the emotional centres such as the amygdala, which is involved in ‘conditioned fear’, responding sensitively to winning and losing. MRI studies have shown that the amygdala is activated when financial losses occur. However, it has been shown that economic gains do not activate the amygdala to the same extent as losses do. Genetics and brain biology also cause a lot of variation in the response of the amygdala. Some genetic abnormalities can be responsible for some individuals to react with an excess fear when facing difficult financial decisions.

The dopamine system supplies the appropriate pleasure response when wealth is accumulated. This implies that the human brain loves risk taking, but that these risks are a matter of degree. A reward that is less predictable will result in a larger amount of dopamine produced, thus overwhelming the individual with pleasure. Money acts on different pathways of the reward system than “natural rewards”, such as food and water, and affects the brain in a similar way to certain drugs, such as cocaine. And the pleasures of dopamine (from making money), like the pleasures of cocaine, lead to an excess of behaviour in obtaining this money, which we normally refer to as greed. This greed in turn can result in uncontrolled compulsions with the result that lying, fraud, or embezzlement can become frequent strategies in the obsessive goal of obtaining more money.

Accidia (Sloth)

Fatigue is believed to originate in the lower part of the brain, in something called the reticular activating system. While there are many overt pathologies which create fatigue in their sufferers, such as cancer or blood disorders, there are also subtle physiological conditions which may have similar effects. Pathological inactivity and apathy has links with depression, a disorder characterized by feelings of helplessness, worthlessness and hopelessness. Psychomotor retardation (slow movement secondary to metal illness) is a feature which may be interpreted as willful laziness, which may in fact be due to an underlying undiagnosed depressive illness. Other conditions such as chronic fatigue syndrome may also have genetic or physiological causes.

Gula (Gluttony)

Gluttony when defined as a “sin” assumes that satiety is a controllable desire which becomes sinful when not appropriately controlled. Society views obesity as the undesirable physical manifestation of gluttony. However, it is widely accepted that many causes of obesity are the result of genetically-determined metabolism. Two systems may be involved in obesity: the satiety centre and the reward system, the latter of which has links with drug addiction. Brain scans have shown that increased metabolism in the right orbitofrontal cortex correlates highly with desire for food, much the same as for other types of drug addiction.

Hyperphagia (compulsive hunger) indicates a disorder of the satiety centre which controls hunger. Disorders affecting the hypothalamus such as Kleine Levin Syndrome can result in hyperphagia. There is also a clear genetic component to the control of hunger and eating, evidenced by the existence of genetic conditions such as Prader-Willi Syndrome in which patients are hyperphagic, never feeling full. Certain forms of obsessive-compulsive disorder can also manifest with symptomatic overeating.

Invidia (Envy)

Various neuropsychological morbidities have links with what we commonly refer to as envy:
Schadenfreude: Some studies show that envy predicts Schadenfreude (pleasure at another’s misfortune). Recent research in the Netherlands seems to confirm that envy is a predictor of Schadenfreude when the target is similar to the observer in terms of gender. These results suggest that envy predicts Schadenfreude when people are confronted with the misfortune of a relevant social comparison other.

Narcissism: The narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by exaggerated self-importance coupled with an inordinate desire to be admired, ideas of grandiosity, a strong sense of entitlement and an absence of empathy. Also present in these individuals are strong feelings of envy.

Gender variation: It has been long recognised that jealousy-related behaviours such as domestic violence and morbid jealousy are more common in males. MRI studies in Japan seem to demonstrate that men and women have different neuropsychological modules to process sexual and emotional infidelity. Men demonstrated greater activation in the brain regions involved in sexual/aggressive behaviours such as the amygdala and hypothalamus. In contrast, women demonstrated greater activation in the posterior superior temporal sulcus.

Superbia (Pride)

Princeton undergraduates participated in studies to elicit the emotions of pride, envy, pity and disgust. The four emotions were derived from the Stereotype Content Model (SCM), which predicts differentiated prejudices based on warmth and competence. Warmth was determined by friendliness, competence by capability. The two emotional extremes were pride and disgust; pride elicited high warmth and high perception of competence, and disgust elicited low warmth and low perception of competence. Envy and pity were considered moderate prejudices; envy elicited low warmth and high perception of competence, and pity elicited high warmth and low perception of competence.

Medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) brain imaging determined if the students accurately chose the correct emotion illustrated by the picture (according to pretest results in which a different group of students determined the emotion that best fit each photograph). The MPFC is only activated when a person either thinks about themselves or another human. When viewing a picture representing disgust, however, no significant MPFC brain activity was recorded, showing that students did not perceive members of social out-groups as human. The area was only activated when viewing photographs that elicited pride, envy, and pity. However, other brain regions – the amygdala and insula – were activated when viewing photographs of “disgusting” people and nonhuman objects.

Ira (Wrath)

Evidence for the neurological basis for anger comes from three areas. Firstly, experimental evidence helped to link rage to the limbic system, which includes the amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus, fornix, cingulate gyri and cingulate bundle. In animal models (dogs, cats, rats) the removal the frontal lobes was found to give rise to savage behaviour. Stimulation of the amygdala can produce either rage or tameness, depending on where electrodes are placed. Damage to the ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus also produces rage.

Clinical evidence provides a second line of evidence, where increased tendency to anger is found with conditions such as autism, schizophrenia, and certain brain tumours. Midline tumours such as third ventricular and corpus callosum tumours which involve the overlying cingulate gyri can cause either anger or apathy in patients. The brain also has an anger response mechanism which can be overriden using behavioural psychotherapy methods.

The third most striking piece of evidence comes from neurosurgery, where operations are now being effectively carried out to treat severe anger disorders. Pathological aggression can be abolished by procedures such as bilateral postero-medial hypothalamotomy, bilateral cingulotomy and amygdalotomy.

Luxuria (Lust)

Physiological factors affecting sexual desire include production of testosterone, response to testosterone (brain structure) and libido. In addition we know that the hypothalamus is vital to the feeling of sexual desire. With a combination of high testosterone levels, increased hormonal sensitivity and a strong libido, consumption in feelings of lust may overpower restraint, possibly leading to rape or molestation if combined with violent tendencies.

Hypersexuality is a symptom of various conditions, including traumatic brain injury, mania and bipolar disorder. It also manifests in degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s dementia. Endocrine glands which control hormone production such as the pituitary and thyroid glands may also malfunction when taken over by tumours for example, and as a result cause effects on a person’s libido. So again, we find physiological systems controlling lust which are, as everything else, subject to natural physiological variation between individuals.

Conclusion

Image Source: Scientific American

If we consider the various aspects of human nature, we find they vary, existing as they do on normally distributed curves. Some have a tendency to resort to anger quicker, others have a tendency to states of depression, and some may have more exaggerated proclivities towards feeling of envy or pride. What does this mean? Essentially, that the game is uneven from the start. Given the combined hypotheses of theism and free will, one would expect there to be a much more even playing field. People should have equal chances of straying or sinning, but it seems that this is not the case. Neurophysiology shows us that variation occurs quite naturally to produce tendencies towards certain behaviours, and neuropathology shows us the extremes of such abnormalities, where the behaviours cause more serious detriment to the person’s health and well being.

Many of our assumptions about free will and individual responsibility must be drastically revised in the light of such scientific discoveries about the brain. The debate is one which encompasses not only neuroscience and psychiatry, but also legal issues. An explosion of knowledge about the brain is occurring which will need to be factored into future legal decisions. It is now clear that hormones, nutrition, drugs, genetic anomalies, injury and trauma all have profound effects on brain biology and thus moral choices and we must keep this in mind when making judgments about ethical accountability.

Related posts:

1. Anatomy Of A Psychopath : The Neurobiological Basis Of Evil

Essential to coping with stress and managing life in twenty first century without god and religion is to be able to figure out which of the five stages of stress you are currently at, and to learn appropriate coping methods. Before we learn about these, let us briefly recapitulate certain definitions we studied in my previous articles:

Basic Definitions

Stress simply means getting upset about something; peace and tranquility of mind are gone. Upset means our conscious mind experiences one or more of 36 painful emotions in our conscious mind in response to stressful events and problems. Chemical changes in the brain brought on by painful emotions are transmitted to the body by means of circulating hormones and a vast network of nerves, which results in appearance of stress symptoms. Stress symptoms are of four kinds: Physical, emotional, mental and behavioral. Coping means getting rid of painful emotions from the conscious mind by appropriate means after one is upset over something. Managing means leading a wisdom-based lifestyle, which prevents or minimizes the occurrence of stressors. Stressors are upsetting bad events and problems of life. Bad events are one-shot tragic events, which suddenly upset us a great deal. Bad problems are on-going life-problems in which one feels trapped. The Conscious Mind is like a balloon; when it “inflates” with painful emotions, we experience stress symptoms. The Hidden Mind is like a gaseous soda bottle; when it is “shaken” by a current event, the fizz (bad memories and emotions from our past) spews into the balloon resulting is serious stress symptoms. I recommend the reader to review my earlier articles to make sense of the five stages of stress.

Five Stages of Stress

At any given moment, everyone in the world is at one of five stages of stress, or in between any two consecutive stages.

Stress Stage One: At this stage, one’s balloon is shrunk (the conscious mind does not have a painful emotion) and his soda bottle (hidden mind) does not have serious old traumatic emotions. He has usual life stresses, but he is coping well. He has a high level of self-awareness. He is very good at expressing his emotions. He is good at solving various problems of life as they appear. He is assertive. He is not passive and fearful. He lives a wisdom-based lifestyle: He lives within his means; he is not indulging in any antisocial activities, which could get him into trouble sooner or later; in his relationship with others, he does not violate others’ boundaries; in his business dealings he is ethical; he believes in preventive servicing of all his essential objects such as house, cars, etc.; he is not loaded with human weaknesses such as greed, jealousy, vengefulness, hubris, possessiveness, fear and hatred. He is balanced in his dealings with others. His mind enjoys evenness, equilibrium and equanimity (three Es). He is generous, charitable, kind, gracious, empathic, full of love for humanity. He sleeps well, eats well, works hard, and is full of energy. He is completely free of any stress symptoms such as worrying, anxiety, and depression. If you are at this stage, pat yourself on your back, for the way the world is today, fewer and fewer people are at this stage of stress.

Stress Stage Two: At this stage, one’s balloon is getting filled up with painful emotions. If the stressor is a bad event, such as death of a dear one or breakup of a close relationship, the balloon expands very rapidly and one experiences severe emotional pain and consequent stress symptoms. If one is not able to cope with these surging emotions, consequences could be disastrous. I read in Indian newspapers on a daily basis how a young man or woman committed murder or suicide or both after breaking up with his/her lover. These people have severe feelings of anger, hurt, sadness, disappointment, helplessness, hopelessness, vengefulness, and the like. Such a person’s mind feels, “I just can’t take this pain anymore.”

Not being equipped with coping abilities, these youngsters find suicide as the only option left to them to end their intolerable misery. If this person had similar losses in the past, the buried painful emotions from the soda bottle could fizz-up suddenly leading to extremely severe symptoms. Such people are high suicidal risk.

A case study: A young man’s wife told him that she was unable to handle his clingy and controlling behavior. She wanted to divorce him. This abandonment brought up from his soda bottle painful emotions related to his mother abandoning him at age five. This “double whammy” was too much for him to bear. He shot himself to death.

How to cope with Stress Stage Two: If the stress is caused by a bad event such as death, breakup of a close relationship, life-threatening illness, etc. one must immediately raise his awareness about the surging painful emotions in the conscious mind, and shrink his balloon by expressing them with a confidant. When one talks-out his emotions by sighing, crying, sobbing and moaning, one is said to be grieving. Grieving is the best solution to an inflated balloon. Painful emotions are “talked-out” and the balloon shrinks; brain chemicals return to the former level; stress symptoms disappear gradually.

 If one’s stress is caused by job, money, relationship or any other bad life-problem, one must come up with a sound solution for it. One should never feel trapped in a bad problem. Feeling trapped in a bad problem guarantees one a serious stress disorder as the balloon keeps inflating with painful emotions until it pops. If the solution is difficult, one must seek the help of professionals: doctor, lawyer, accountant, banker, etc.

 People with philosophical outlook or high level of rational thinking are able to deal with bad events of life better than people who are entangled with sense objects. Attitudes such as: everyone has to die some day; money comes money goes; all relationships come to an end sooner or later, etc. help a lot to cope with life’s vicissitudes.

Inappropriate coping: Instead of grieving after a loss, if one indulges in denial (“I am not upset at all”; “I feel wonderful!”) or repression (“I don’t want to think about it or talk about it; I just want to forget it”) painful emotions get buried into the hidden mind; the balloon shrinks and one feels better right away. However, now the painful emotions buried in the hidden mind are like a ticking time bomb. They could resurface and create serious havoc later on as we read in the case study above. Habitual repression leads to development of Stage Three.

Stress Stage Three: At this stage, one has habitually buried his hidden mind painful emotions related to numerous past bad events and problems. Now his soda bottle is saturated to the point that he can no longer bury (repress) his painful emotions. So, when upset about a current bad event or problem, his painful emotions remain in his balloon. As time passes, his balloon keeps inflating and his stress symptoms become persistent. Since the only way he knows how to shrink his balloon is to bury emotions and deny them, he suffers ever-worsening stress symptoms. He mistakes his stress symptoms as caused by some serious physical ailment. For example, if he has chest pain, he fears having a heart disease; if he has headaches, he fears having a brain tumor; if he has stomach pain, he wonders if he has cancer of stomach. He now has many on-going stress symptoms such as sleeplessness, tiredness, loss of appetite, headaches, etc.

Low Stress Tolerance Syndrome: Because one’s balloon is fully inflated, one has little tolerance for any upsetting event. One suffers from numerous unremitting stress symptoms such as anxiety, depression, tiredness, sleeplessness, excessive sleeping, headaches, irritability, angry outbursts, impatience, poor concentration, memory loss, weight loss, etc. Psychiatrists often label these people as suffering from generalized anxiety disorder, chronic depression, and other minor psychiatric disorders. Uninformed psychiatrists and family doctors often drug-up these people instead of helping them to figure-out their problems. These people steadily get worse over the years.

Medical Wild Goose Chase: When stress symptoms keep getting worse, one starts making rounds with doctors to “get to the bottom of this.” He consults specialists after specialists. He is baffled when they all tell him, “I can’t find anything to explain your symptoms.” When they ask, “Is anything bothering you?” he replies, “No, no, no, no! Everything is wonderful in my life.” In other words, he indulges in self-deception. He believes that his doctor must have missed something. So he redoubles his effort to “get to the bottom of this.” He starts making rounds of various high-powered hospitals and doctors. He goes to Ayurvedic or homeopathic “doctors.” He visits astrologers. Having failed to get relief from these “doctors”, he starts offering Poojas to various gods. He donates money to temple-casino complexes. He appeases priests. He falls at the feet of Sai Baba, false Swamis and hugging Matas. In the end, he feels frustrated, disappointed, angry, helpless and hopeless. These painful emotions add to the already full balloon. Now the balloon feels, “I just can’t take this pressure anymore!” Medical wild goose chase is a very common inappropriate coping way. Neither medical doctors nor psychiatrists have a clue about this common phenomenon related to stress, or its basis.

Appropriate way of coping with Stress Stage Three: When one is at stage three, he is unable to help himself unless he understands its basis in stress. Since the third stage is caused by wholesale self-deception and repression of emotions, one must get into counseling with a competent therapist. It is important that the therapist not explore buried old painful emotions in the hidden mind until the newer painful emotions in the balloon related to more recent events are first dealt with. In other words, the therapist must first create “enough room” in the balloon before bringing up old emotions from the bottle into the balloon. Inexperienced therapists often make matters worse by vigorously exploring old issues. This “shaking the soda bottle” results in a lot of painful emotions from the soda bottle fizzing up suddenly into the already full balloon. One could become very sick, suicidal or develop panic attacks after such a session leading to hospitalization. Most therapists are not aware of this potential hazard. In the long run, the person at the 3^rd stage of stress must give up self-deception (“I am not upset” “I have no stress”) and repression (“I don’t want to think, talk or remember”). Cure is possible only for highly motivated people who fully understand the mechanism of stress as explained in these pages, and who are capable of becoming self-aware, assertive and expressive of emotions.

Stress Stage Four: At this critical stage, as a result of relentless build-up of painful emotions in the conscious mind, or due to sudden surge of buried painful emotions from the hidden mind, the person’s balloon has popped. Chemical changes in the brain have led to chemical imbalance. Physical, emotional, mental and behavioral symptoms have finally crystallized into a well-defined stress disorders, such as major depression, panic disorders and bipolar disorders. All people at this stage feel, “I just can’t take it anymore!” Many people in this predicament are so sick that they end up in psychiatric hospital. Some people attempt suicide. Some of these people succeed in their attempt.

Appropriate way of coping with this stage is to seek immediate psychiatric care. In general, family physicians are not trained enough to treat these disorders. Trained psychiatrists treat these people with medications, support, and counseling. Most people at this stage are almost completely free from any self-awareness and ability to express emotions, and also to solve bad life-problems. Prolonged outpatient treatment is often needed. People who rely on medications alone to stay well invariably get worse year after year as they have not learned appropriate coping skills. As new bad events and problems appear, they become sick once again. For, drugs are like a thin coat of paint holding together pieces of shattered balloon. Least little pressure could pop it again. Unfortunately, most people at this stage of stress prefer to avoid introspective and awareness-raising counseling because they are painful and expensive.

Stress Stage Five: This is the terminal stage of stress. These people’s balloon has popped many times and they suffer from multiple stress disorders such as depression, panic disorder, high blood pressure, and whatnot. They have not only suffered from serious stress symptoms, but also suffered a lot in the hands of inexperienced and stupid medical professionals. They have been prescribed wrong medications in wrong doses by wrong doctors. They have been hurt so badly by the treatment process that they now suffer from medication phobia. Some of them suffer from medical trauma –trauma inflicted by the bad treatment given by the medical profession. In the U. S. A. today, millions suffer from these conditions. Now they trust no one. They have become recluses. They do not socialize much. They like to be left alone. They avoid any sensory stimulation. They have become completely disabled. They are unable to work, participate in family affairs or social gatherings. They feel sick all the time. They feel helpless and hopeless, but their trust level is so low that they do not like to risk seeing another stupid doctor who knows nothing about the drugs he prescribes. They collect social security disability payments or they are on welfare. To these unfortunate people, there is practically no hope of ever getting well.

Progression of Stress

The above information is just a skeletal outline of the phenomenon of stress. For more detailed information on stress, the reader can read my book, Is Your Balloon About To Pop? Owner’s Manual for the Stressed Mind.

END

Related posts:

1. Stress, The Mind, Belief Systems And Mental Blocks
2. Managing Stress Without God and Religion In The Twenty First Century