The Brain and the Beauty of Rebellion
By Ivy Xerxes Glossopharyngeal March 19, 2011 Well, today the moon is closest it is to the earth in 15 years. It's going to be huge. I can feel my arms growing, my face is protruding. AAAAAAAWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOO! And Warren Zevon is rolling through my brain. Crazy things happen under the full moon at night. Spooky things. Individual hauntings - the yearning for other human contact as protection. But crazier things happen when humans aren't alone at night under a full moon. They happen when a group of humans embrace something absurd and feed off each other. Social cognition is a concept to describe how our brain is functioning during group behavior compared to individualistic behavior. In other words, different parts of our brain are working when we are hanging out with other people than when we are by ourselves. Just remember all the insane fashion trends like bell bottoms or big hair and you know what I'm talking about. Actually, remember any fashion trend from human history, period.
Groupthink has been increasingly of interest to scientists because of the ability for people nowadays to interact easily with so many at once. Contact with other humans is increasing for everyone. Since the invention of the telephone and the industrial revolution – people have moved towards cities. According to the United Nations report in 2007, over half the world’s population now lives in cities and they expect about 70% by the year 2030. In 1800 only 3% lived in urban areas. It was 12% by 1900 and 30% by 1950. So now it is interesting to consider how people will act after imbibing information online. On top of urban areas growing, if we think about the old sociological tenant of seven degrees of separation (or Kevin Bacon), where anyone in the world can be linked to anyone else through seven people, we can imagine this to be shrinking due to ability to communicate with each other online. Obviously, a person in Botswana is more closely linked to someone in Siberia than 20 years ago. This opens the door for more types of collective behavior through groupthink and social cognition. It is natural for humans to act as a group, but the ease with which it happens can be astonishing. We’ve all seen it – mosh pits at concerts, a video going viral, the wave at a baseball game. |
These examples of collective behavior are harmless. The fact that 50,000 people would be at a game or concert in the first place is evidence of groupthink. But most behavior is socially constructive. We are social beings. We are not polar bears roaming through the arctic that would be shocked to see another polar bear around outside mating season. We thrive off each other.
When I think of an isolated person, I think of Ted Kaczynski in a cabin in Montana sending off letter bombs. And I'd imagine that a sane person would just turn as wild as Robinson Crusoe without other human contact. Some people are more introverted than others, but we just aren't built for absolute total isolation. But groupthink can turn ludicrous at times. And a study in mass hysteria can illuminate just how vulnerable we are as a species to information we perceive as true or valid. One of the examples people bring up is the War of the Worlds radio broadcast. Or the Salem witch trials. But both of these are not necessarily ludicrous Mass Hysteria, because those ladies in Salem may have indeed been witches. Who knows? And what are you supposed to do when someone is talking about invasions of Martians over the radio? Not to mention you live in New Jersey on top of it. You get the hell out of New Jersey.
These types of behavior can be facilitated by a simple rumor. A rumor that was unfounded occurred in Hawaii after WWII. Some islanders believed that the Japanese had won the war and were soon going to show up on the island and force them to acquiesce to the emperor’s bidding. This persisted for many years after the war. This would be unlikely to happen today because of the Internet would squash these rumors. However, if the information on the Internet is controlled, it could pervade a rumor that is believed on a much greater scale. The War of the Worlds example is the best one to indicate the power of these persuasive rumors through a new medium. Radio was just starting when the mass hysteria was caused by Orson Wells’ broadcast. A similar rumor could be instigated through the Internet today, or a more devious plot could be hatched for one’s own interests by manipulating the information in this manner.
One aspect of the witch-hunts in the middle ages is intriguing. The sincere belief in witches resulted in many nuns succumbing to the idea that they were indeed witches, which caused them to have fit of hysterics. The nuns most likely did not want to be burned at the stake. However, their incorrect (or maybe correct) notion that they were indeed a witch, caused so much pressure that they acted hysterical, an act that surely attracted the glare of many a witch hunter, and resulted in the punishment of being burned at the stake. The power of hysterics can override the own person’s overwhelming fear of death.
If these witches existed today, psychiatrists would claim they had Conversion Disorder. Conversion Disorder is when someone becomes slightly insane when they are sane and Somatoform disorder is when someone who is physically fine has signs of sickness. For instance in North Carolina in the late 90s, 10 girls spontaneously developed seizures. Upon analysis of their EEG activity in the brain, they did not exhibit typical activity that occurs in epileptic patients. It was soon discovered that they did not have seizures at all but were unconsciously imitating two students in the school who were epileptic. The girls thought they were having seizures, but they were not. This is an example of classic mass hysteria.
However, I should mention that today political correctness does not allow for the use of the term Mass Hysteria. Terms in use are Collective Obsessive Disorder. Mass Somatization Disorder. Mass Psychogenic Illness. The reason for outlawing the word hysteria today is because of the gender bias. The word hysteria was used to describe psychosomatic or psychiatric symptoms that woman experienced with no understood cause. Hysteria was thought to be exclusively a disease suffered by females. The root of the word is ‘the womb’. And it was thought that stifling or suffocation of the womb caused the bouts of hysteria. Now we know that males are just as susceptible.
Symptoms of Psychogenic illness or somatoform disorder are typically but not limited to malaise, nausea, headaches, abdominal pain. Other physical symptoms can occur such as laughter. Or in the case of the 1518 Dancing Plague – dancing. Sporadic dancing plagues happened throughout the middle ages. But the most documented one was in 1518. Several sources from the times describe people in Western Germany and Eastern France dancing through towns mindlessly. They were unable to control themselves until they fell down of exhaustion and foamed at the mouth. Some of them danced to their death. Apparently, how it started was that a single woman began dancing in the streets in Strasbourg. Eventually she had gained 30 followers. The numbers increased and the dancing became more fevered and out of control. People stopped eating or drinking and started to die of too much dancing. And even lying on the ground, exhausted, their feet and legs would still move as if they couldn’t get enough dancing.
Another instance was the Tanganyika laughter epidemic in 1962 in Tanzania. It wasn’t just mindless laughter of people throughout the country. People would double over in excruciatingly painful bouts of laughter intermittently before the epidemic finally subsided 18 months later. Everyone was fine again as if the previous 18 months never happened. There was no known cause to the laughter fits and it has been listed as a case of mass hysteria.
Mass hysteria today takes the form of people reacting to fear of bioterrorism. People will show up in the emergency room complaining of dizziness or suffocation. And the doctor will treat them and look for a problem but there will be no problem to be found. Mainly, the problem is in the person’s head. This is when the brain believes something so intensely that it causes physical manifestation of their belief.
More recently, the Coca Cola scare in Belgium in 1999 followed the crises when dioxins were found in beef. People were primed for mass hysteria. A couple people became ill after drinking Coke and then once the news hit, hundreds of people were carted to hospitals claiming abdominal pain and headaches after drinking Coke. It turned out no toxins were in the soft drink. They were simply drinking Coke. It wasn’t even laced with cocaine. The Belgian government called it ‘Mass Sociogenic Illness.’
Similarly in Portugal, a massively popular teenage soap opera called Morangos com Açúcar, (Strawberries with Sugar) that is still on the air as of this writing, ran a series of episodes where a virus was released in the show’s fictional high school. The symptomsdownThey the teenage characters came down with were nausea and rash. Suddenly a few days after it aired a spate of students across the country, about 300, said that they came down with a sickness. They thought they had rashes. Everyone complained of nausea. Many were convinced it was the result of a virus. But it was discovered that no one was sick. 14 school closures happened as a result. The interesting thing was that it occurred during final exams. The Portuguese Government simply called it ‘Mass Hysteria.
Scientists believe that in the case of the teenage girls having seizures in North Cdownarolina and the students coming down sick after the Strawberry with Sugar episode are examples of Willful Gain. Willful Gain is the notion that a person unconsciously exhibits somatization or conversion disorder or becomes part of an episode of mass hysteria because they might somehow benefit from it.
However, teenagers trying to get out of tests, even subconsciously, seems relatively harmless. This phenomena is more horrifying when we see the cruelty inflicted by one person on to another in war or another part of a group. He doesn’t want to hurt the person but he feels like other people in the group would ostracize him if he didn’t. Willful gain is a large contributor to group behavior.
Studies on the brain in cases of mass hysteria are revealing. Some brain imaging studies have been done on people with somatoization disorder and conversion disorder to try and understand where the activity lies. It appears that similarly to social cognition, the Amygdala is active. However, the limbic system is also active when people have somatization disorder, indicating that the subcortical structures normally the domain of base desires are dominating the brain. The limbic system is a primitive structure that encompasses the large majority of the brain in other species. Higher cortical activity is believe to be the domain of our higher thinking and processing and activity in this area was repressed during somatization and conversion disorders. This may explain the unconscious notion of someone having a seizure or someone complaining of stomach cramps or rash when they don’t really have them. They do not think they are faking the symptoms deliberately. And they are not.
Also recently, it has been discovered that when people are hypnotized the activity in their brain resides in the medial frontal cortex, the other area that is active during social cognition. The fact that hypnotism and group behavior activate the same area of the brain is telling. Hypnotism is the ultimate relinquish of ones self to hierarchical control.
Jean Marie Charcot, a charismatic and controversial brain researcher in France in the late 19th century believed in the power of hypnotism and hysteria. He showed that it worked on many of his students. He could induce them into hysterics at his will. Historians simply believe it was the force of his personality and charisma that led him to believe this. This is likely true, and his focus on women may have been for his own particular selfish aims, but it is now obvious that hysteria is a reality.
In studies of ‘social cognition,' when people are engaged in group behavior, brain imaging reveals that the medial frontal cortex is also the most active, just like it is during instances of mass hysteria. This area of the cortex is adjacent to and receives input from the amygdala and limbic system.
Brain researchers have shown that the amygdala is important for fear processing. If half of the amygdala is damaged, we cannot recognize people’s facial expressions when they are angry. If your significant other walks in front of you, you will still know who it is, but you would not be able to tell when she had an angry expression on her face.
Interestingly, in damage to the amygdala, people also become hypersexual and display irrational behavior. They will recklessly gamble. Researchers conducted a series of experiments where people with amygdala damage gambled on cards and numbers – one gambling option was risky but could result in big pay offs. One option was guaranteed to win although it took longer. After playing for a while, it was obvious to a normal person which way would guarantee the player to win. However, people with damage to the amygdala continued to attempt to get the big payoff and lost. They had no switch in their brain for them to be sensible. They had no fear of losing all their money.
Some researchers believe one of the facilitators of group behavior is fear. People do things for other people and do what the group wants without rocking the boat because they are afraid to rock the boat for fear of repercussion from the group. Without the amygdala, you are no longer controlled by fear. And emotions closely related to fear are anger and hate and insecurity.
Hope is directly opposed to fear. It has been observed in brain images that when people are hopeful, this emotion is processed at higher cortical levels. Fear is the most powerful emotion that institutes group behavior and eliminates individual behavior. And hope is the most powerful emotion that results in individual behavior. Hope is intertwined with creativity. But fear is not the only reason that people display group behavior. People seem to enjoy going to rock concerts and sports. Without the fear and filled with hope. These are group behaviors that can inspire hope and future individual thought. And the revolutions in the middle east did the same thing, overcoming group behavior forced by fear and embracing hope.
In studies of damage to the amygdala and medial frontal cortex, the basic flight or fight signals from the lower levels of brain processing are unable to reach the cortex. So, although people are unable to recognize fear, they are unable to process it at higher cortical levels. They are entirely reliant on hope. Hopefulness that the next time their big gamble will payoff, that the person will have sex with them, that their reckless behavior will relinquish some reward. If we are overcome with fear, we will always submit to the group. However, if we process that fear, and are not beholden to it, it seems we can harness hope.
As brain imaging has revealed during group behavior and facial recognition studies, these two emotions are intertwined with our hierarchal social organization as a species. Even an organism with a brain as simple as the ant’s organizes its species according to hierarchical control. Is it no wonder then that humans, with their higher cortical power and capability for hope engage in rebellion and revolution as a way for the species to progress, and conceive original ideas and move past the stifling and ironclad control of hierarchical authority. We must remember that groupthink does not always arise through a disorder or hypnotism. It is a natural human process, but the instances of heightened mass behavior can give us a window to what could occur on a massive scale in the information age. On Labor Day weekend in 2007, a riot broke out in Pacific Beach in San Diego. Some dudes set up a slip and slide next to a keg of beer, which was fun to watch. Apparently this was against beach rules. The police patrol vehicles on the beach migrated over. Beach patrol isn’t necessarily the city police, but they do have authority to enforce rules such as ‘no slip and slides on the beach.’ Eventually a fight ensued and the entire police were called in. Thousands of people were rioting, turning over beach patrol vehicles and throwing beer at cops. It was the impetus that finally caused the city council to finally ban alcohol on beaches in San Diego. Although this behavior was certainly alcohol induced, the real underlying cause was being part of the group, the fear of being left out or not being there for your friends.
In Denver, after the Broncos won the Superbowl in the late 90s, there was the story of a one person that liked to cause riots downtown. |
He would find a group of guys celebrating, bumping their chests and howling like dogs and suggest ‘hey, why don’t you throw that brick through that window’. They didn’t resist long, as they were in a heightened state of mind already. And once the brick shattered the window, everyone within earshot began to completely destroy the area. This is the neural kickback. Suddenly these people are working in the domain of the limbic system and the medial frontal cortex without higher brain processing. People become raving maniacs and start rioting. The mob becomes the brain. And suddenly, each person in the mob is one brain cell. They have essentially released control of their 10 trillion brain cells and relegated it to one.
That is how mass hysteria or group behavior is started – with an imaginative creative thought by one person that many other people adopt. If someone can maintain higher thought in the mob, they can manipulate the mob to serve their own interests through the use of fear.
whole, butIn the bureaucratic world, the group philosophy can morph into something that is detrimental to the group and society as a whole, but because of the policies of the bureaucracies, we cannot evolve quickly. And we all end up filling out TPS reports for Bill Lumbergh.
Today, information is only repressed in certain areas of the world. We no longer have to deal with spies listening to what we say aloud or in contact with us, because we can say it online. But authoritarian control is still prevalent in many parts of the world. The Internet induced opposition to the Iranian election results was an example of the new wave of revolution. The supporters of the reelected president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed that the election was fair and the protesters were misled by the Western media and information on the Internet. The Western media was claimed the election was rigged. The protestors took to the street and the clash with the police of the authoritarian state became violent. In Egypt and Libya, the government had to shut down internet access because they believed it was inciting the revolutions. In Libya, Gaddafi went so far as to call them 'greasy rats.'
However, the manipulation of that information as it pertains to actual events, and the group behavior in response to the information becomes a concern. Mainly because we are evolutionarily wired as a species to engage in social behavior. At the moment it seems that information is ultimately democratic and can filter out the BS.
But studies on Mass Hysteria reaffirm that we may all be experiencing mass hysteria together and not know it. Everyone in the world could obviously not know what is real or true if our minds are this susceptible.
And then there is subtle manipulations that we are aware of now. We aren't getting straight up ads on TV like back in the day. For instance, I go on cnn.com occasionally to read the news, but I get distracted by all the other random tidbits they have on the site. Sometimes it will be a list of top 10 movie villains, a story about Jessica Simpson’s love life or other random entertainment news. Last year I was sidetracked by a list of the top 80s high school flicks and noticed that the movie Say Anything… was mentioned. It also happened to be mentioned in a seemingly unrelated article about love scenes on people.com and ew.com, two sites linked to cnn.com. And it also happened to be that the 20th anniversary blue-ray disc and DVD were about to be on sale. And let’s say I might be someone who loves high school movies from the 80s, and miraculously, never saw this movie or you really wanted to see it again after reading these articles. So I was called into action by reading about it in the manner and got the movie. I probably would have bought the movie if I just saw it on a commercial in the old school fashion. So this wasn't any different but it just seems more manipulative and less trustworthy.
Is it possible that cnn.com had a deal with 20th century Fox to continually mention the movie to improve sales of the DVD release, or because of the release and the 20th anniversary, it just happened to be on the minds of the writers of those articles? Does this even matter to me? Why would I care? Either way, whether it happened organically or was some nefarious corporate collusion indicates just how like-minded we can become if our information isn’t disseminated and variegated and more enriched, which is pretty harmless when you think about it in terms of buying a movie, but less harmless in terms of governments and politics.
So forget about the usual modes of conflict: the information about these conflicts is the real issue.
Although the globalization of information is new, and its not sure how this will respond as it evolves, studies in the past can give us clues. It can be wonderful like the Beatles in Shea stadium in 1965.
Or it can be absolutely detrimental, like Jonestown, 1978. The instances in human history of a group of people being led to their demise by a deranged sociopath are numerous. Because within the group is how we make our living. So thank God for people like the Beatles.
The moment that the person feels manipulated against their soul is the moment they become relegated to 1 brain cell within the group brain. And in today's culture we are more aware because we can access all sides of the story. We are more sensitive to this so we ‘Live Free or Die.’ Because the technology is awesome and can inspire hope and fuel creativity.
Some other examples of groupthink normally discussed about in relation to ancient societies show us just how far we can go - the mass gluttony of the ancient Greece and the orgies of Rome, the Visigoths drinking the blood of virgins in insane rituals where they rip off the head and quench their thirst from the skulls, sacrifices at the Aztec temple. These were not hysterics, but actual parts of the culture. It is possible they may have started as mass hysteria and then been incorporated by everyone in the culture. Modern mass hysteria is normally not as enticing. We think about a slew of hypochondriacs at the hospital because they saw that the bioterror threat level went up. However, with the ability for ideas to spread globally, we will likely see more instances in the future. Hopefullly, we won’t come to believe that offering sacrifices of virgins at the top of temples will appease the gods.
Many fantastic things have been created as our communication has increased. Hopefully this continues and we won’t be victims of our own zeitgeist.
What we do know is that if everyone is up in arms about something – there's money in it.
Well, it's time to go, I need a beer.
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