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MIND
THOUGHT IDEAS BRAIN SCIENCE
Social Beings
STEPHEN J. CECI : Professor of Developmental
Psychology, Cornell University
R. DOUGLAS FIELDS : Chief, Nervous System
Development and Plasticity Section, National
Institutes of Health, National Institute of Child Forget the notion of projecting winning charisma, sharp intelligence and an aura
Health and Human Development
of absolute authority. Researchers who study leadership say those traits are not
S. ALEXANDER HASLAM : Professor of Social and
Organizational Psychology, University of Exeter the ultimate keys to greatness. Good leadership isnt something you can create
CHRISTOF KOCH : Professor of Cognitive and by yourself after all, the followers have their own ideas and needs. And al-
Behavioral Biology, California Institute though coercion through carrot (reward) or stick (punishment) may be sufcient
of Technology
SCOT T O. LILIENFELD : Associate Professor
to achieve short-term goals, neither will change minds and hearts.
of Psychology, Emory University As social psychologists Stephen D. Reicher, S. Alexander Haslam and Mi-
JOHN H. MORRISON : Chairman, Department chael J. Platow describe in their cover story, The New Psychology of Leader-
of Neuroscience, and Director, Neurobiology of
Aging Laboratories, Mount Sinai School ship, heads of state and bosses alike must work to understand the values and
of Medicine opinions of their citizens or team members. The goal is a dialogue about what
VILAYANUR S. RAMACHANDRAN : Director,
Center for the Brain and Cognition, University
the group embodies and stands for and thus how it should act. The best leaders,
of California, San Diego, and Adjunct Professor, therefore, shape what their followers want to do by molding the groups identity
Salk Institute for Biological Studies
in ways that promote their agendas. For more, follow us to page 22.
DIANE ROGERS -RAMACHANDRAN : Research
Associate, Center for the Brain and Cognition, Exerting inuence over another individuals decisions and thoughts about
University of California, San Diego any given issue can be as simple as adjusting how you broach the topic or pose
STEPHEN D. REICHER : Professor of Psychology,
University of St. Andrews
the question. Intriguing research shows that the language used profoundly bi-
Many of the articles in this issue ases the choices we make. In When Words Decide, starting on page 36, psy-
are adapted from articles originally chologist Barry Schwartz explains how descriptions may steer not only what we
appearing in Gehirn & Geist.
select but also whether we enjoy or appreciate that option.
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, PRODUCTION :
William Sherman Complex social give-and-take is at work in humanitys virtual worlds as well.
MANUFACTURING MANAGER : Janet Cermak
ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MANAGER :
Tens of millions of people send checks to perfect strangers they encounter on the
Carl Cherebin Internet at eBay. Why? Logically, it would be most protable for sellers to pock-
PREPRESS AND QUALIT Y MANAGER :
Silvia De Santis et the money from would-be buyers without shipping the merchandise. They dont
C O V E R I M AG E B Y J O H N W I L K E S
PRODUCTION MANAGER : Christina Hippeli do so, however, because its not fair. Buyers know that, so they trust sellers to hold
CUSTOM PUBLISHING MANAGER :
Madelyn Keyes-Milch up their end of the bargain. Is Greed Good? asks Christoph Uhlhaas in his
HOW TO CONTACT US article, which begins on page 60. Whether they have consciously considered the
FOR GENERAL INQUIRIES OR matter or not, people who use eBay intuitively know the answer.
TO SEND A LET TER TO THE EDITOR :
Scientic American Mind
415 Madison Avenue Mariette DiChristina
New York NY 10017-1111 Executive Editor
212-451-8200
editors@sciammind.com editors@sciammind.com
F E A T U R E S
COVER STORY
D E P A R T M E N T S
80>> Facts
Brain cells eavesdrop on one another.
>> Culture shapes our brains. and Fictions
>> The continuing toll of 9/11. in Mental Health
>> The rhythm of social interaction. Antidepressants and suicide in children
>> Relational memory: sleep on it. and teens.
BY HAL ARKOWITZ AND SCOTT O. LILIENFELD
8 80
Perspectives
14 >> The Power of the Pen
Writing in a diary about a bad situation can
help bring about a happy resolution.
BY K ATJA GASCHLER
Scientific American Mind (ISSN 1555 -2284), Volume 18, Number 4, August/September 2007, published bimonthly by Scientific American, Inc., 415 Madison Avenue,
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MIND
there are more useful ways than BMI to
measure health and obesity in individu-
als. But when used to study large groups
of people, BMI provides an accurate
THOUGHT IDEAS BRAIN SCIENCE snapshot of a populations health the
small number of outliers for whom BMI
VICE PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER : is misleading do not make a statistical
Bruce Brandfon difference. So Grimms report that
SALES DEVELOPMENT MANAGER : David Tirpack
SALES REPRESENTATIVES : Jeffrey Crennan, about one third of American adults are
Stephen Dudley, Stan Schmidt overweight, and nearly another third are
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, STRATEGIC PLANNING :
obese, based on a survey of BMI, is a
Laura Salant
PROMOTION MANAGER : Diane Schube fair portrayal of the big picture.
RESEARCH MANAGER : Aida Dadurian
PROMOTION DESIGN MANAGER : Nancy Mongelli
GENERAL MANAGER : Michael Florek
SUPPORT FOR STALKERS
BUSINESS MANAGER : Marie Maher I believe A Personal Obsession, by
MANAGER, ADVERTISING ACCOUNTING
AND COORDINATION : Constance Holmes
Isabel Wondrak and Jens Hoffmann,
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, CIRCULATION :
was incomplete. The authors state,
Simon Aronin Fortunately, celebrity stalkers rarely
CIRCULATION DIRECTOR : Christian Dorbandt
RENEWALS MANAGER : Karen Singer
used violence against their targets.
FULFILLMENT AND DISTRIBUTION MANAGER : MISLEADING MASS Unfortunately, some stalkers use vio-
Rosa Davis
In Addicted to Food? Oliver lence against themselves. The article
MANAGING DIRECTOR AND VICE PRESIDENT,
ONLINE : Mina C. Lux
Grimm states that a body mass index speaks of the mental status of the vic-
DIRECTOR, WEB TECHNOLOGIES, ONLINE: (BMI) of a specic value makes a per- tim but not of that of the stalker. The
Vincent Ma
SALES REPRESENTATIVE, ONLINE : Gary Bronson son obese. I disagree: BMI is a simplis- article also doesnt offer any hope for
DIRECTOR, ANCILLARY PRODUCTS : tic formula based on height and weight either party.
Diane McGarvey that is often inaccurate. One horric case was David Let-
PERMISSIONS MANAGER : Linda Hertz
Every time I go in for a physical, the termans stalker, Margaret Mary Ray.
CHAIRMAN : Brian Napack
VICE PRESIDENT AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, nurse starts to lecture me that Im She was gripped by the psychotic fan-
INTERNATIONAL: Dean Sanderson overweight based on the calculation of tasy that she was romantically involved
VICE PRESIDENT: Frances Newburg
CHAIRMAN EMERITUS : John J. Hanley a BMI of 25. Then I interrupt the nurse, with Letterman. According to the
and she sheepishly admits that my BMI New York Times, her bizarre behav-
HOW TO CONTACT US
does not mean I am fat. ior, including breaking into his home
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Im under 15 percent body fat and and stealing his car, was often treated
Scientic American Mind
415 Madison Avenue expect to be under 10 percent soon. as fodder for comedians. But at the
New York NY 10017-1111 My mass comes from muscle. I engage root of Rays obsession was a very se-
212-451-8893
FAX: 212-754-1138 in an intense workout at least five rious mental illness.
FOR SUBSCRIPTION INQUIRIES : times a week. Ray was diagnosed with schizo-
U.S. and Canada: 800-333-1199 It worries me that no one ever phrenia. The illness frequently can be
Outside North America: writes down my body fat percentage. managed with drugs, but getting pa-
Scientic American Mind
Box 3187, Harlan IA 51537 Anyone looking at my medical record tients to stay on their prescriptions
515-248-7684 would think Im at risk for obesity. can be difcult. Ray was in and out of
www.sciammind.com
What happens when people start to jail. When she took her medication,
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make medical decisions based on my she would get better and be released;
Reprint Department
Scientic American Mind BMI record? then she would stop taking her pills
415 Madison Avenue My experience points to the danger and be reincarcerated.
New York NY 10017-1111
212-451-8877 of using BMI; whats true about me is The last time Ray stood trial, she
FAX: 212-451-8252
exactly the opposite of how BMI is typ- was released despite the judges con-
reprints@sciam.com
ically interpreted. And such interpreta- cerns that no existing law could guar-
FOR PERMISSION TO COPY OR
REUSE MATERIAL FROM SA MIND : tions are given more credence than they antee psychiatric help for her. Within
Permissions Department deserve when scientists make state- months, Ray was dead, having thrown
Scientic American Mind
415 Madison Avenue
ments like A BMI above 25 indicates herself in front of an oncoming train.
New York NY 10017-1111 obesity without qualifying them. Ray and individuals like her now
212-451-8546
www.sciam.com/permissions
Joe Thoennes have the assistance of the Mental
Please allow three to six weeks for processing. San Francisco Health Court Program, a strict proba-
bring out tendencies toward disorder Randall Strandquist Moreover, the apparent rise in au-
in the young. Spokane, Wash. tism rates derives from administrative
Mark E. Vesley (for example, school-reported) rather
St. Paul, Minn. ARKOWITZ AND LILIENFELD REPLY: than population-based estimates, only
In contrast to DSM-III of 1980, the later the latter of which allow accurate mea-
DIAGNOSING AUTISM editions, namely, DSM-III-R and DSM-IV, sures of prevalence. Although we should
In Autism: An Epidemic? [Facts include a new category of PDD not oth- remain open to the possibility of a genu-
and Fictions in Mental Health], Hal erwise specied (PDD NOS), which en- ine rise in autism diagnoses pending
Arkowitz and Scott O. Lilienfeld claim compasses many subsyndromal (mild) new data, the evidence for this rise re-
that the rate of autism is not increas- cases. Research suggests that PDD mains uncertain at best.
>> T H E B R A I N
Dwight Bergles of Johns Hopkins University not yet known exactly how this myelin buildup
found that certain white matter cells form takes place, these results suggest that white
synapses to listen in on the signals in axons. matter could be picking up go or stop signals
Just as neurons in gray matter connect to and from axons, directing the myelination process
communicate with one another via axonal and setting the optimal speed for information
projections, oligodendrocyte precursor cells in transfer in our brain. Mason Inman
8 Au g u s t / S e p te m b e r 2 0 07
20 07 SCIENTIFIC AMERIC AN, INC.
>> P E R C E P T I O N
ages, the images triggered activity in a part of the brain asso-
The Hidden Power of Culture ciated with object recognition called the lateral occipital
The society in which we live inuences region, whereas the same object-associated areas were not
activated in the older Asians brains.
the way our brain perceives the world An Asian would see a jungle that happened to have an
Culture inuences the songs we elephant in it, Park explains. Meanwhile a Westerner would
sing, the steps we dance and the see the elephant and might notice the jungle. Because the
words we write. It also shapes Asian subjects responses differed between the two
our brains. Scientists have long generations, while the older Americans matched the youths
known that neuroplasticity allows in their interpretation of the landscapes, the researchers
individual events to sculpt the concluded that the culture people grow up in plays a role in
brains form and function. Now how they interpret what they see.
there is evidence that life experi- Language, says Stanford University cognitive scientist
ence as intangible as culture can Lera Boroditsky, helps to convey and maintain a cultures
also reorganize our neural path- conventions and similarly affects perception. In an
ways. Recent research has found that culture inuences the unrelated study, she found that Russian speakers, whose
way a persons brain perceives visual stimuli such as language includes two words that make a mandatory
scenes and colors. distinction between light blue and dark blue, could more
In one study, psychologists showed people 200 complex quickly distinguish between shades of the color than English
scenes, such as an elephant in a jungle or an airplane ying speakers could. In this case, language meddled in the simple
over a city, while scanning their brains with functional task of differentiating among hues. With an innite number of
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The team, led by Denise ways to perceive the world, Boroditsky says, every cultures
C. Park of the University of Illinois, studied young and elderly guidebook helps to focus our brains attention on the
subjects from the U.S. and Singapore. For Westerners of all characteristics most important to our life. Corey Binns
>> T R A U M A
Continuing Effects of 9/11
High brain activity in people affected by the
tragedy could lead to later health problems
Six years after the events of September 11, researchers are
beginning to understand the attacks enduring toll on mental
health. Recent studies at New YorkPresbyterian Hospital/
Weill Cornell Medical College and New York University have
shown long-term psychological and neurological repercus-
sions in adult witnesses who were near the World Trade Cen-
ter and in children who lost a parent in the tragedy.
Researchers at Cornell and N.Y.U. compared brain scans
of people who were near the WTC during the attacks and
people who were farther away. Both studies found that those depressed activity in the parahippocampal cortex, which
who were closer continue to show heightened activity in the encodes neutral peripheral details. This altered brain activity
amygdala, the part of the brain that regulates emotional might help explain how ashbulb memories are formed and
intensity and creates emotional memories. In the Cornell why they seem to last longer than other types of memories.
I M AG E S . C O M / C O R B I S ( t o p ) ; R E U T E R S / C O R B I S ( b o t t o m )
study, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans Another study conducted at Cornell followed 45 bereaved
showed that people within two miles of the site that day have children who lost a parent in the disaster. Despite the fact that
a hyperactive amygdala as compared with people who lived most received therapy during the two years following their loss,
200 miles away, even though those nearby were seemingly the prevalence of psychiatric illness in these children doubled
resilient and show no signs of mental disorder. The N.Y.U. from 32 percent before 9/11 to nearly 73 percent afterward.
team similarly found that when asked to recall the events of Anxiety, post-traumatic stress and separation anxiety were
9/11, twice as many people who were near Ground Zero had the most common afictions. The grieving children also had
elevated amygdala activity as compared with people who chronic elevations of the stress hormone cortisol in their
were ve miles away in midtown Manhattan. Slow recovery of saliva, suggesting that their bodies ght or ight
a highly active amygdala, the Cornell researchers say, could mechanisms remained switched on. According to the
increase susceptibility to mental health problems later in life. researchers, long-term cortisol elevation may lead to
The N.Y.U. study also found that the direct experience of hypersensitivity to stress later in life, which in turn could cause
9/11 yielded a type of memory similar to a ashbulb cognitive impairment, weak bones, and insulin resistance.
memory, the exceptionally vivid, condent and multisensory Understanding the biology underlying these vulnera-
recollection of a shocking public event. Those near the WTC bilities will help treat people who experienced this and other
who saw, heard and smelled the results of the attacks showed traumas, the researchers say. Karen A. Frenkel
>> N E U R O L O G Y
Social Rhythm
Unique patterns of neural activity mark personal interactions
Whether we are home alone or at a cocktail party, electrical signals are always busy ring
across our brain. When examined with electrodes, these signals appear as oscillating pat-
terns brain rhythms that change depending on what we are doing and thinking. Researchers
have recently identied a new rhythm that appears during social interactions, offering a glimpse
of the coordination that takes place within, as well as between, brains.
Neuroscientists Emmanuelle Tognoli and J. A. Scott Kelso and their colleagues at Florida
Atlantic University simultaneously recorded, for the rst time, the brain rhythms of two people
3 D 4 M E D I C A L . C O M G e t t y I m a g e s ( t o p ) ; F L O R I DA AT L A N T I C U N I V E R S I T Y ( b o t t o m )
sitting across from each other (below) as they each moved one of their ngers up and down. When
a barrier prevented the volunteers from seeing each
others actions, there was no trace of the newly identied
rhythm, dubbed phi. When the scientists removed the
visual obstruction, however, phi appeared, originating
from one of the regions associated with mirror neurons.
Phis complex rhythm differed depending on whether the
volunteers maintained their independent nger wagging or
synced up with the other person. Phi distinguishes
whether a person does their own thing or whether they
coordinate with others, Kelso says.
Brain rhythms arise when groups of neurons in distant
regions of the brain synchronize to generate cognitive
activities such as information processing, sleep and
memory. When incoming electrical messages are absorbed
by tens of thousands of neurons simultaneously engaged in the same process, the resulting electrical
charge is strong enough that electrodes on the scalp can detect it.
Once scientists determine a brain rhythms function, they can make predictions about how it will
behave in a variety of situations, including when the brain is diseased or damaged. Many patients
with neurological disorders are able to monitor and adjust their own rhythms with biofeedback
training, which can sometimes alleviate debilitating symptoms. The discovery of phi may help
diagnose and treat autism and schizophrenia, diseases in which social interactions prove difcult.
Corey Binns
>> L E A R N I N G
suggest that mental
Behave Yourself! functioning can be
Kids who can control their impulses do better in school enhanced through
training.
Most people believe that intelligence plays the key role in childrens academic achievement.
A recent study by Pennsylvania State University researchers, however, found that the ability Infants can distinguish
to self-regulate to pay attention to a task and inhibit impulsive behavior was more different languages
important than intelligence for early academic success. based on facial
The study focused on three- to ve-year-olds and showed that preschoolers capacity for movements alone.
self-control was the best predictor of their performance in math and reading in kindergarten. Scientists at the
Scores on intelligence tests were not as closely correlated with academic achievement. University of British
A childs ability to monitor his or her thinking and behavior develops rapidly during preschool. Columbia found that
Psychologist Clancy Blair, who led the study, says that the data give concrete support to when four- to six-month-
preschool programs that focus more directly on self-regulation. Curricula are needed that olds from English-
provide children with regular activities to speaking families
decrease impulsiveness and instant watched silent clips of a
gratication and that promote attention and bilingual speaker, their
awareness of ones own and others curiosity was piqued
thoughts and feelings, Blair remarks. when the language
Parents interested in boosting their switched. By the age of
kids school readiness should engage them eight months, only
in activities that involve taking turns, paying babies from bilingual
attention for sustained periods and giving homes could make the
incentives for thoughtful responses, the distinction, because over
researchers say. Dinsa Sachan time the brain is honed
to recognize only the
languages a child
experiences frequently.
w w w. s c i a m m i n d .c o m
20 07 SCIENTIFIC AMERIC AN, INC.
(head lines)
>> B E H A V I O R
psychiatrists found that by age 16, more than
Trauma in Disguise two thirds of children are exposed to at least
A childs hyperactivity may be one potentially traumatic event, such as abuse
or a natural disaster. But fewer than 1 percent
a symptom of distress of the 1,420 children studied met the criteria
for post-traumatic stress disorder. In
childhood, trauma was more likely to lead to
depression, anxiety and behavior problems.
Frank Putnam, a professor of psychiatry at
Cincinnati Childrens Hospital (who uses the
Davy Crockett example in teaching), notes that
diagnostic guidelines do not require doctors to
rule out trauma when considering ADHD. And
yet research shows that trauma profoundly
affects attention and activity. Putnam found
that abused kids were far more active than
their nonabused counterpartsand because
potentially traumatic events are common, he
believes misdiagnosis may be, too.
Psychiatrist William E. Copeland, lead
Medicating
To most children, the picture of Davy Crock- author of the Duke study, disagrees. He thinks kids who are
etts rie in their history book is like many as- that the rate of such misdiagnosis is overall
pects of school: boring. For a child who saw extremely low. ADHD criteria require some misdiagnosed
his father threaten his mother with a shotgun, symptoms to start before age seven, so if an
however, the picture can trigger traumatic older childs behavior suddenly changes, the with ADHD
memories and the resulting dgeting and
jumpiness can look to teachers and doctors
diagnosis would not t. But, he concedes,
there are certain settings where kids are
could do more
like attention-decit hyperactivity disorder exposed to multiple traumatic events [like harm than
(ADHD). In such cases, standard treatment foster care], and thats going to be an issue.
with stimulants (which help to focus the ADHD Experts such as Putnam are calling for good.
brain) may do more harm than good. And ac- more research to determine how widespread
cording to some experts, misdiagnosis of trauma-related ADHD misdiagnosis really is
trauma-related attention problems may not be and to gure out how to better help
uncommon: in children, trauma produces dif- traumatized kids less than one third of
ferent symptoms than it does in adults. whom, according to Putnams research,
Recent research by Duke University actually need medication. Maia Szalavitz
Everyone Agrees
An oft-heard opinion seems popular even if it
comes from only one person
With the 2008 presidential election only a year away, the merits of each candi-
date are becoming a common topic of conversation. But how do our brains, after
hearing so many different opinions, gauge the popularity of each one? New re-
search ndings suggest that we judge a viewpoints prevalence by how familiar it
is regardless of whether we have heard it ve times from one person or once
each from ve different people.
Kimberlee Weaver, a psychologist at Virginia Polytechnic University, and her
colleagues gave volunteers records of opinions from a ctional focus group that had
supposedly met to discuss the preservation of open space in New Jersey. In some
cases, multiple people expressed the viewpoints; in others, the same person
repeated an opinion many times. Based on these records, they asked the subjects to
estimate how the focus group, and the population in general, felt about the matter.
The study participants rated an opinion as popular if it had been expressed
several times even if only one person had said it. The researchers follow-up experiments
suggested that the opinions familiarity was the most important factor in whether subjects
considered it to be common.
People are not always good at inferring what other people think, Weaver says. The ability to
gauge the sentiment of a crowd is vital for good social decision making, and for the most part
evolution has honed our skills of perception. But our psychological mechanisms are sometimes
subject to constraints and this phenomenon is a perfect example. According to Weaver, these
types of miscalculations could sway our own opinions and perceptions of reality, leading us to
unintentionally make decisions inuenced by a mentally amplied vocal minority. Melinda Wenner
display emotion and how we perceive Americans who think the Japanese are
it in others. In a new study, unexpressive mistake subtlety for lack
psychologists Abigail Marsh, Hillary of expression. These Americans would
Elfenbein and Nalini Ambady, all then misjudge facial cues that Japanese
at Harvard University, found that might be very successful at
American volunteers could distinguish interpreting.
American from Australian faces when Such misjudgments can have
the faces were photographed smiling unintended consequences, Marsh
but not when they were photographed argues. Everyone knows how spoken
with neutral expressions. communication breakdowns can lead
In addition, the way Americans to cross-cultural misunderstandings,
and Australians walked or waved in she says. These studies highlight the
greeting not only telegraphed their importance of nonverbal communi-
nationality but also triggered prevailing cation as well. Improving awareness of
stereotypes about the two groups: these differences might go a long way
Americans were judged more toward improving cross-cultural
dominant (think, Carry a big stick) interactions. Siri Carpenter
w w w. s c i a m m i n d .c o m
20 07 SCIENTIFIC AMERIC AN, INC.
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND 15
(illusions)
tion (which they claim is a real item) ing the mirror box [see illustration on and supramarginal gyrus in the pari-
located in the mirror. Mentally, such opposite page]. We initially designed etal lobe, where you construct your
patients are otherwise perfectly nor- this box to treat patients with phantom body image. These two gyri were
mal; they continue to have abstract limbs and stroke (more on this therapy originally fused as one gyrus (the infe-
knowledge of mirrors and the nature later), but you can have fun experiment- rior parietal lobule) in apes. Given the
of their optics. Such patients give us a ing on yourself and your friends. Alter- importance of intermodality (cross-
glimpse into the surreal no-mans-land natively, for a quick start, use the swing- sensory) interactions, however, in hu-
between reality and illusion, and they ing, mirror-covered door of a bathroom mans the lobule became enormous
with Altschuler, occurs if you look at time, a copy of the com- The mirror box can create the illusion of a restored
your hand through a minimizing (that mand (like an e-mail cc) limb, helping to treat phantom pain.
w w w. s c i a m m i n d .c o m
20 07 SCIENTIFIC AMERIC AN, INC.
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND 17
(illusions)
explored with brain-imaging studies by Phantom Limbs, Neglect Syndromes, Repressed Memories and Freudian Psychology.
neuropsychologist Herta Flor of the V. S. Ramachandran in International Review of Neurobiology, Vol. 37, pages 291333;
University of Heidelberg Central Insti- 1994.
tute of Mental Health in Mannheim, Synaesthesia in Phantom Limbs Induced with Mirrors. Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and
Diane Rogers-Ramachandran in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences,
Germany.
Vol. 263, No. 1369, pages 377386; 1996.
Phantom pain is bad enough, but it Rehabilitation of Hemiparesis after Stroke with a Mirror. E. L. Altschuler, S. B. Wisdom,
is uncommon compared with an equal- L. Stone, C. Foster, D. Galasko, D.M.E. Llewellyn and V. S. Ramachandran in Lancet,
ly disabling disorder, stroke, which is Vol. 353, No. 9169, pages 20352036; June 12, 1999.
1 2 3 4
M U S E U M S/ E X H I B I T I O N S as they reveal the latest research on behav- Eaters Anonymous, he seeks solace in an
1 The Mirror and the Mask: ior and mental health. Volunteer for com- ice cream parlor and meets Beth (Sarah
Portraiture in the Age of Picasso munity outreach activities such as feeding Silverman), a slightly crazy, sexually ag-
Our appearance and character seem to be the homeless and partake in the diverse gressive counter girl who might be able to
immutable, fundamental aspects of our- cultural offerings of the city by the bay. cure Jamess disillusionment with more
selves. For centuries, artists strove to- Continuing education classes for profes- than just free desserts.
ward capturing their subjects likenesses sionals and dozens of lectures by leading IFC First Take
in the most lifelike portraits possible. Dur- psychologists are also on the program. Limited release September 21
ing the course of the 20th century, how- San Francisco www.ifclms.com
ever, the art of portraiture became heavily August 1720
inuenced by modernist, more emotion- www.apa.org/convention07 W E B S I T E S/ P O D CA S T S
ally expressive movements and by major 4 The Archives of the History
historical events of the age. In this exhibit, 39th Annual General Meeting of the of American Psychology
drawings, paintings and sculptures by van European Brain and Behavior Society A service of the University of Akron, this
Gogh, Matisse and Bacon, among others, Neuroscientists from around the world resource serves as both an academic re-
reveal how they viewed and interpreted will gather in the shadow of Miramare search library and a public portal into
their family, friends and selves in the con- Castle for this yearly meeting, which aims psychologys origins. The site hosts a
text of a rapidly modernizing world. to bring together all types of research on photo gallery of the organizations large
Kimbell Art Museum brain and behavior. A wide range of sym- instrument and apparatus collection,
Fort Worth, Tex. posiums highlights topics such as animal which features equipment used by psy-
Through September 16 memory, childhood ADHD and the way ex- chologists in the 20th century.
WA D S W O R T H AT H E N E U M M U S E U M O F A R T, H A R T F O R D, C O U R T E S Y O F K I M B E L L A R T M U S E U M ( 1 ) ;
817-332-8451 perience shapes the brain and behavior. www3.uakron.edu/ahap
www.kimbellart.org/exhibitions/ Trieste, Italy
mirror_and_mask.cfm September 1519 Shrink Rap Radio
www.ebbs-science.org Every week psychology professor David
2 Mysteries of the Mind: Van Nuys of Sonoma State University in-
Pathways into Hope M OV I E S terviews a leading psychologist about his
Developed in collaboration with psycholo- 3 Charlie Bartlett or her specialty, covering a broad range
gists at the University of Arkansas, the ex- After failing to fit in at his new public of topics from mental health to spiritual-
Today weve had a national tragedy, announced President
George W. Bush, addressing the nation for the rst time on
September 11, 2001. Two airplanes have crashed into the
World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our
country. Bush then promised to hunt down and to nd
those folks who committed this act. These remarks, made
from Emma T. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Fla.,
may not seem extraordinary, but in subtle ways they exem-
plify Bushs skill as a leader. When viewed through the lens
of a radical new theory of leadership, Bushs 9/11 address
contains important clues to how the president solidied his
G E T T Y I M AG E S
3>> Leaders who adopt this strategy must try not only to t
in with their group but also to shape the groups identity
in a way that makes their own agenda and policies appear to
the University of Washington, for example, sug-
gested that the secret of good leadership lies in
discovering the perfect match between the indi-
be an expression of that identity. vidual and the leadership challenge he or she con-
fronts. For every would-be leader, there is an op-
formed seminal studies on how groups can re- were able to lead the people because they embod-
structure individual psychology. Tajfel coined the ied a shared national identity. Monarchs such as
term social identity to refer to the part of a per- Louis XVI of France who misunderstood or ig-
sons sense of self that is dened by a group. As nored this shift literally lost their heads.
Turner pointed out, social identity also allows peo- More recently, we afrmed the importance of
A
t the very heart of contemporary thought the most disparate collection of people using
lies a profound ambivalence toward lead- repression or rewards to secure assent or en-
ers. At times, they are seen as the hope courage compliance. But such leadership
of humanity having the capacity to inject en- succeeds only when followers are under surveil-
ergy and romance into jaded societies. The long lance say, when a boss watches over his or
shadow of Adolf Hitler reinforced an alternative her employees or the military enforces a lead-
view of strong leaders: far from saving human- ers wishes. Such a strategy works against
kind, they were considered the gravest threat to group members will and thus is not leadership
morality and security. Thus, instead of celebrat- proper but coercion.
ing the emergence of great men, it seemed When we refer to leadership, we mean the
that we should be working out ways to inoculate ability to motivate people to act in concert some-
ourselves against them. thing that requires an internalized social identity
Despite this dichotomy, neither the enlight- [see main story]. This type of leadership is effec-
ened nor dark rulers of this autocratic genre are tive even when followers are not being watched;
true leaders by our denition. Dictators, like that is, they do the bosss bidding even when the
early monarchs, can shape the behavior of even boss is away. S.D.R., S.A.H. and M.J.P.
the ideal characteristics for a business leader. say we and to exert oneself except in ones own
When the students were confronted with a rival immediate self-interest.
group that had an intelligent leader (who was
also inconsiderate and uncommitted), the stu- Favoring Fairness
dents wanted their leader to be unintelligent (but Another reason not to lavishly compensate
considerate and dedicated). But when the rival those at the top is that followers are likely to per-
leader was unintelligent, virtually nobody want- ceive such nancial inequity as unfair. Followers
ed an unintelligent leader. generally respect fairness in leaders, although
If tting in is important for gaining inuence what fairness means can depend on the followers.
and control, then anything that sets leaders apart Ways to be fair as a leader include refraining from
B E T T M A N N / C O R B I S ( l e f t ) ; M I C H A E L W I L L I A M S Z u m a / C o r b i s ( c e n t e r ) ; G E T T Y I M AG E S ( r i g h t )
from the group can compromise their effective- helping yourself and making sacrices for the
ness. Acting superior or failing to treat followers group. Gandhi won people over by adopting an
respectfully or listen to them will undermine a Indian villagers dress, which symbolized his re-
leaders credibility and inuence. Similar prob- fusal of luxuries; Aung San Suu Kyi similarly at-
lems can emerge if a leader and followers are sep- tracted supporters with her willingness to endure
arated by a wide compensation gap. Financier ongoing house arrest to promote collective resis-
J. P. Morgan once observed that the only feature tance to military rule in Myanmar (Burma).
shared by the failing companies he worked with Effective leaders can also display fairness in
was a tendency to overpay those at the top. the way they resolve disputes among group mem-
Another experiment of ours, which we re- bers. Favoritism, or even the appearance of it, is
ported in 2004, conrms Morgans wisdom. We the royal road to civil war in organizations, po-
created work teams in which leaders remunera- litical parties and countries alike. In some cases,
tion was either equal to, double or triple that of however, leaders should favor those who support
followers. Although varying the remuneration
structure did not affect the leaders efforts, team
(The Authors)
members efforts diminished markedly under
conditions of inequality. As the late Peter F. STEPHEN D. REICHER, S. ALEXANDER HASLAM and MICHAEL J. PLATOW
Drucker, then professor of management at Clare- have collaborated on investigations into leadership and social identity,
mont Graduate University, wrote in his book The culminating in their forthcoming book The New Psychology of Leadership
Frontiers of Management (Dutton, 1986), Very (Psychology Press). Reicher is a professor of social psychology at the Uni-
high salaries at the top disrupt the team. They versity of St. Andrews in Scotland, and Haslam is a professor of social
make people in the company see their own top psychology at the University of Exeter in England. Both are on the board of
management as adversaries rather than as col- advisers for Scientic American Mind. Platow is currently a reader in psy-
leagues.... And that quenches any willingness to chology at the Australian National University.
S O U R C E : T H E L I N K B E T W E E N L E A D E R S H I P A N D F O L L O W E R S H I P : H O W A F F I R M I N G S O C I A L I D E N T I T Y T R A N S L AT E S V I S I O N I N T O
preference for the council members who support- get them to the polls, to the ofce or to protest an
AC T I O N , B Y S . A . H A S L A M A N D M . J . P L AT O W, I N P E R S O N A L I T Y A N D S O C I A L P S Y C H O LO GY B U L L E T I N , V O L . 27, N O . 1 1 ; 2 0 0 1
ed the in-group position. And when Chris showed injustice must also work to shape and dene
such partiality, the undergraduates were more those norms. Presidents and other leaders most
likely to back him and devise ways to make his often mold social identities through words, as Bush
proposed projects succeed [see box below]. did in his 9/11 address.
People do not always prefer leaders who are The most effective leaders dene their groups
social identity to t with the policies they plan to
promote, enabling them to position those policies
F
ollowers generate ideas that advance a leaders vision that forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived
is, they display followership only if that leader has in the in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all
past advanced the interests of the group. If the leader has been men are created equal, Abraham Lincoln strong-
either evenhanded or supportive of rival groups or positions, follow- ly emphasized the principle of equality to rally
ers ideas are unhelpful. people around his key policy objectives: unica-
tion of the states and emancipation of the slaves.
Ideas That Advance a Leaders Vision In fact, the Constitution contains many prin-
Ideas That Do Not Advance a Leaders Vision ciples, and no one stands above all others, accord-
ing to historian Garry Wills in his Pulitzer Prize
1 winning book, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words
That Remade America (Simon & Schuster, 1992).
Number of Ideas*
mobilize Americans around freeing the slaves a Center for Scientic Research, writes that the rev-
previously divisive issue. Through his skills as a olutionaries fashioned a whole new set of festivals
wordsmith, this supreme entrepreneur of identity to symbolize a France based on liberty, equality,
secured one of the greatest achievements in fraternity. In the past, people had paraded ac-
American history. cording to social rank, but now rich and poor pa-
raded together, organized by age instead. In con-
Identities and Realities trast, Adolf Hitler choreographed his Nuremberg
If Lincolns denition of American identity rallies to portray an authoritarian society. He
moved people to create a more equal society, then started among the masses, but at a strategic mo-
the realities of emancipation served to reinforce ment he would ascend a podium from where he
equality as the core of American identity. That is, could talk down to the serried and orderly ranks.
there is a reciprocal relation between social iden- No matter how skilled a person might be,
tity and social reality: identity inuences the type however, a leaders effectiveness does not lie en-
of society people create and that society in turn tirely in his or her own hands. As we have seen,
affects the identities people adopt. leaders are highly dependent on followers. Do fol-
An identity that is out of kilter with reality and lowers see their leader as one of them? Do follow-
that has no prospect of being realized, on the oth- ers nd their leaders visions of identity compel-
er hand, will soon be discarded in favor of more ling? Do followers learn the intended lessons from
viable alternatives. Our BBC Prison study provid- rituals and ceremonies? Our new psychological
ed a stark warning as to what happens if a leaders analysis tells us that for leadership to function
vision is not accompanied by a strategy for turning well, leaders and followers must be bound by a
that vision into reality. In this study the collapse shared identity and by the quest to use that iden-
of the guard system led participants to set up a tity as a blueprint for action.
commune whose members believed passionately The division of responsibility in this quest can
in equality. But the communes leaders failed to vary. In more authoritarian cases, leaders can
B E T T M A N N / C O R B I S ( l e f t ) ; T E T R A I M AG E S / C O R B I S ( r i g h t )
establish structures that either promoted equality claim sole jurisdiction over identity and punish
or controlled those who challenged the system. In anyone who dissents. In more democratic cases,
the end, the commune also tottered, and the en- leaders can engage the population in a dialogue
during inequality led even the most committed to over their shared identity and goals. Either way,
lose faith. They began to believe in a hierarchical the development of a shared social identity is the
world and turned to a tyrannical model of leader- basis of inuential and creative leadership. If you
ship that would bring their vision into being. control the denition of identity, you can change
The wise leader is not simply attuned to making the world. M
identities real but also helps followers experience
identities as real. In this vein, rituals and symbols (Further Reading)
provide perspective by reproducing a dramatized
Social Inuence. J. C. Turner. Open University Press, 1991.
representation of the world in miniature. In her
Self and Nation. S. D. Reicher and N. Hopkins. Sage, 2001.
book Festivals and the French Revolution (reprint- Leadership and Power. D. Van Knippenberg and M. A. Hogg. Sage, 2004.
ed by Harvard University Press in 1991), Mona The New Psychology of Leadership: Identity, Inuence and Power.
Ozouf, director of research at the French National S. A. Haslam, S. D. Reicher and M. J. Platow. Psychology Press (in press).
S
cience oft resembles the federal
tax code: the rules are rigid, but
they also keep changing. So it
has been with the study of neu-
rogenesis, or the creation of
neurons in the human brain.
Not long ago a hard-and-fast rule held that neu-
rons could neither divide nor emerge from else-
where. The neurons you were born with, in
RALPH MERCER Getty Images
Neuroscientists resisted this idea at rst. It are hatching in the most hallowed of all brain
clashed with all established facts and belief. But regions, the hippocampus, the seat of declarative
slowly the accumulation of data moved minds. and spatial memory. These discoveries raise the
Now newborn brain cells are popping up in prospect that we might learn to manipulate neu-
studies like mushrooms after rain. Scientists rogenesis to relieve ailments such as stroke and
have even found that neurogenesis increases af- cognitive decline.
ter physical exercise a great relief to baby Skeptical scientists, however, have met all
boomers who fried too many brain cells in col- this news with an important question: What use
lege. The latest research shows that new neurons are new neurons if they do not somehow wire
themselves into the existing circuitry of the
brain and how are these inexperienced neurons
FAST FACTS going to do that? The difculty of incorporating
The New Neurogenesis new cells into the intricate, tightly woven fabric
of neural connections in the grown-up brain was
1>> For many years, scientists believed that the brain did
not generate new neurons after birth. Now neurogen-
esis has become accepted.
always one of the stronger arguments against the
existence of new neurons in the rst place. What
good are these cellular neophytes if they merely
become passive bystanders?
2>> But what good are new brain cells if they cannot be- In the past few years, however, ndings from
CAROL DONNER Phototake
come part of long-established neural networks? The several labs have shown that new neurons do
question remained open for some time. connect with existing circuitry. A recent paper by
neuroscientists Nohjin Kee, Ctia M. Teixeira
cause mice are good swimmers and take natu- ment, where he investigates neural development and the interactions
rally to the challenge.) Synapses are strengthened between neurons and glia, and adjunct professor in the Neuroscience and
when the animal is subjected to the stressful or Cognitive Science Program at the University of Maryland.
A
s R. Douglas Fields notes in the main article, the neurons as they mature; it does not account for newborn
biggest question currently facing neurogenesis re- neurons that survive longer and respond to specic infor-
searchers is, What are these new neurons doing? mation months later, as shown in the Kee study. These
Although the existence of new neurons in the hippocampus longer-lasting neurons may have a temporally restricted
suggests a role in memory formation, the prevailing cau- function, such as time coding, early in their development
tious hypothesis has been that these cells simply replace and then narrow their role so that later they respond only
dying cells or that they are just a functionless evolutionary to a specic type of information. This idea is consistent
artifact an appendix of sorts in the brain. with the timeline of new neuron learning described in the
The work done by neuroscientists Nohjin Kee, Ctia M. Kee paper the neurons begin to integrate into existing
Teixeira and their colleagues at the University of Toronto, networks during the rst several weeks after they are born,
however, supports the idea that these neurons perform a but only later do they appear to encode the spatial infor-
meaningful function. The Kee study does not aim to show mation acquired during training.
the exact role of these new cells, but it does further dem- Regardless of whether new neurons encode time, spa-
onstrate that the animals experience can make these tial maps, or something else entirely, ultimately we will
neurons functionally distinct from the existing population need to see a behavioral difference in animals in which
of brain cells. Because the young neurons are more likely the capacity for neurogenesis has been removed to fully
to respond in this manner than fully mature cells are, it is understand the function of these new cells. Beyond the
difcult to imagine that they are simply replacing dying technical difculties involved in reducing the number of
parts of the circuit. new neurons, the big challenge is to determine what types
So what is the ultimate function of these new neurons? of decits we should begin to look for in these animals
One possibility is that they serve several different roles as and when we should look for them. The Kee study provides
they mature. For instance, in a study last year on the po- some valuable clues for these questions.
tential role for adult neurogenesis in the encoding of time
in new memories, several of my colleagues at the Salk Brad Aimone is a graduate student in the Computational Neu-
Institute for Biological Studies and I proposed that im- robiology Program at the University of California, San Diego.
mature neurons may respond somewhat indiscriminately He is investigating adult neurogenesis in the laboratory of
to different events occurring around the same time, there- Fred Gage at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
(
Like impressionable children, new neurons were more
likely than adult neurons to participate in learning. )
arc were turned on in many of the new neurons. next test; it had to nd the platform afresh every
Nevertheless, as Kee knew, it is possible for these time. As it turned out, its hippocampus had
genes to get turned on by forms of mental stimu- as many newborn neurons as that of the more
lation other than learning. How would they learned mice, but its memory gene, c-fos, was not
know these new neurons were actually storing switched on any more than it was in control ani-
memories of where the submerged platform was mals that had not been trained. The memory
hidden? genes activation seemed to be what made the
learning possible.
The Control The researchers also found that by training
Enter the mutant mouse. As a control, Kee the mice at different time intervals after the bro-
and his co-workers also put through the water modeoxyuridine injection they could determine
maze a mouse that had a disabling mutation just how old the new neurons had to be before
in an enzyme (CaMKII) that is essential for mak- they joined the adult circuits of memory storage.
ing memories. This mouse could nd the plat- They found that new neurons are not involved in
form, but it could not carry the memory to the memory until they reach the age of about four to
six weeks. Yet, like impressionable children, seems clear that these new neurons are preferen-
these new neurons were actually more likely to tially recruited into brain circuits that record new
participate in learning than were the adult neu- spatial memories. But the reasons for this recruit-
rons already established in networks. ment and how plugging new neurons into exist-
The study might have been stronger if the ing circuits might affect old memories remain
SEBASTIAN JESSBERGER Salk Institute for Biological Studies
team had used an additional mutant of a differ- about as opaque as the instructions for the fed-
ent type or various drugs to interfere with mem- eral 1040 tax form. M
ory [see Erasing Memories, by R. Douglas
Fields; Scientic American Mind, December (Further Reading)
2005] instead of using only the CaMKII mutant
Making Memories Stick. R. Douglas Fields in Scientic American,
mouse. This is because this enzyme is involved in
Vol. 292, No. 2, pages 7581; February 2005.
turning on the c-fos gene for reasons unrelated to
The Neural Basis of Birdsong. Fernando Nottebohm in PLoS Biology,
memory formation. Also, the researchers did not Vol. 3, No. 5, e164; May 17, 2005. Available online at http://biology.
report whether or not the gene more closely as- plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/
sociated with memory, arc, was switched on in journal.pbio.0030164
the mutant mice. Potential Role for Adult Neurogenesis in the Encoding of Time in New
Yet the experiment carries substantial weight. Memories. J. B. Aimone, J. Wiles and F. H. Gage in Nature Neuroscience,
Vol. 9, pages 723727; June 2006.
It shows that although most neurons in the adult
Preferential Incorporation of Adult-Generated Granule Cells into
brain do not divide, about 1 to 2 percent of the Spatial Memory Networks in the Dentate Gyrus. N. Kee, C. M. Teixeira,
population at any given time is new in parts of A. H. Wang and P. W. Frankland in Nature Neuroscience, Vol. 10,
the brain, including the hippocampus. It now pages 355362; March 2007.
WHEN
WORDS
DECIDE
I
magine that the U.S. is preparing for an outbreak
By of an unusual Asian disease that is expected to
Barry kill 600 people. Government ofcials have pro-
Schwartz posed two alternative programs to combat the
disease. Under program A, 200 people will be
saved. Under B, there is a one-third probability
that 600 people will be saved and a two-thirds probabil-
ity that nobody will. Confronted by this choice, 72 per-
cent of people choose A, preferring to save 200 people
for certain rather than risking saving no one.
Now imagine that ofcials present these two options
instead: under program C, 400 people will die; under
program D, there is a one-third probability that nobody
will die and a two-thirds probability that all 600 people
will perish. Faced with this pair of scenarios, 78 percent
of people choose D, according to results of a classic
study by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, a psycholo-
gist at Princeton University, and his longtime collabora-
tor, psychologist Amos Tversky.
ences can be exploited for public benet or harm. ple toward options they are likely to prefer, even
if they tend not to choose them out of laziness,
P
eople respond differently to options describing tions are framed. Thus, people are unwilling to take a risk
gains than to those that refer to losses. This ten- if the phrasing emphasizes positive outcomes, but they
dency, which is explained by something called pros- may ip to a riskier option if the words express the dark-
pect theory, can result in logically inconsistent decisions. er side of a picture. Notice, too, that the loss portion of
In this depiction of the theory (graph), which was co-de- the curve is about twice as steep as the gain portion,
veloped nearly 30 years ago by Nobel laureate Daniel meaning that a loss of, say, $100 hurts worse than a gain
Kahneman, a psychologist at Princeton University, and of $100 feels good. All in all, people will be more moti-
his longtime collaborator, psychologist Amos Tversky, vated to avoid losses than to secure gains.
the x-axis plots the objective state of affairs, from nega-
tive, for instance, number of lives lost, through neutral
(zero) to positive, say, number of lives saved. The y-axis +
plots peoples subjective responses to the various objec-
tive states that is, how good or bad these realities
make people feel.
The curve in the upper right quadrant captures how
Subjective State
people respond to positives, or gains, and its shape por-
trays the economic principle of diminishing marginal util-
ity. Saving 600 lives will not feel three times as good as
saving 200 lives, so people do not want to take a risk to +
save all 600 people. The lower left quadrant shows how
people respond to negatives, or losses, and depicts the
diminishing marginal disutility of losses. Because losing
600 lives will not hurt three times as much as losing 200,
people feel good about taking the risk to lose nobody.
People tend to seek risk more readily when making deci-
sions about losses.
Whether decisions are described by the top right or Objective State
the bottom left part of the curve depends on how the op-
tion inexorably biases respondents toward one ing 600 lives will not feel three times as good as
choice over another. saving 200 lives so taking a risk to save all 600
people feels like a bad psychological bet. Kahne-
Gains and Losses man and Tversky argued that most people are
In their landmark research, Kahneman and risk averse when contemplating gains.
Tversky pioneered the notion that two ways of When it comes to negative occurrences, such
describing a choice that are logically equivalent, as deaths, changes in a persons emotional state
as in the example above, are not necessarily psy- similarly diminish as the situation worsens rather
chologically equivalent. In something they called than continuing to worsen at a rate proportional
prospect theory, Kahneman and Tversky deci- to the circumstances. Thus, losing 600 lives will
phered the relation between the objective and the not hurt three times as much as losing 200 would,
subjective as it relates to losses and gains. so taking the risk to lose no one feels like a good
Although people do become more satised as psychological bet. This principle causes people to
an outcome gets increasingly favorable, a per- seek risk when it comes to losses.
sons happiness does not increase in linear fash- And whether people are attending to gains or
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND
ion in relation to the gain, according to prospect losses depends on how the options are framed. In
theory [see box above]. Instead a persons subjec- the A-versus-B choice people are considering
tive state improves at an increasingly slower rate gains, whereas they are pondering losses when
until an objective improvement in a situation faced with the C-versus-D scenario, explaining
hardly changes a persons satisfaction at all why people are not willing to take a risk in the
something economists call diminishing mar- rst situation but are in the second.
ginal utility. This means, for example, that sav- Prospect theory also holds that people actu-
Another powerful way to inuence choice is laziness and inattention are not the sole reasons
to leave something unsaid. In the U.S. and many for the power of defaults. As University of Cali-
European countries, people who renew their driv- fornia, San Diego, psychologist Craig R. M.
ers license are asked if they want to be an organ McKenzie and his colleagues showed in a 2006
donor. As decision scientists Eric J. Johnson of study, most people infer that the default is the
Columbia University and Daniel Goldstein, now recommended option.
at London Business School, reported in 2003, Given the power of defaults, policymakers
100-
90-
80-
70-
Organ Donors
(percentage)
60-
50-
40-
30-
20-
10-
0-
-
-
U.S.
Denmark
Netherlands
U.K.
Germany
Austria
Belgium
France
Hungary
Poland
Sweden
Portugal
S O U R C E : D O D E FAU LT S S AV E L I V E S ? B Y E . J . J O H N S O N A N D D. G O L D S T E I N , I N S C I E N C E , V O L . 3 0 2 ; N O V E M B E R 2 1 , 2 0 0 3
could use them to nudge people in a direction bread. The device sold for $275. Was $275 a lot
that will enhance their well-being, something to spend on a bread maker? That price was hard
University of Chicago legal scholar Cass R. Sun- to judge because no similar products were then
stein and economist Richard Thaler call liber- on the market. Months later Williams-Sonoma
tarian paternalism. In this practice, leaders introduced a deluxe bread maker that sold for
would choose defaults with an eye on peoples $429. Sales of the regular bread maker shot up
stated or implied preferences (the paternalistic because the new, more expensive bread maker
part) while allowing anyone to opt out (the lib- made the regular one look like a good deal.
ertarian element). Effects like this are pervasive. In research re-
Although you cannot always know what peo- ported in 2002, University of Oregon psycholo-
ples preferences are, you can often discern them. gist Paul Slovic asked a group of people how
In the example of 401(k) plans, we can surmise a much they would pay in taxes for an airport safe-
desire to participate because we know that peo- ty measure that would save 98 percent of 150
ple are more likely to sign up the longer they stay people at risk a year. Then he asked a second
in their job, as if they have been meaning to do it group how much they would pay to save 150 peo-
but have been putting it off. Knowing whether ple a year. The rst group would pay more for the
Pennsylvanians or New Jersey residents are get- measure than the second group would. Why? Af-
ting what they really want for car insurance is ter all, saving 100 percent of 150 people is more
harder to determine. But given that it is nearly benecial than saving 98 percent of 150 people.
impossible to present options in a neutral fash- But when the number 150 has no context, people
ion , why not prod people in a direction that will consider a broad variety of ways to spend
makes most of them better off? money, many of them affecting thousands or mil-
lions of people. On the other hand, giving the 98
Matchmaker percent success rate restricts the context of the
Yet a third major inuence of framing on question and seems impressive, so people see in-
choice is context. The attractiveness of an option tervention as quite cost-effective.
will frequently depend on what it is compared
with. Some years ago the gourmet food and
(The Author)
kitchen gadget purveyor Williams-Sonoma in-
troduced a new product: an automatic bread BARRY SCHWARTZ is a professor of psychology at Swarthmore College,
maker. You just throw the ingredients in, push a where he has taught since 1971. He is author of The Paradox of Choice:
button, and several hours later you have a loaf of Why More Is Less (Ecco, 2004).
T
he language of choice not only affects what we
choose but also eerily our sensory experiences
of that choice. For example, people will choose a
hamburger that is 75 percent lean over one that is 25
percent fat. But then, when they actually taste the two
hamburgers (which are, of course, two versions of the
same hamburger), the 75 percent lean burger actually
tastes better. So although it may seem irrational to prefer
one hamburger over another physically identical one, if
the burger that is called 75 percent lean tastes better
than the one dubbed 25 percent fat, perhaps it makes
sense to prefer that one, after all.
Other examples of food labels inuencing our taste
Consumers prefer Perrier to plain seltzer only if they see
buds abound. Perrier is preferred to plain seltzer if the Perrier label.
both beverages are consumed with their labels showing,
but otherwise tasters have no preference. Consumers new information after the fact does not cause you to re-
judge protein nutrition bars that contain soy protein as vise your memory of the taste. Labels and descriptions
grainier and less avorful than when the word soy is affect not only decisions but also how people experience
removed from the description. They eat more vanilla ice the results of those decisions.
cream if it is labeled high fat than if it is falsely labeled Are such preferences irrational? The point of choosing
low fat, which is, oddly, the opposite preference than a burger, an ice cream or a beer, after all, is to enjoy it.
the one they express for burgers, for which fat may signify And if you will enjoy lean burgers more than fatty
greasy. ones, there is nothing wrong with having choices be af-
And people prefer beer adulterated with balsamic vin- fected by descriptions.
egar labeled MIT brew to plain beer if they do not know Your feelings about a decision are far less signicant
about the adulteration or if they nd out about the strange in other situations, of course. When a choice is about
recipe after they have tasted the beers. The preference containing a disease, for example, how you feel should
ips only if people know the beer has vinegar in it before be irrelevant; what matters is what happens to the sick
they taste it, according to a 2006 study by Columbia Uni- people. When choosing between public policies, your
versity Business School professor Leonard Lee and Mas- feelings about the policies are less important than the
sachusetts Institute of Technology researchers Shane effects they will have. But the whole point of deciding
Frederick and Dan Ariely. Thus, what you know or think you what to eat especially when the two items are nutrition-
know about a food will affect how it tastes, and getting ally identical is how you will feel about eating it. B.S.
In another example of this phenomenon, Kah- ly against each other for a third group, the respon-
neman, Sunstein and their colleagues questioned dents were willing to spend vastly more money on
a group of people about how much they would be skin cancer than on dolphins.
willing to donate to a fund to reverse or prevent What is going on here? When people weigh P I E R R E VAU T H E Y C o r b i s / S y g m a
ecological disasters such as the loss of coral reefs saving dolphins against other ecological prob-
and the endangerment of dolphins. Another lems, dolphins rate high (they are so cute and so
group was asked how much they would be willing smart), so people will spend lots of money to save
to pay to a program preventing skin cancer among them. In contrast, skin cancer ranks low in prior-
farm workers. Surprisingly, the researchers found ity on a list of serious health problems, so people
that people were willing to pay the same amount choose to allocate relatively little money for it.
to save dolphins as to prevent skin cancer! But But when dolphins and skin cancer appear on the
when they pitted dolphins and skin cancer direct- same mental screen, people see skin cancer as
True Lies
All of this raises a key question: Do people
actually know what they want? When faced with
a decision, we imagine ourselves rationally con-
sidering our preferences and nding the option
that best satises them. But research on how lan-
guage affects decisions suggests otherwise. In-
stead of possessing preferences and values, we
may simply create them when we are asked to So what do people really think about this tax?
make a decision. And, as we have seen, values Such a seemingly straightforward question is ac-
and preferences can bend under the force of the tually exceedingly difficult to answer. When
questions wording. Thus, it is extremely difcult evaluating almost anything, we are at the mercy
to discern peoples true values and preferences, of its framing or context. We may search in vain
if they even exist. for a neutral way to describe policies and prod-
Think about the public attitude toward the ucts alike, and our failures will have signicant
estate tax a hefty tax on the assets of wealthy effects on decisions of all types. If we are vigilant
people when they die. This is a tax paid by a tiny about monitoring how options are packaged, we
handful of people the most afuent group in might sometimes be able to diagnose framing ef-
the U.S. Yet a majority of Americans oppose it fects and counteract them. But we will never
and support President George W. Bushs efforts catch them all. M
to abolish it. What explains this peculiar public
attitude? Is it that every American expects to be (Further Reading)
rich one day? I dont think so.
Choices, Values, and Frames. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in
When Bush and his allies in Washington
American Psychologist, Vol. 39, No. 4, pages 341350; April 1984.
launched their campaign against the estate tax, The Construction of Preference. P. Slovic in American Psychologist,
they relabeled it the death tax. Think of what Vol. 50, No. 5, pages 364371; May 1995.
this label does. Who pays the death tax? The dead Mental Accounting Matters. R. H. Thaler in Journal of Behavioral
person does. As if dying were not bad enough, the Decision Making, Vol. 12, No. 3, pages 183206; September 1999.
Do Defaults Save Lives? Eric J. Johnson and Daniel Goldstein in Science,
government reaches into the grave to extract its
Vol. 302, pages 13381339; November 21, 2003.
pound of silver. Worse yet, the dead person has Libertarian Paternalism Is Not an Oxymoron. C. R. Sunstein and
JIM FRAZIER Getty Images
already paid taxes on that money, when it was R. H. Thaler in University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 70, No. 4,
originally earned. Now suppose that instead of pages 11591202; Fall 2003.
calling it a death tax, we called it an inheritance Try It, Youll Like It. L. Lee, S. Frederick and D. Ariely in Psychological
Science, Vol. 17, No. 12, pages 10541058; 2006.
tax. Who pays the inheritance tax? The living
Leaky Rationality: How Research on Behavioral Decision Making
do and, unlike the dead, they have never paid Challenges Normative Standards of Rationality. D. J. Keys and
taxes on these assets before. The same tax seems B. Schwartz in Perspectives on Psychological Science, Vol. 2, No. 2,
much more attractive and fair under that label. pages 162180; June 2007.
Meet
Conscious physical sensation and conscious emotional awareness
come together in the right frontal insula
By Sandra Blakeslee and Matthew Blakeslee
D
o you consider yourself to be emo- good touch with your own emotional inner
tionally intelligent? Are you em- world, how would you ever know?
pathic, able to read other peoples Several years ago nine women and eight
feelings even when they try to hide or swal- men came to Hugo Critchleys laboratory
low them? Or do friends rib you about at the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience
your social cluelessness? Do people see you at University College London to explore
as spiritually grounded, emotionally bal- their level of emotional sensitivity. Critch-
anced, a rock? Or do they say youre re- ley, an expert on brain mapping who is
pressed, tactless, juvenile? If you werent in now at the University of Sussex in England,
was interested in the relation between emo-
Excerpted from The Body Has a Mind of Its Own: How Body Maps in Your tional intelligence and a brain function
Brain Help You Do (Almost) Everything Better, by Sandra Blakeslee and called interoceptionyour ability to read
Matthew Blakeslee. Copyright 2007 by Sandra Blakeslee and Matthew
Blakeslee. Published by arrangement with Random House, an imprint of and interpret sensations arising from with-
Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. in your own body.
3>>
AITCH Getty Images
This phenomenon of interoception your ability to read repeats these sequences, sometimes in sync,
and interpret sensations arising from within your own sometimes not. Can you tell the difference?
body is essential to fundamental features of being human: Four of Critchleys subjects were supremely
sentiment, sentience and emotional awareness. condent about when the pulse was synchronous
or asynchronous with their heart. They could feel
and musculoskeletal system so that you can move systems. If someone pinches your arm, the pres-
about and interact with objects and people. You sure and pain will be represented in your pri-
have distinct bers in your spinal cord that carry mary touch map. But the pain will be rerepre-
such information in both directions: up from sented in your insula. Why is pain from one pinch
your body to your sensory maps and back down mapped in two places? Because your insular
from your motor maps to your muscles. maps serve a different function from your pri-
Interoception is a separate realm of somatic mary touch and motor maps. They are the com-
sensation that is oriented inward. It has two mand center for homeostatic self-regulation. For
sources. The rst is the internally mapped state example, to run your bodys thermostat proper-
of your body. Bring your attention to the sensa- ly to keep your body temperature constant
tions these maps are generating in you right at your brain needs to know not just about your
INSULA
core temperature but also about air touching your body and put your internal sensations in
your skin. Pain in your muscles, lungs and joints context.
is important for marshaling your bodys resourc- And as Critchleys results imply, interocep-
es during exertion, but so are sensations of strain tion does far more for you than just letting you
and movement and resistance in your joints and know you are hungry or exhausted or sexually
skin. So the primary brain maps for homeostatic sated. It is also a crucial ingredient in some of the
signals from your body surface about itch, most important aspects of human beingness: sen-
sharp pain, dull pain, burning pain, tickle, sen- timent, sentience and emotional awareness.
sual touch, heat and cold as well as the sensa-
tions arising from your bodys interior, are The Sting of a Bee and of a Rebuke
mapped in your insula, not in your primary touch Your interoceptive maps are a souped-up ver-
cortex. You use these feelings less to deal with sion of neural circuitry that had already become
the outside world than to seek balance within highly advanced in the primate line. In lower ver-
tebrates a frog, say sensory information is in-
tegrated in the primitive base of the brain. These
(The Authors)
animals do not have a cortex, the mantle of high-
SANDRA BLAKESLEE is a regular contributor to the New York Times who er thought and awareness. So a frogs vision, for
L U C Y R E A D I N G - I K K A N DA
specializes in the brain sciences. She has co-written several books, includ- example, is extremely primitive and robotic in
ing Phantoms in the Brain (William Morrow and Company, 1998), with function. It is keyed to buglike motions made by
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, and On Intelligence (Times Books, 2004), small, dark, dotlike objects. When the frog
with Jeff Hawkins. She is the third generation in a family of science writers. sees such a stimulus, a targeted tongue attack
MATTHEW BLAKESLEE is a freelance science writer in Los Angeles and reex is triggered. This is just about the only way
represents the fourth generation of Blakeslee science writers. the frog has to visually identify its food. When a
1>> There has been a sharp jump over the past decade in
the number of school shootings worldwide excluding
gang-related incidents that were intended to kill at least two
signs of such deadly thoughts, as opposed to
harmless daydreaming, can enable parents, teach-
ers, social workers and other trusted adults to
people or a school ofcial. head off trouble before it begins. We have recent-
ly developed strategies for identifying youths at
Seeds of Violence
Total 1,437
50
Number of Homicides by Youths Ages 518 at School
40
34 34 33
32
30 29 28 28
20 21
18 19
16
13 11
10
0
1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
S O U R C E : U N I V E R S I T Y O F A R K A N S A S S C H O O L V I O L E N C E R E S O U R C E C E N T E R , 1 9 97
was a way to right past wrongs done to his fam-
ily. In a videotaped statement, the young man
angrily recounts his father slapping his mother,
Causes of Death in Youths along with him and his sister, on the head, back
and rear hitting at the camera as he speaks to it.
It is not clear to what extent the abuse was real,
Probability that a youth age 5 to 19 will die every year from: but Castillo seemed to believe it was reason
enough to kill.
Any cause 1 in 3,000 Even so, Castillo wanted to be known as more
Trafc accident 1 in 8,000 than a father killer. Near the end of his nal vid-
eo segment, he announced: Its time to teach
Homicide, away from school 1 in 21,000
history a lesson. That is where the school shoot-
Suicide, away from school 1 in 28,000 ing came in. Castillo wanted to be remembered
Cancer 1 in 33,000 as a shooter in the tradition of Harris and Kle-
Accidental drowning 1 in 73,000 bold. Just before the teenager was taken away
from the school grounds in a police car, he yelled
Accidental fall 1 in 390,000
out to the cameras, Columbine! Remember Col-
AIDS 1 in 420,000 umbine! Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold!
Act of nature, including lightning 1 in 780,000 For their part, Harris and Klebold seemed to
Homicide at school 1 in 1,700,000 have had more sinister motivations, with fanta-
sies of malevolent grandeur that Katz categoriz-
A
long with helping troubled youth, schools must
also shield their students and faculty from young
people who may pose a threat. The best protec-
tion is a good game plan. School ofcials should set up
an emergency le with local police that describes how to
respond to threats within the school.
The instructions would provide guidance on how to
handle perceived threats, say, when a student has drawn
a picture of himself perpetrating a massacre. They would
specify the questions a teacher should ask the student
about the drawing and who to call from psychiatrists to
rearms experts for a professional evaluation of the
potential threat, if one exists.
During an attack, the emergency blueprint would
state what to tell police over the phone, which school
personnel to notify, how to cope with the press and how
to avoid becoming a target. For instance, instead of run-
ning outside, security experts say it is safer to stay put
and shut all doors and windows, closing off access to the
room and to you.
Despite the appearance of protection, monitoring cam-
eras and metal detectors cannot prevent carefully planned
school shootings. Shooters have typically entered schools
with weapons at the ready; the detectors did not stop
them. On the other hand, images from monitoring cameras
at Columbine were later found on the hard drives of copy-
cats, serving as inspiration. Robert Steinhauser, a 19-year-
old expelled student who shot 16 people in a German
school in 2002, saved one of the images under the le
name vista! Cameras and metal detectors also promote
Metal detectors and scanners do not stop school shooters;
a sense of danger in a place that ought to feel safe.
they do, however, promote a sense of danger in a place that
Schools are, in fact, safe. Though terrifying, homi- ought to feel safe.
cides of any kind at school are exceedingly rare. Out of
roughly 54 million children in grades K through 12 who lion. Kids are 50 to 80 times more likely to be killed out-
attend school in the U.S., only 21 students were killed side school than inside it. And they stand a far greater
on school grounds in 2005. Thus, that year the chances chance of dying in a trafc accident than being murdered
of being murdered in school were about one in two mil- at all [see box on opposite page]. F.J.R.
es as primordial evil. In their diaries, pub- hedonism, and in a note police found in his room
lished in July 2006, they painted themselves as he condemned rich kids, perhaps suggesting
gods who wished to be feared, not loved. One that his murders were an attempt to get back at
year before the killings, Klebold wrote in his privileged people. In another video, he hinted
school yearbook, My wrath . . . will be god- that he would become a martyr akin to Jesus
like. As gods, Klebold and Harris felt they Christ, musings that echo the grander fantasies
stood above society and were beyond its con- of Klebold and Harris.
NA JLAH FEANNY Corbis
W
money to strangers they nd on the Internet By Christoph Uhlhaas
Playing Fair
Economists have long been studying volun-
teers in the laboratory to determine how and why
they make nancial decisions. In competitive
markets, from the U.S. Stock Exchange to auc-
single-mindedly strives for maximum prot. Ac- tions at Sothebys, people generally act like Homo
cording to this notion, sellers should pocket buy- economicus, behaving in ways that maximize
ers payments and send nothing in return. For their own prots.
their part, buyers should not trust sellers and But inherent selshness cannot explain behav-
the market should collapse. ior in other settings. Take a child who has been
Economist Axel Ockenfels of the University given a bag of jelly beans, which her left-out sib-
of Cologne in Germany and his colleagues have ling is eyeing jealously. Many children would vol-
spent the past several years guring out why this untarily share the candy just to be fair, even
does not happen. It turns out that humans do not though that would mean fewer jelly beans for
always behave as if their sole concern is their per- them. Mathematicians who practice game theory
G E T T Y I M AG E S
sonal nancial advantage and even when they see something similar when they ask people to
do, they consider social motives in the prot- bargain in a test of social motives called the Ulti-
making equation [see The Samaritan Paradox, matum Game. In this two-player game, player A
by Ernst Fehr and Suzann-Viola Renninger; Sci- is endowed with a certain sum, say, $20, if he
Arbiters of Fairness
A N D J . D. C O H E N , I N T R E N D S I N C O G N I T I V E S C I E N C E S , VO L . 10, N O. 3 ; 2 0 0 6 . C O U R T E SY O F L E I G H N Y S T R O M A N D A L A N S A N F E Y
E
conomic decision making has its place in the
brain, where two different regions may com-
pete for supremacy in guiding a persons ac-
ceptance or rejection of unfair offers. Cognitive
neuroscientists Jonathan D. Cohen of Princeton
University and Alan G. Sanfey, now at the Univer-
sity of Arizona, and their colleagues used function-
al magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to detect
changes in neural activity in the brains of 19 sub-
jects as they played the Ultimatum Game. Unfair
offers, they found, spurred much greater activity in
the anterior insula part of the brains limbic sys-
tem associated with disgust and other negative
emotions than fair offers did. And the more unjust
the offer, the greater the anterior insula activity.
Commotion in the anterior insula also corre-
lated with rejection, as the participants who
showed strong activation in this region in response
to skewed offers rebuffed more of those offers
than people whose anterior insula responded When a person gets an unfair offer in the Ulti-
more weakly to the same unequal splits. Rejection matum game, three areas of that persons brain
of unfair deals was also strongly tied to the degree become particularly active: the dorsolateral
of anterior insula activity relative to that of the dor- prefrontal cortex (large orange area, brain on
solateral prefrontal cortex, a frontal brain region left), the anterior cingulate (central orange area,
involved in planning, reasoning and, probably, both brains), and the anterior insula (two lower
maximizing profits, the researchers reported orange areas, brain on right). When the emo-
tional anterior insula is more active than the
in 2003. Thus, these two brain regions may be at
rational dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, unfair
war in the Ultimatum Game and on other occa- Ultimatum offers tend to be rejected. When
sions when decision making spurs a duel in the the regions relative activation levels are re-
mind between the emotional goal of resisting un- versed, these offers tend to be accepted. The
fairness and the cognitive ambition to amass anterior cingulate gears up to resolve the con-
wealth. C.U. ict between the two warring regions.
T
o probe what motivates the trust To further test whether fairness er receives an extra $70 regardless of
displayed by buyers and sellers governs trust, the researchers con- the transaction. As predicted, very
on eBay, researchers at the Uni- structed an Asymmetric Trust Game few sellers (only 7 percent) shipped,
versity of Cologne in Germany and in which the outcomes are equal when solidifying the idea that fairness mo-
Pennsylvania State University devel- no shipping occurs, because the buy- tivates trust in such an exchange.
oped two games. The rst, the Basic
Trust Game, mimics eBay. A seller
BASIC TRUST GAME
and a buyer each start off with the
same sum: $35; additionally the sell-
Doesnt buy B Keeps $35
er has an item for sale at $35. The
S Keeps $35
cost of shipping (paid here by the sell-
er) is $20. The items value to the Buyer (B) Ships B Keeps $50
buyer is $50. So a trade at $35 nets S Keeps $50
each participant $15 in value. But if Seller (S)
the buyer sends in $35 and the seller Buys B Keeps $0
fails to ship the item, the seller ends Doesnt ship S Keeps $70
up with $70 and the buyer gets noth-
ing. If the buyer chooses not to take
this risk, no trade occurs. ASYMMETRIC TRUST GAME
In a recent study, 37 percent of
volunteers were willing to ship, sug- Doesnt buy B Keeps $105
gesting that some sellers were moti- S Keeps $35
vated by fairness, because outcomes Buyer (B) Ships B Keeps $120
are equal if they ship; 27 percent of
S Keeps $50
buyers had bet on that fairness and
Seller (S)
were thus willing to buy. (On eBay, a Buys B Keeps $70
feedback system boosts trustand S Keeps $70
Doesnt ship
shippingto much higher levels.)
S O U R C E : T R U S T A M O N G I N T E R N E T T R A D E R S : A B E H AV I O R A L E C O N O M I C S A P P R O AC H ,
B Y G . E . B O LT O N , E . K AT O K A N D A . O C K E N F E L S , I N A N A LY S E & K R I T I K , V O L . 2 6 ; 2 0 0 4 .
often hopelessly confounded by circumstance, cuniary incentive to actually ship the items they
Ockenfels says. When he and Bolton asked peo- have sold.
ple to compete for their $20 certicates in ex- To gure out why they ship anyway, Ocken-
perimental eBay auctions with one seller and fels, Bolton and Penn State business professor
nine buyers each, they found that the selling Elena Katok asked 144 university students to
price zoomed above $19, a far cry from the equal play a trust game that mimics the situation
split that pervaded the previous one-on-one on eBay. In the game, a seller and a buyer each
game. Homo economicus trumped fairness in start off with the same sum, say, $35; that is the
the auction, because a fair player has no way to payoff when no trade takes place. The seller also
strive for equity in a situation in which each per- has an item to be sold for $35, but its value to the
son must overbid the others to get anything at buyer is $50, so a trade nets the buyer an extra
all. In markets, all people behave selshly, but $15. The seller pays the shipping costs here, $20,
that doesnt mean they really are, Ockenfels so a trade also nets the seller an additional $15.
comments. The institutions make you behave But if the seller fails to ship an item, the seller
in certain ways. receives a $35 bonus and the buyer loses the en-
tire endowment. If the buyer chooses not to take
Building Trust
In the researchers experimental auction,
(The Author)
trust was not a factor, because the (presumably
trustworthy) experimenters vouched for the $20 CHRISTOPH UHLHAAS is a philosopher who studied at the University of
certicates. Yet trust is a critical issue on eBay, in Cologne in Germany. After many years on eBay, he believes that his fellow
which sellers are anonymous and have little pe- dealers play fair.
A recent study of The Bidders Curse on online auctions: ping for transactions without the reputation sys-
www.econ.berkeley.edu/~ulrike/Papers/ebay15.pdf tem: these hovered around 39 percent. The results
indicate that feedback can ll the trust gap in a revised format, Feedback 2.0, debuted April 30.
market such as eBays, multiplying the impact of It lets buyers rate transaction specics such as
intrinsic trustworthiness. accuracy of an items description, seller commu-
But the feedback system is imperfect. About nication and shipping speed, in addition to the
98 percent of ratings on eBay are positive, ac- overall rating of positive, neutral or negative.
cording to Ockenfels, suggesting that some dis- The extra detail increases the feedbacks val-
appointed eBay buyers do not post negative ue to future buyers. And to help allay worries of
ratings. Buyers may fear revenge feedback, retaliatory feedback, buyers give their ratings
when a seller retaliates for a bad rating with a anonymously. Furthermore, sellers can see the
negative rating of the buyer, claiming that the detailed ratings only after providing feedback of
buyer paid late or with a bad check, for instance. their own, preventing retaliatory feedback even
Indeed, in Ockenfelss experiments, many of if the seller later intuits which buyer posted a
those who are not happy with a trade do not give poor evaluation. What the new system cannot
feedback at all. prevent, however, is one-time cheaters. Buying a
This lack of feedback is obviously not good car or plane online is still pretty risky.
for the reputation system. So Ockenfels and Ockenfels is not about to do that. He visits
Bolton, along with economist Ben Greiner, now eBay only occasionally, to buy things for his two
at Harvard University, have been working with children. And if you notice an auction with
eBay to design choices that induce people to post aockenfels as the seller, you have probably
E B AY
Forgetting Faces
By Thomas Grueter
O
nce, in broad daylight, Bill Choisser encountered
his mother on a sidewalk in a local shopping
district. He walked toward her and passed her
within two feet. He said nothing as he ambled
by an omission for which his mother has never forgiven him,
or so he writes in his online book, Face Blind! Choisser meant
no ill will toward his mother, however; he simply did not rec-
ognize the woman who raised him.
Many people have trouble remembering names. Choisser
cannot remember faces, a condition known as prosopagnosia.
People like Choisser can see faces, but they cannot keep in mind
what particular people look like. The fact that all visages con-
tain basic features such as a nose, mouth and eyes makes every
face appear essentially the same to them, like so many stones
paving a gravel driveway. As a result, features hold just about
G E T T Y I M AG E S
R
esearchers at the University of California,
Los Angeles, identified somewhat dis- Percent
persed brain areas involved in face recog- Overlap
nition by matching up the regions of damage
documented from patients with acquired prosop- 80
agnosia, an inability to remember faces because
of brain injury or disease. The purple and dark
blue regions indicate the greatest overlap in the 60
patients lesions, followed by light blue, green
and yellow. The sections of high overlap sites
that were damaged in the most patients very 40
likely play an essential role in face recognition.
Indeed, some of those areas coincide with re-
gions activated in imaging experiments that 20
probe face processing; these activity hot spots
include the fusiform face area (black symbols),
the occipital face area (red symbols) and the su-
0
perior temporal sulcus (purple symbol).
Until very recently, such selective face blind- ceptual quirk resides in 2 to 3 percent of people.
ness was thought to be extremely rare, with per- If this is true, up to six million prosopagnosics
haps 100 documented cases worldwide and reside in the U.S. alone. Many of them do not
most of them people who had acquired the condi- realize that their perception is abnormal, be-
tion as a result of head trauma, stroke or brain cause they have always been this way perhaps
disease. In the past few years, however, my wife, explaining why the disorder has gone unrecog-
Martina Grueter, and I, along with her col- nized for so long. Prosopagnosia also seems to
S O U R C E : B E H AV I O R A L D E F I C I T S A N D C O R T I C A L DA M AG E L O C I I N C E R E B R A L AC H R O M AT O P S I A ,
leagues at the Institute of Genetics in Muenster, run in families, as our recent work shows, and
Germany, have revealed that a surprising number may be caused by a change in a single gene.
of people are born with prosopagnosia. Given the importance of faces in human in-
Our surveys, along with those conducted by teractions, a difculty in perceiving them can be
Encourage affected children to look at peoples faces when Are You My Mother?
they are socializing. This practice not only makes others more A tendency to pay attention to faces is present
comfortable but also helps kids with prosopagnosia read in- from birth, but such perception does not com-
formation the face conveys such as health, age and mood. pletely mature until the teenage years. Neverthe-
Introduce potential playmates slowly, pointing out character- less, we assumed that the effects of an inherited
istic features such as freckles, tall stature or an unusually disorder would show up early. So last year my
high-pitched voice. When referring to other children, link their wife and I, now at the University of Vienna, be-
names to an obvious physical trait. For example, say, Please gan investigating the impact of prosopagnosia on
take the book to Katie with the red hair. children by interviewing the mothers of boys and
Expose children with face blindness to their school and teach- girls diagnosed with the condition.
er before the rst day of classes to ease the transition when As babies and toddlers, the mothers told us,
school starts. such children tend to be unusually anxious when-
Teachers should try to keep their appearance as stable as pos- ever their mother leaves the room and often ob-
sible during the rst days of school refraining from swapping ject when their grandparents pick them up. Al-
accessories or eyeglasses, for example. though wariness of strangers is normal in an
Play introduction games that involve talking to help children eight- to 12-month-old child, this apprehension
with prosopagnosia memorize other childrens voices in lieu seems to linger much longer in children with
of their faces. prosopagnosia. It was torture for me whenever
Post photographs of classmates and friends, along with their the toddler group got together, one mother re-
names, on a wall to facilitate recognition. called. All the other children played happily to-
gether except for Stephanie, who sat anxiously
on my lap and refused to get involved. Because
indication that they frequently nd themselves in she could not reliably recognize her mother,
this predicament); or often tried to avoid people Stephanie feared that she would not be able to
in public places. Because of the awkwardness of nd her mother again if she separated from her.
being unable to recognize someone who knows As with other children who are face blind,
you, face-blind individuals will often try to steer Stephanie required a long time to get used to the
clear of chance encounters by, say, crossing the playgroup and to be able to recognize individual
street or pretending to talk on a cell phone when playmates. In many cases we heard about, a tod-
they see someone approaching. dler had been unable to tell whom he or she had
Most of those we interviewed, however, played or fought with half an hour earlier. The
showed no abnormalities. (A number of them were mothers also noted that their face-blind children
simply shy.) But 17 or 2.5 percent of the 689 stu- would often become irritated when their mom
dents surveyed met our criteria for prosopagno- changed her hairstyle or wrapped her head in a
sia. We then interviewed the close relatives of the towel after bathing. Any such variation can dis-
14 affected pupils who agreed to participate, and rupt the childs tenuous memory of the mothers
we discovered that every one of their families con- appearance and thus make her more difcult to
tained other members with prosopagnosia. recognize.
Our results, which we reported in 2006 in the The difficulties continue into elementary
American Journal of Medical Genetics, suggest school. It took Anna half a year to warm up to
that if a parent displays this perceptual weak- the other kids, one mother told us. Her teacher
ness, a child stands a 50 percent chance of exhib- complained that Anna seemed unfocused in class
iting it, too. An alteration in a single dominant because her gaze wandered. But Anna did well in
gene could account for this pattern of transmis- school, and she explained that she could follow
sion; only one copy of such a gene from a moth- the teacher better if she did not have to look at
er or father is required to transmit the trait. anyone.
By then, we were not the only ones hot on the The disorder can cause logistical problems
trail of face blindness. In a 2006 Harvard press for kids, too. One mother, who is also affected,
release Nakayama and Duchaine reported sur- recalled a time in grade school when she mistak-
enly went to the wrong classroom after the room More widespread understanding of the condi-
had been reassigned. Because she could not tell tion could ease much of this awkwardness. It also
that the other children in the room were not her could have important practical payoffs. Screening
usual classmates, she remained in the wrong eyewitnesses slated to testify in court for prosop-
room until the teacher arrived and informed her agnosia could be benecial, for example.
of her mistake. Meanwhile researchers are actively searching
for the prosopagnosia gene. Finding this genetic
Teeth and Shoes quirk would not only advance the biological un-
There are as yet no therapeutic solutions for derstanding of face perception but also enable
prosopagnosia. Still, children with the decit can doctors to diagnose the condition in very young
be taught other ways to recognize people (among children. And the earlier children can be prop-
other coping techniques) [see box on opposite erly identied as face blind, the better the chanc-
page]. These include memorizing what people es that these kids will get the help they need to
wear and how they style their hair, as well as their happily nd their way in the world. M
gait and their speech patterns. By age 14, affected
individuals have typically come up with such tac- (Further Reading)
tics on their own. One dentist told us she identi-
Behavioral Decits and Cortical Damage Loci in Cerebral Achromatop-
es people by looking at their teeth when they are
sia. S. E. Bouvier and S. A. Engel in Cerebral Cortex, Vol. 16, No. 2, pages
smiling. Another prosopagnosic eyes mens shoes 183191; February 2006 (published online April 27, 2005).
on the assumption that men own very few pairs. First Report of Prevalence of Non-Syndromic Hereditary Prosopagnosia
Of course, such crutches do not work as well (HPA). Ingo Kennerknecht, Thomas Grueter, Brigitte Welling, Sebastian
G E H I R N & G E I S T/ M A N F R E D Z E N T S C H
as a fully functioning face-recognition system. Wentzek, Juergen Horst, Steve Edwards and Martina Grueter in American
Journal of Medical Genetics, Part A, Vol. 140, No. 15, pages 16171622;
Thus, the decit is persistently disabling, often in
2006.
the most embarrassing ways. I was having a Prosopagnosia in Biographies and Autobiographies. Thomas Grueter
wonderful conversation with a woman at a party, and Martina Grueter in Perception, Vol. 36, No. 2, pages 299301; 2007.
but then I went to get us some drinks, one young Learn more about what it is like to be face blind at www.choisser.com/
man sheepishly recalled. When I returned, I had faceblind/
A link to the prosopagnosia research centers at Harvard University and
forgotten what she looked like, and I was unable
University College London: www.faceblind.org
to find her the rest of evening. She mustve Research papers on prosopagnosia can be found at
thought I was a complete idiot! http://neurodiversity.com/prosopagnosia.htm
Why
What causes so many
students to squander
their future?
We
By Yvonne Raley
L O R I A DA M S K I P E E K G e t t y I m a g e s ( p h o t o g r a p h ) ; S O U R C E : U . S . C E N S U S B U R E A U ( d a t a )
abruptly dropped out of college and never went those with only a high school diploma [see box
on opposite page].
Researchers have long tried to identify the
causes of the alarmingly high college drop-out
Education Pays rates. Now many educators believe that most stu-
dents who leave without nishing have failed to
A college graduate may earn close to double what a high make a successful transition from high school to
school graduate takes home in a year. And earnings for full- college because of a poor t with the institution
time workers ages 18 and older continue to rise with educa- the individual has chosen. Numerous factors play
tion level. into this t, including a students values and fam-
ily background, academic self-condence and
Degree Average Annual Income skills, and social and extracurricular preferenc-
(2005 dollars)
es. When a disconnect occurs, as in Dianas case,
a student may feel lost almost immediately: most
Doctoral $113,687
college dropouts, whether from public or private
Professional $141,941 schools, leave by the end of their freshman year.
Masters $84,685 Given the variety of obstacles over which a
rst-year student may stumble, no one can afford
Bachelors $67,495
to assume that any young person, no matter how
Associate $47,060 academically gifted, is certain to succeed in col-
High school $37,031 lege. Rather students, parents and educators alike
No high $26,879 need to anticipate possible problems and take
school diploma steps to prevent them. For example, students need
books students will encounter in their freshman Individuals who immerse themselves in clubs
year. And incoming students who lack basic or activities early in the year are also more likely
math, reading or writing skills should seek rst- to develop a sense of belonging at college. And
semester classes that fill those gaps. Also, all taking at least some small classes can offer a
C H U C K S AVAG E C o r b i s ( p h o t o g r a p h ) ; AC T I N S T I T U T I O N A L DATA F I L E , 2 0 0 6 ( d a t a )
freshmen would be wise to take a study skills valuable opportunity to interact with professors.
course if their school offers one. Such courses can In my classes, which average 10 to 20 students, I
help students manage their time, take good notes make a point of getting to know each student.
and focus on the most important content of a lec- Meanwhile ties to the childhood home and
ture or textbook, among other habits that will family remain important, even as students try to
help them survive the next four years. move on. Parents should stay involved with their
But academic preparation is only part of the children and ask them about their grades, friend-
battle, if you believe Tinto. Feeling comfortable ships, activities and overall happiness. When-
at college depends as much on an institutions ever practical, parents should visit their son or
social milieu as on having read Hemingway or daughter at college to help make school feel
passed geometry. Before picking a college, stu- more like home. M
dents should consider, for example, whether they
would ourish best in a big school or a small one, (Further Reading)
in a religious or secular environment, in the
country or a city, or in a single-sex or coed col- Leaving College: Rethinking the Causes and Cures of Student Attrition.
Second edition. Vincent Tinto. University of Chicago Press, 1993.
lege. Students must carefully research and visit
The Role of Academic and Non-academic Factors in Improving College
institutions and attend open houses, summer ori-
Retention. Veronica A. Lotkowski, Steven B. Robbins and Richard J.
entation sessions and prospective student recep- Noeth. ACT Policy Report, 2004.
tions. They should use these occasions to ask College Student Retention: Formula for Student Success. Edited by Alan
questions about the school and meet other stu- Seidman. American Council on Education and Praeger Publishers, 2005.
dents and professors. The Early College High School Initiative: www.earlycolleges.org
Can Antidepressants
Cause Suicide?
The truth about antidepressants and suicide risk in children and adolescents
BY HAL ARKOWITZ AND SCOTT O. LILIENFELD
THE QUESTION POSED in the title of In 2006 psychiatrist Tarek A. as compared with those on placebo.
this column may strike many readers Hammad and his associates at the U.S. No completed suicides occurred dur-
as odd. How can medications that Food and Drug Administration pub- ing any of the studies reviewed. A
have proved helpful in reducing de- lished a meta-analysis (quantitative 2007 meta-analysis by psychologist
pression also cause suicide? After all, review) of studies involving a large Jeffrey Bridge of Ohio State University
suicide is a tragic complication of some number of children and adolescents and colleagues at several institutions
cases of depression. Yet research and taking antidepressants for depression, included additional studies and con-
clinical observations over the past 40 anxiety disorders and attention-decit rmed these results, although the per-
years have raised concerns that these hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Their centages for suicidality were slightly
drugs produce suicidal thoughts, sui- results demonstrated that subjects on lower.
cide attempts and possibly even sui- antidepressant medications had twice These ndings point to the drugs
cide in a small subset of depressed pa- the risk (4 versus 2 percent) of suicid- as the cause of the increased suicidal-
tients. What are the risks? ality (suicidal thoughts and attempts) ity rather than depression.
C O U R T E S Y O F H A L A R KO W I T Z ( t o p ) ; C O U R T E S Y O F S C O T T O . L I L I E N F E L D ( b o t t o m ) ;
VICTOR HABBICK VISIONS SPL/Photo Researchers, Inc. (left)
w w w. s c i a m m i n d .c o m
20 07 SCIENTIFIC AMERIC AN, INC.
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND 81
(facts & ctions in mental health)
these medications and hidden or dis-
guised their risks for more than 40
years. Others have vigorously chal-
lenged his conclusions.
Pharmaceutical makers have fund-
ed most drug trials to date, creating a
potential conict of interest for inves-
tigators and leading to the increased
likelihood of an experimenter expec-
tancy effect. This effect occurs when
researchers expect certain results in
this case, that antidepressants are safe
and effective and unintentionally in-
uence the study design or analyses to
nd these results. Although double-
blind procedures (in which neither the
patient nor the research staff knows
whether the patient is receiving an ac-
tive medication or a dummy pill) can
provide some protection against this
bias, often controversy exists with re-
spect to how well these procedures are
implemented in medication studies.
It is also relevant that a major study
funded by the National Institute of
Mental Health found higher suicidal-
ity rates than those obtained in studies
funded by drug companies. Moreover,
many drug companies have provided
ghostwriters to write up drug trials for
publication, potentially biasing the
document by slanting its descriptions
toward favorable drug effects. Finally,
there have been reported instances (for
example, the recent scandal regarding
the drug Vioxx) in which pharmaceu-
tical companies have hidden negative
evidence. Although this type of non-
so and that they gradually taper off the 2004 sales of commonly prescribed disclosure has not been clearly demon-
drug rather than going cold turkey. classes of antidepressants (including strated for antidepressants, it remains
Stopping antidepressants abruptly can selective serotonin reuptake inhibi- a disturbing possibility.
trigger an array of distressing symp- tors, or SSRIs) in the U.S. alone In response to these concerns, the
toms, including dizziness, nausea, reached $10.9 billion. Clearly, phar- International Committee of Medical
headache, fatigue, anxiety, irritability maceutical companies have a large Journal Editors (ICMJE) has recently
and sadness, to name just a few. stake in these drugs. David Healy, required that authors submitting pa-
a psychiatrist and former secretary pers must disclose all nancial and
Conicts of Interest? of the British Association for Psy- personal relationships that might bias
V I C T O R I A B L AC K I E G e t t y I m a g e s
The controversy regarding antide- chopharmacology, has argued that their work, state whether potential
pressants and suicidality has both sci- some drugmakers have often pub- conflicts exist, identify individuals
entic and economic dimensions. In lished biased results of studies on who provided writing assistance, and
Mind Reads
making tool we have at our disposal. For example, most people subcon- Melinda Wenner
C O U R T E S Y O F M A R K A . W. A N D R E W S ( t o p ) ; R O N L O N G S i m o n Fr a s e r U n i v e r s i t y ( b o t t o m )
a signicant difference between these Rich Dobrow, to each and every stimulus appropri-
feelings. Pleasure and happiness are Barnegat, N.J. ately, but attention can be focused on
passive emotions that happen to us as Psychologist Barry L. only one activity at a time. This small
the result of outside stimuli. Satisfac- Beyerstein of Simon window of awareness we call con-
tion, on the other hand, involves an Fraser University in sciousness highlights, for our volun-
active pursuit it is the emotional re- Burnaby, British Colum- tary supervision and response, only a
ward we get after adapting to a new bia, replies: small fraction of the many operations
situation or solving a novel problem. THE ANSWER depends on how you de- that are churning away simultaneous-
Studies have found that novelty is im- ne thought. If a thought is the per- ly in our brain.
portant in evoking satisfaction, which ception or operation that you are cur- Neuroscientists see the brain as a
helps to explain why, even though all rently aware of at any specic moment, collection of many specialized, semi-
Sudoku puzzles are similar, solving it does seem that we can attend to only autonomous modules that work in
each one of them instills a sense of one mental process at once. Psycholo- parallel. Each does its particular job
accomplishment. gists often describe this selective unnoticed, behind the scenes. When a
MRI scans indicate that a satis- attention as functioning like a spot- module completes a task, it moves to
faction center exists deep within the light that roves about a stage, illumi- center stage for a short moment, grabs
brain in a group of structures called nating one (and only one) actor at a the so-called executive part of con-
the limbic system, which is best known time. Yet if the denition of thought sciousness and displays the fruits of its
as the seat of emotions and motiva- is broadened to include the many other unattended labors to our window of
tion. Specically, satisfaction is most mental operations going on in parallel subjective awareness. M
strongly associated with a structure with the one you happen to be attend-
called the striatum, which is activated ing to, it follows that we can be think- Have a question? Send it to
by stimuli associated with reward. ing more than one thought at a time. editors@sciammind.com
Head Games
Match wits with the Mensa puzzlers
Nobody was seen writing this Each of the boxes below contains the scrambled name of an element in
1 cryptic note. Who wrote it?
7
the periodic table, with one letter missing. Find the names of all six
elements and write down the missing letters. Then take those six letters, add
GH Z L RS G BCD
one more letter, and rearrange them to get the common (not Latin) name of
H KLM U GH R FGH A K D KL YZ M
a seventh element.
Each letter stands for a differ- I C U S E C R E M
2 ent digit. Determine their values L A C R A N R Y C
to solve the subtraction problem.
ANTE ETNA = NEAT P O Y O N E O I L
R K N R I M N I C
What four-letter word is the
3 common link among these The three international weather symbols shown here represent specic
ve objects?
8 types of the following:
g) C _ _ A _ _ R Could be a weapon
N 2 + 1 is divisible by 3
h) C _ A R _ _ _ _ Special magnetic appeal
N 3 + 1 is divisible by 4
N 4 + 1 is divisible by 5 i) _ _ _ C A R _ Some of the eyes have it