The Self Illusion

by Bruce Hood

  Human mirroring works the same way. Most of us have a repertoire of behaviours that can be triggered by others without us being aware that we are mirroring someone else’s movements. We may cross our legs, yawn, stroke our nose, play with our hair and change the way we speak or sit simply because we are unwittingly copying another person.44 This unconscious imitation, known as mimicry, is a powerful mechanism for binding the self to others.45 It is not entirely automatic as we only mimic those we like in a virtuous self-fulfilling circle – we copy others who we like, who in turn like us more, thereby increasing the likelihood that they will copy us in a synchronized sycophantic symphony of mutual appreciation.46

  Not only do we like people who mimic us more but we are willing to help them out if they request favours from us.47 We even feel like a better human being after we have been copied and it can last long after the encounter. In one study, after being mimicked, participants donated twice as much money to a charity box as they left the experiment compared to those who had not been copied even though the donations were anonymous.48 We even tip waitresses more when they mimic us.49

  However, we are not simply puppets at the mercy of others tugging on our strings to control how we feel about them. Even though we may not be consciously aware of the mimicry, riding on top of this mirroring system of social interaction is an appraisal veto that seems to be double-checking for interlopers. We tend to mimic only those people from our own social circles and those with whom we want to be affiliated. We don’t mimic those outside our social groups. In fact, we dislike individuals from outside of our social group more if they mimic us. In one study, white Dutch adults who scored highly on tests that measure prejudice disliked a computer-generated avatar that mimicked them if it appeared to have a Moroccan face rather than a white European one.50

  The Rhythm of Life

  This process of liking others who copy us appears early in development. The young infant’s facial imitation could be an early example of mimicry where the motor system of the brain is automatically triggered by watching the movements of others. This might explain why the repertoire of behaviours is very limited at first – this is not too surprising given what movements newborns can actually make by themselves. Over the next twelve months the opportunity to copy others increases and the Machiavellian babies look out for those who copy them. Five-month-old babies placed in a baby walker that enables them to scoot about the floor prefer to approach a stranger who has mimicked them and acted in a synchronized manner than one who did not respond to the babies’ behaviour in a contingent way.51 Sometimes it is not only the lack of mimicking that puts babies off, but the timing and amount of effort. Mothers with post-natal depression can have either a very flat emotionless interaction with their babies or go over the top with an exuberant flurry of attempted interaction. Either way, two-month-old babies prefer the more measured and synchronized interactions.52

  Synchrony seems to be an important characteristic of social interaction. Turn-taking is essential during conversations as anyone listening to a radio interview knows that not everyone can be heard at once. We have to take turns during communication. Again these patterns are established early in development. As mothers breastfeed their infants, they instinctively know how to synchronize their movements and baby talk to fit with their child’s sucking patterns which come in bursts and pauses.53

  Synchrony of movements and timing continue to influence the nature of social interactions throughout our lives. Children must learn to take turns and control their impulses and urges. Routines are learned that emphasize the importance of coordination with others. Those who fail to develop control of their selves in the presence of others are said to be out of control. All the institutions that make up our societies – schools, churches and armies – thrive on synchrony to solidify ties between their members. Dancing and singing are synchronized activities that depend on timing to be pleasurable. In today’s modern army where the combat troop member is more of a technician than a field grunt, soldiers are still taught to march in unison as a means of establishing group harmony. This is why we say that individuals failing to conform to the group are ‘getting out of step’ or ‘falling out of line’.

  Regimentation is not just a way of gaining control over large numbers of individuals. Rather it actually promotes prosocial behaviour. In one study, participants were walked around a college campus either in step or out of step with their colleagues.54 Both groups then played a trade-off game where the goal was to optimize winnings by members choosing the same but riskier option than a safer option that paid out less. In short, if members thought there was less group cohesion they tended to go for the safer bet. What researchers found was that those who walked in unison before the test did much better by selecting the responses that indicated a sense of group cohesion even though they were completely unaware of the purpose of going for a walk. Even Americans who sang along with the Canadian national anthem ‘O Canada’, rather than simply listening to it or reading the lyrics, were more likely to succeed in trade-off games that tested how much we trust others.

  Walk This Way

  Yale psychologist John Bargh has shown that these chameleon effects can operate simply by reading about the attributes of others. This is priming, which reflects the way that the circuits of the brain that store related information can be influenced by external events. For example, when students were asked to unscramble sentences that contained words related to being elderly such as, ‘forgetful, retired, wrinkle, rigid, traditional, bitter, obedient, conservative, knits, dependent, ancient, helpless, gullible’, they left the experimental room walking like an old person. They were slower and frailer. If they read sentences that contained words related to being rude such, ‘bold, bother, disturb, intrude, annoyingly, audaciously, brazen, impolitely, infringe, obnoxious’, they were more likely to interrupt a conversation than students who had read polite words.55

  These influences of external events work because the mere exposure to words triggers thoughts that for a moment can influence our behaviours. It is not only actions – even our general knowledge can be primed to be better or worse. If you are asked to imagine what it must be like to be a professor for five minutes, then you will perform better on Trivial Pursuit questions than if you imagine being a soccer hooligan.56 Claude Steele, one of the most prominent African American psychologists, has been looking at how stereotypes distort behaviours.57 White students primed to think about being black African Americans responded with hostility when asked to repeat a task they had just completed, indicating that negative stereotypes can be triggered in the same manner. Just listing your race can influence the way you perform on a task. When asked to list their race before sitting an IQ test, African Americans did significantly worse than if they had not been asked.

  These priming effects can even be triggered unconsciously through mimicry by others. For example, in mathematics tests there is a racial stereotype that Asian Americans do better than Caucasian Americans who do better than African Americans.58 To see if this stereotype could be triggered by mimicry, Asian American, African American and white Caucasian students were asked to take a mathematics test.59 Before they took the test, each one sat in a waiting room where there was another student of the same ethnic background who was also taking the test. The other student was, in fact, a confederate of the experimenters who had been instructed to either mimic or not mimic the real subject. When there was no mimicking, all three groups performed equally well, showing that the stereotype was not activated. However, if they had been mimicked by the confederate, Asian Americans performed significantly better than the white Caucasians, whereas the African Americans tended to show poorer performance. The same mimicry effect was found with the sex stereotype that women are not as good at mathematics as men.

  Despite it being in our best interests to perform as well as we can, we are nevertheless at the mercy of stereotypes and those around us who can trigger them unconsciously.

  When East and We
st Collide

  Perhaps one of the most surprising lines of research in recent years has shown that cultural stereotypes operate at a much more basic level in the brain than has previously ever been considered. This is true even in the way we perceive the world around us. For example, it is often assumed that while people around the world may have different preferences and tastes, when it comes to music and art we all have essentially the same brain. When someone in Beijing hears Mozart, they hear the same music as someone from Boston. When someone from Tokyo looks at a painting by Magritte, they see the same image as someone from Tennessee. They may not agree about whether they like the work, but they have the same perceptual experience. But is that really true? Richard Nisbitt thinks not. He has accumulated a vast body of evidence to show that cultures can shape the way we literally perceive the world and, ultimately, the way we think about our self.

  In his book, The Geography of Thought 60 Nisbitt argues that cultures influence not only the way we process the world, but also the way we interpret it. He draws a sweeping dividing line between Eastern and Western cultures and argues that peoples from the East tend to see and interpret the world in a holistic or collectivist manner, noticing connections and patterns between everything. Peoples from the West, on the other hand, tend to be more focused on the individual objects in the world. Admittedly, we must bear in mind that here, West usually means US students whereas East typically means Japanese and Chinese students.

  In spite of these caveats, according to Nisbitt, the collectivist/individualistic divide can explain a multitude of complex behaviours and traditions that vary from one culture to the next. For example, one characteristic of Eastern holism accounts for a philosophical leaning towards notions of order, resonance and harmony. Such leanings are exemplified in the Eastern notion of ‘feng shui’, a need to achieve balance for happier home and work environments. In contrast, studies of Westerners reveal a comparatively more individualistic attitude of an independent self.61

  Nisbitt thinks that the origin of this cultural divide can be traced back thousands of years to the times of ancient Greece and China. However, the recent modern history of the United States is sufficient to explain why, as a whole, this nation is individualistic. In a comparatively short space of time, the United States was rapidly forged out of the struggle of groups who had immigrated in order to establish a better life. Other nations tend to evolve over much longer periods as one invading army conquered another, but the United States experienced sudden rapid growth primarily from immigration. Initially, some of these early immigrants sought religious freedom, which again, strengthened their sense of independence. The early settlers formed self-sufficient communities, struggling to adapt to their new environment and compete against the indigenous peoples. There was little room for social loafing or slackers in these early communities and so to survive you had to rely on your own efforts.

  In many ways, the notions of individualism and independence have been branded into the American psyche. For example, when asked to come up with twenty statements that we think define our self, Westerners typically respond with traits centred from their own perspective (e.g. ‘I am tall’), whereas those from collectivist cultures typically provide relational statements, such as ‘I am taller than my sister’. Maybe this focus on our relationship to others explains why social loafing is not as strong in these societies, where one is inclined to consider one’s self in social contexts.62

  What is most remarkable about the work coming out of this field of cultural psychology is that individuals from the East and West not only describe themselves differently but may in fact see the world differently. For example, study Figure 8 opposite and concentrate on the square frame and line on the far left. You have one of two tasks: either draw an identical line of the same length independently of the frame (absolute), or draw a line of the same relative length to the frame dimension (relative). The correct solutions are on the right.

  The absolute task requires focusing on the line and ignoring the frame, whereas the relative task requires estimating the relationship of the line to the frame. Remarkably Japanese students are significantly better at the relative task than the absolute task while US students show the opposite profile by being significantly better at the absolute task compared to the relative task.63 This finding is interpreted to mean that the Easterners focus more on the relative rather than the absolute. But this difference does not exist in the youngest children who have been tested. Below six years of age, both Eastern and Western children show the same pattern of finding the relative task much easier than the absolute task. It’s only after schooling begins that the typical switch in thinking styles between East and West starts to appear.64

  Our cultural upbringing can even influence how we watch a film. In one study Japanese and US students watched an underwater scene with various fish and plants.65 US students could recall information about the large fish, whereas Japanese students recalled more detail about the background and the relationship between objects. When presented with a recognition task in which individual fish were presented alone, against the original background or different background, US students recognized the fish irrespective of the background, while the Japanese students were thrown by the absence of background or a different background. In another study using a different Eastern population, US and Chinese participants watched movies of a shoal of fish with one fish swimming out front that could be interpreted as either leading the shoal or ostracized by the other fish.66 US students thought the lone fish was more likely to be leading the shoal, whereas Chinese students interpreted the movie as the lone fish being rejected by the group.

  Figure 8: The Frame Test: The task is to draw the length of the vertical line either exactly (absolute) or proportionately (relative)

  It’s not only what you see that is influenced by culture, but also what you don’t see. We may think that we have a good grasp of events that take place around us, but unless we pay special attention, we often miss conspicuous events. This happens in ‘spot-the-difference’ puzzles. Take a good look at the two pictures in Figure 9. Something is different between them (answer at the end of the chapter).

  Our inability to notice changes between the images is called change blindness and we vary in the extent to which we can spot the difference. If you are someone who can rapidly process the whole picture, then you are more likely to notice differences. Those who focus on individual elements are going to take longer because they cover less territory during inspection. They can’t see the wood for the trees. It turns out that Westerners are much slower on measures of change blindness than Easterners who are quicker to spot the difference. The Easterners are considering more of the picture rather than focusing on individual elements. In fact, measurements of eye movements indicate that Easterners make more eye movements and spend less time dwelling on individual targets when inspecting scenes compared to Western participants.67 That’s pretty low-level stuff. We are generally not even aware of how we control our eye movements so how could culture shape these?

  Figure 9: Change blindness: Individuals from Eastern cultures tend to notice changes faster

  How Does Development Shape the Way We See the World?

  How could people from the East and West see the world so differently? One possibility is that brain plasticity enables the developing brain to encode relevant experiences to shape the way we see faces and hear languages. Nisbett believes that the same developmental process shapes the way we pay attention to things in the world. The world is full of complexity, ambiguity and missing information, ‘a blooming, buzzing confusion,’ as William James once wrote.68 We make sense of it by organizing the information into meaningful patterns. Much of this happens automatically as part of the package we inherit through our genes as the organizing brain processes that generate our perceptions. Sitting atop these built-in perceptual processes, is cognition – the higher order operations that guide perception.

  Cognition organizes our thinking and gets
better at this as we become more expert at noticing the regularities of the world and remembering them. This leads us to form expectations so that we can predict events. For example, if we know what to expect next from previous encounters, we can look out for familiar patterns. That’s why foreign games of sport can seem so disorganized to those unfamiliar with the rules.

  In addition to our built-in rules for learning about the world, the most important source of expertise is other people. We have previously described how babies are tuned in to other people from the very beginning. Nisbitt believes that our early interactions with adults also shape the way we view the world. For example, Western and Eastern mothers interact and talk to their infants in different ways. US mothers are much more likely to engage in play that involves naming individual toys. Japanese mothers are more likely to engage their children in social games. In one study US and Japanese mothers were observed interacting with their children with the same toys.69 US mothers were twice as likely to label toys and focus the child’s attention on the attributes of each item. In contrast, Japanese mothers did label the object but they were much more likely to then engage the child with exchange games such as ‘I give it to you, now you give it to me’. Even the languages in these different cultures emphasize differently the individual- from the relational properties of items.70 This may explain why Eastern children are delayed in learning to sort objects into different categories compared to Western children who are comparatively more skilled at considering the properties of individual objects as opposed to grouping them together.