One day I went out for a walk, right round town and ended up at my mother-in-law’s and said to her, ‘I’m dead’ and started stabbing at my arm to try and get some blood out. It wouldn’t bleed so I was saying ‘Look, I must be dead – there’s no blood.’24
This man wasn’t mucking around trying to embarrass his mother-in-law in front of her friends from the tennis club. He genuinely believed himself to be dead. In the same way, another patient, a young woman, expressed guilt about drawing social security payments. She was worried that, being dead, she wasn’t really eligible for her benefits. These patients suffer from the Cotard delusion, which some researchers think might be the result of a brain being even more excessive in its depersonalisation strategy. While to the depersonalisation patient the world seems distant or unreal, the Cotard patient may deny that the world even exists. While the depersonalisation disorder patient may feel as if their body no longer belongs to them, the Cotard patient may claim that parts of their body have rotted away altogether. And while the depersonalisation disorder patient may feel as if they were dead, the Cotard patient may actually believe it.
In these extreme cases of the Cotard delusion, so detached do patients feel from their feelings, thoughts, body and the world that nothing can persuade them that they are alive. One of the first Cotard patients to be reported, described by a psychiatrist in the 19th century, insisted upon being laid out on a shroud. She then began to fuss over the inadequate appearance of the linen, provoking the psychiatrist to complain irritably that ‘even in death she cannot abstain from her female habit of beautifying herself …’. The feeling of non-existence is inescapably compelling. Psychologists asked the young female Cotard patient with concerns about her eligibility for social security how she could feel heat and cold, feel her heart beat, feel when her bladder was full yet, despite this, nonetheless claim to be dead. The young woman cleverly replied that since she had these feelings despite being dead, they clearly could not be taken as good evidence that she was alive – a rebuttal that would possibly have stymied Descartes himself.
In fact, when Descartes famously wrote ‘cogito, ergo sum’, ‘cogito’ referred not just to thinking, but to a rich variety of experiences, including emotions. Depersonalisation suggests that when the brain turns down the volume on the emotions, your sense of self begins to slip away.
The balance that the sergeant major of the emotional brain has to achieve is a delicate one. Too much emotion and we wind up bawling over a ballpoint pen that someone has taken from us, detained in a secure psychiatric hospital, or paralysed with terror in the face of a few schoolchildren and several million E. coli bacteria. Yet if the emotional brain becomes too stingy with the emotions, the consequences can be no less devastating. As the chronically indecisive patient EVR demonstrates, remove the ability to use emotions as information and the simplest decision becomes irredeemably perplexing. Dampen down the emotions too much and we begin to lose grasp of our precious sense of self. And even when the sergeant major gets the balance about right, we are left mildly deluded about our past, present and future. Emotional aftermath from incidental circumstances – the gift of a cheap freebie, a spot of rain, the agitation of light exercise, a pungent air freshener – can all colour our seemingly dispassionate views. Your brain has its sweaty fingers in all the pies, from the shampoo you try to the smiles you spy. Considering how much backstairs influence it has in constructing your outer and inner worlds, better hope that your emotional brain is doing a reasonable job.
Notes
1 A. Bechara, H. Damasio and A.R. Damasio (2000), ‘Emotion, decision making and the orbitofrontal cortex’, Cerebral Cortex, 10: 295–307.
2 P. J. Eslinger and A.R. Damasio (1985), ‘Severe disturbance of higher cognition after bilateral frontal lobe ablation: Patient EVR’, Neurology, 35: 1731–41.
3 J.L. Saver and A.R. Damasio (1991), ‘Preserved access and processing of social knowledge in a patient with acquired sociopathy due to ventromedial frontal damage’, Neuropsychologia, 29: 1241–9.
4 A.R. Damasio, D. Tranel and H. Damasio (1990), ‘Individuals with sociopathic behavior caused by frontal damage fail to respond autonomically to social stimuli’, Behavioral Brain Research, 41: 81–94.
5 A. Bechara, H. Damasio and A.R. Damasio (2000), ‘Emotion, decision making and the orbitofrontal cortex’, Cerebral Cortex, 10: 295–307.
6 For discussion of role of arousal in emotion, see G. Mandler (1984), Mind and emotion: psychology of emotion and stress, New York: W.W. Norton.
7 A.F. Ax (1953), ‘The physiological differentiation between fear and anger in humans’, Psychosomatic Medicine, 15: 433–42.
8 According to G. Mandler (1984), Mind and emotion: psychology of emotion and stress, New York: W.W. Norton.
9 J.R. Cantor, D. Zillman and J. Bryant (1975), ‘Enhancement of experienced sexual arousal in response to erotic stimuli through misattribution of unrelated residual excitation’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32: 69–75.
10 N. Schwartz, F. Strack, D. Kommer and D. Wagner (1987), ‘Soccer, rooms, and the quality of your life: mood effects on judgments of satisfaction with life in general and with specific domains’, European Journal of Social Psychology, 17: 69–79; E. J. Johnson and A. Tversky (1983), ‘Affect, generalization, and the perception of risk’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45: 20–31; L.M. Isbell and R. S. Wyer (1999), ‘Correcting for mood-induced bias in the evaluation of political candidates: the role of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25: 237–49.
11 A.M. Isen, T. E. Shalker, M. Clark and L. Karp (1978), ‘Affect, accessibility of material in memory, and behavior: a cognitive loop?’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36: 1–12.
12 N. Schwartz and G. L. Clore (1983), ‘Mood, misattribution, and judgments of well-being: informative and directive functions of affective states’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45: 513–23.
13 C. Villemure, B.M. Slotnick and M.C. Bushnell (2003), ‘Effects of odors on pain perception: deciphering the roles of emotion and attention’, Pain, 106: 101–8.
14 E. J. Johnson and A. Tversky (1983), ‘Affect, generalization, and the perception of risk’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45: 20–31; J.P. Forgas (1994), ‘Sad and guilty? Affective influences on the explanation of conflict in close relationships’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66: 56–68; V.M. Esses and M.P. Zanna (1995), ‘Mood and the expression of ethnic stereotypes’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69: 1052–68.
15 See, for example, J.P. Forgas (1995), ‘Mood and judgment: the Affect Infusion Model (AIM)’, Psychological Bulletin, 117: 39–66.
16 P.M. Niedenthal, J.B. Halberstadt, J. Margolin and A.H. Innes-Ker (2000), ‘Emotional state and the detection of chance in facial expression of emotion’, European Journal of Social Psychology, 30: 211–22.
17 R.H. Fazio, D.R. Roskos-Ewoldsen and M.C. Powell (1994), ‘Attitudes, perception, and attention’, in P.M. Niedenthal and S. Kitayama (eds), The Heart’s Eye: emotional influences in perception and attention, San Diego: Academic Press (pp. 197–216).
18 See W.R. Walker, J. J. Skowronski and C.P. Thompson (2003). ‘Life is pleasant – and memory helps to keep it that way!’, Review of General Psychology, 7: 203–10.
19 See C. Senior, E. Hunter, M.V. Lambert et al. (2001), ‘Depersonalisation’, The Psychologist, 14: 128–32.
20 M. Sierra, C. Senior, J. Dalton et al. (2002), ‘Autonomic response in depersonalization disorder’, Archives of General Psychiatry, 59: 833–38.
21 M.L. Phillips, N. Medford, C. Senior et al. (2001), ‘Depersonalization disorder: thinking without feeling’, Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging Section, 108: 145–60.
22 For reports of experiences of depersonalisation patients see, for example, S. Bockner (1949), ‘The depersonalization syndrome: report of a case’, Journal of Mental Science, 93: 968–71; G. Simeon, S. Gross
and O. Guralnik (1997), ‘Feeling unreal: 30 cases of DSM-III-R Depersonalization Disorder’, American Journal of Psychiatry, 154: 1107–13.
23 One hypothesis is that background feelings contribute importantly to the sense of self. See A.R. Damasio (1996), Descarte’s error, London: Macmillan.
24 See A.W. Young and K. Leafhead (1996), ‘Betwixt life and death: case studies of the Cotard delusion’, in P.W. Halligan and J.C. Marshall (eds), Method in madness: case studies in cognitive neuropsychiatry, Hove, East Sussex: Psychology Press (pp. 147–71).
CHAPTER 3
The Immoral Brain
The terrible toddler within
The moral world of my two-year-old son is simple; it is grounded in emotions as raw as they are powerful.
‘Isaac’s turn!’ he thunders at the child who has just climbed into the playground swing.
‘That’s mine!’ he admonishes the baby, snatching the toy away.
‘Don’t want it!’ is his verdict on the nappy I am struggling to put on him, careless as he is to the potentially disastrous consequences for the well-being of the sofa.
‘Isaac do it!’ he wails in agonies of envy at the sight of his father chopping onions with a very sharp knife.
There is no evidence in his demeanour of internal struggles over complex issues of reciprocity, possession, duty or prudence. The path of righteousness is plain as day – it corresponds exactly to what my son wants.
Nor does he concern himself with the subtle complexities of people’s circumstances before passing judgment on their transgressions.
‘Naughty Greta!’ he pronounces as his three-year-old friend throws her dinner across the room.
Greta’s mother carefully explains to my son that Greta herself is not naughty, but – being tired, hungry and overexcited – yes, Greta did do a naughty thing. My son, however, clearly has no time for the modern practice of labelling the behaviour, not the child. ‘Naughty Greta’, he insists. Then, after a thoughtful pause, ‘Naughty Greta, naughty Greta, naughty Greta!’ Indeed, to reinforce his point that no allowances will be made for substandard behaviour at the dinner table, he says nothing else but this for the rest of our visit.
I anticipate, of course, that – learning from his parents’ impeccable example and instruction – my son will outgrow his primitive and solipsistic moral sense. Or at least learn to conceal it better. For scratch the surface of the moral judgments of mature adulthood, and visceral iniquities worthy of the passionate toddler can be plainly seen. Carelessly unattuned to the circumstances of others, we can be as quick to conclude ‘naughty Greta’ as any stripling magistrate. And yet when the tables are turned and our own situation makes it hard to do the right thing, it turns out that our conduct is as capricious as that of any ‘terrible’ two-year-old.
It may not be quite as transparent in adults as it is in young children, but nonetheless our emotions play an important, if furtive, role in our moral condemnations and approbations. According to one recent hypothesis, these seemingly lofty judgments usually stem from instant gut feelings or ‘moral intuitions’.1 As we ponder a morally charged situation we feel a primitive flash of emotion, which is all we need in order to pass our judgment. However, as it’s a shame to leave resting idle those parts of our brain that help to distinguish us from apes and toddlers, we then invent reasons to explain and justify our view. (And, as you will see in ‘The Pigheaded Brain’, the brain is disturbingly adept at supplying a conveniently biased array of evidence and arguments to bolster its opinions.) This gives us the satisfying though often illusory impression that our morals are based on reasoned and logical thought, rather than cartoon-esque reflexes such as ‘yuk!’, ‘ouch!’ or ‘tsk!’. Thanks to the emotional brain’s clever deception, it normally seems – both to ourselves and others – that we engaged in our skilful cogitations before, rather than after, forming our moral verdict. Yet when there are no good reasons around to justify our knee-jerk responses, the fact that we are grasping at non-existent straws of rational thought in the moralising process becomes embarrassingly apparent.
For example, researchers asked some university students to justify their moral condemnation of (I shall put this as delicately as I am able) a man self-pleasuring with the willing assistance of a dog.2 According to the Western framework of morality which can be summed up crudely as ‘anything goes, so long as nobody gets hurt’, there is nothing morally wrong with this mutually enjoyable interaction between a man and his best friend, icky though it is to contemplate. That’s why many of the students had a hard time rationalising their reflexive ‘yuk’ responses and, as the researchers put it, became ‘morally dumbfounded’. ‘Well, I just, I don’t know, I don’t think that’s, I guess [long pause], I don’t really [laughter] think of these things much, so I don’t really know but, I don’t know, I just [long pause], um …’ was one student’s inarticulate attempt to explain her censure of the man-with-dog scenario, for example. Moral intuitions based on unthinking emotions may not always serve us too well, then, if our aim is a coherent and consistent moral sense. Our own discomfort or disgust may not always be compatible with the moral framework to which we claim to subscribe.
Emotions muck up our attempts to be fair and just in another way too. As we saw in the last chapter, feelings triggered by one event can be wrongly incorporated into the processes we use to pass judgment on other matters. (Remember the shoppers who rated their cars and televisions more highly because they were in a good mood from receiving a free gift?) Unfortunately, this interfering effect of emotions can also wreak havoc on our moral judgments, which are susceptible to exactly the same sort of bias. In a demonstration of the distorting effects of anger, for example, researchers set one group of volunteers boiling with rage by showing them a video in which they witnessed the brutal beating of a teenager.3 A second group of volunteers watched instead a film of colourful shapes frolicking innocuously across the screen. Then, in a supposedly unrelated experiment, all the volunteers were asked to pass judgment on a series of negligence cases. They were asked, for example, about a construction site manager who failed to check the temporary boards covering the sidewalk. To what extent was he to blame for the broken ankle and collarbone of a passer-by who tripped on a gap in those boards? How much compensation should he pay the injured party for their pain and suffering? Volunteers still seething over the injustice they had watched on the video committed their own injustice in turn on the negligence defendants. These angry people were harsher in their recriminations of those who had neglected their duties, and were more heavy-handed in their declarations of what they would consider to be their just deserts, compared with the volunteers who weren’t experiencing carryover rage.
And this is not the only way that being hot-headed makes us wrong-headed. Being blinded by rage does nothing for our ability to perceive the subtle nuances of moral dilemmas. In some of the negligence cases read by both the angry and the calm volunteers, the culprits acted entirely of their own free will (for example, a second-hand car-dealer who knowingly sold a lemon to an unsuspecting customer). However, in other cases, complicating factors such as a lack of training or coercion by superiors were incorporated into the scenarios. The site manager, for example, had been given no instructions about how to check the safety of the site before leaving. What is more, his shift was over for the day and he knew he would be paid no overtime for checking the boards, because the job was losing money. The dispassionate volunteers were sensitive to this, recognising that these mitigating circumstances made the defendants deserve less punishment. The angry volunteers, in contrast, negligently ignored these niceties as they clumsily attempted to balance the scales of retributive justice.
The moral fog that comes from being in a state of vexation is not inevitable, however. Some of the angry volunteers, before passing judgment, were told that they would later be questioned by a post-doctoral researcher about the reasons behind their apportioning of blame. These volunteers, knowing that they would have to justify their
finger pointing, behaved more like the unemotional volunteers when they set penalties for the wrong-doers. It is reassuring, I suppose, that we are able to overcome the distorting effects of our emotional state when we know we are to be held accountable. On the other hand, how dispiriting that we only take the trouble to keep our own moods out of the moral equation when we know that we may be pulled up for not doing so.
Our moral judgments are also dangerously polluted by a deep-rooted need to believe in a just world.4 All of us have of course outgrown the fairy-tale notion that virtue is always rewarded and bad guys get their comeuppance. (Down here on earth, at least. Plenty of adults cling to the hope that justice will be served in the afterlife: the person of honour will be waved through the pearly gates; the scoundrel will come back as a cockroach.) Ask us outright, and we will tut and sigh at the undeserved misfortunes of the world’s many innocent victims. And yet, presented with such unfortunates, our feelings towards them can belie our lofty principles.5 When our eldest son was still a baby (and, of course, the centre of our world) we took him out for a stroll and bumped into a neighbour, a grandmother of three. It was the tenth birthday of one of her granddaughters – or would have been, had the little girl not died of leukaemia three years before. Our neighbour told us the harrowing details of her granddaughter’s physical decline, her painful cancer treatments, and the hopeless despair of the last few months before she died. I am not proud of this, but all through the telling of this unbearably sad story, frantic accusations against the bereaved mother kept hurling themselves, unbidden, into my consciousness: ‘she can’t have breastfed’, ‘I’ll bet she fed her junk food’, even, ‘she let her sit too close to the television’. At one level I knew that these thoughts were grossly unwarranted and completely irrational. Yet still they came. The ominous message of this poor woman’s loss – ‘it could be your child’ – was too distressing to contemplate. My immoral brain’s despicable and shameful strategy for coping with this threat was to blame the mother. It was her fault, she brought it upon herself, she failed in her maternal duties … the unvoiced reassurance of these vilifications is ultimately, of course, ‘I needn’t worry. It won’t happen to me.’
A Mind of Its Own Page 6