Working memory and morality

Sorry I've been away for so long! Lots of things going on, but I figured I'd get in a post today since it's been some two weeks.

I want to share the results of a study that hopefully connects another puzzle piece: People with higher working memory make more balanced moral decisions.

Working memory is the kind of memory you use when solving a math problem in your head: it's like a blackboard, where you temporarily keep facts and figures that you'll need to reason through or solve immediate problems. It's also strongly correlated with well-accepted measures of fluid intelligence -- the ability to learn new things. So why should that relate to making moral decisions?

Well, as the authors point out:

Previous studies have suggested that moral dilemmas can evoke strong emotions in people and tend to override thoughtful deliberation and reasoning.

However, a new neuroimaging research has shown that sometimes people are capable of voluntarily suppressing these emotional reactions, allowing for decisions based on reasoning and careful deliberation of the consequences of one’s actions.

This latter skill (voluntary control of emotion) is precisely the kind of training that one develops in certain kinds of meditation -- some of which have also been implicated in improving working memory itself. We'll delve into that another time, but it's an interesting point to ponder for those who may not have made the connection before.

In their conclusions, the authors note:

“This suggests that emotional reactions to moral issues can drive our judgments and motivate action but can also blind us to the consequences of our decisions in some cases.”

This sounds like an extremely relevant piece in the Sotomayor controversy: I would bet that the definition the Republican party uses when questioning the utility of "empathy" on the judicial bench reflects the supposition that empathy must involve emotional expressions which can lead to ill-founded biases. When properly executed, however, the effects should be something more akin to those described in the article:

Researchers found that in such emotion laden scenarios, people with high working memory capacity were not only more consistent in their judgments but their answers indicated that they were considering the consequences of their choices in a way that the other participants were not.

Leaving aside the definition of empathy, the above sounds like a skill we can all agree is valuable.

As an added bonus in this post, I'd like to make a quick offshoot to cognitive psychology: how can one train working memory, seeing as it's at the core of both intelligence and empathy?

Well, there was a big brouhaha last year about a task called the "dual n-back" task. The science is solid (there have even been good neuroscience followups on its effects), and the best implementation I've found so far is here:

www.soakyourhead.com

It's hard, but the evidence suggests it's well worth the effort. Both for your raw intelligence and for the well-being of those around you :)

Where's my jet pack?

Again I have the good fortune of a piece that lays the groundwork for me. I came across it the other day, and the title ("Where's my jetpack?" -- at least that was the name of the link from the homepage) immediately gave me hope that it might be relevant.

Why? Well, here in Silicon Valley, the Twitters and Zazzles and Floobles (I made that last one up... I think) are a dime a dozen. You can almost drown in the tech Kool-Aid here, so overpowering is the reek of desperation for shiny gadgets to fix all of our problems.

The other day, I came across the abstract of a talk purporting that Thorium reactors were the answer to all of our energy problems. I don't know much about Thorium reactors, but if human history is any indication of its future -- and it is -- then it's probably not a solution in the sense one might hope. Yes, it might help us rid ourselves of fossil fuel dependency and the environmental pillaging that goes with it, but you can be sure we're going to find new and clever ways of depleting it as fast as we can.

So anyway, back to the article. I quickly scanned and pulled out two key quotes. First:

"Scientists are OK at predicting what technology is going to happen in the future," Wilson says. "They're really bad at predicting how it's going to affect us."

It's a relatively recent finding that humans are incredibly inept at estimating how well they'll feel after a particular event or in some circumstance. This topic ("affective forecasting") is much more than another intellectual curiosity. Its relevance should be immediately obvious: how are we supposed to decide what to do with our lives if we can't even predict how the outcomes will feel to us?

As it is, it's hard enough to predict both how long you'll feel happy and how happy you'll be after experiencing something as simple and common as your favorite football team winning a game. How much sense, then, does it make to believe you know how much you'll improve the life of someone across the world when your website that (pick something... anything) launches? Hint: none.

The second quote basically summarizes the point of the article and this post:

"At some point, you can't expect a miracle to come in the form of technology to save us," Verheiden says. "At some point, the miracle has to come from a change in attitude and a new outlook."

It seems like a much more viable solution to start from the ground up. First find out what it is that makes people's lives subjectively better. There's already plenty of research out there (which we'll explore), and the amount of data is constantly growing. Don't assume you already know the answer, because our intuition for these things is incredibly faulty.

Then, if technology turns out to be the right answer, go for it! But I suspect it'll be some time before an improvement in Internet bandwidth is actually the lowest hanging fruit for improving lives.

Because it's a form of intelligence

The title of this post is one obvious answer to the question "why empathy?"

It's been a little while (okay, a week) since I last posted, and the topic is one I've already covered at length, so I'll keep it short before moving onto some stuff I consider even more interesting.

I just stumbled upon this piece on CNN about a woman who was convinced her husband was a Rockefeller. Well, it turns out a more accurate term than "Rockefeller" is porbably "psychopath." In her own words:

"The defendant (note: her ex-husband) was often very unpleasant -- lack of empathy, anger, control issues, absolutely. I'm not a psychologist, but he was hard to live with ... I saw behavior that made me think that he wasn't at all well, yes,"

There's quite a bit of literature on the topic of deceitful marriages that sound incredibly similar to her own story. One point that needs to be driven home is that it doesn't just happen to morons. Even smart people get taken in:

[His defense attorney] asked how a successful businesswoman who was educated at Stanford and Harvard universities could fall for an impostor who called himself Clark Rockefeller.

"There's a big difference between intellectual intelligence and emotional intelligence," Boss explained. "I'm not saying I made a very good choice of a husband. It's obvious I had a pretty big blind spot."

I've often asked myself the same question: how is it even remotely possible that an intelligent person could be unable to detect something so striking as an incapability for empathy in a potential spouse? It reminds me of those common articles titled something like "10 Things You And Your Spouse Should Discuss Before Marriage." They're often filled with questions about finances and where you want to live, and miss the big one: what is he really like? What's going on in that noggin'?

Besides the common use of empathy in helping other people, it's a pretty critical piece in helping oneself. There are simply fewer surprises when you have a mental model of what drives other people.

Another quickie

Woo! As I was chatting with a buddy about how "his" sports team (I never found out which sport it was) was going to beat "mine," I fortuitously stumbled upon this xkcd comic, which is more amusing than what I would have written.

Fun facts

I don't have time for a long post today, so I'd like to use the few minutes I have to share some fun tidbits I've come across in my research.

I'd like to cover some of the topics from this wonderful article about The Forgiveness Instinct later, but for now I'll quote a piece that I find telling as a dog lover:

Chimps kiss and make up in the same way people do. Chimpanzees aren’t the slightest bit unique in this respect. Other great apes, such as the bonobo and the mountain gorilla, also reconcile. And it gets more interesting still, for reconciliation isn’t even limited to primates. Goats, sheep, dolphins, and hyenas all tend to reconcile after conflicts (rubbing horns, flippers, and fur are common elements of these species’ conciliatory gestures). Of the half-dozen or so non-primates that have been studied, only domestic cats have failed to demonstrate a conciliatory tendency. (If you own a cat, this probably comes as no surprise).

On a tangentially related note, I've been wondering: could it be the case that certain breeds of dog (American pit bull terriers come to mind) who are prone to unpredictable attacks (even on their owners) are displaying a trait similar to psychopathy? Or is a separate mechanism at work? Is there any relationship between the two? Might be interesting to investigate later...

This second piece almost makes you respect our fearful cousins, Pan Troglodytes: chimpanzees are vengeful but not spiteful. That is, they will retaliate if specifically harmed, but display no particular antipathy to merely personally disadvantageous scenarios. Leave that one to us.

Jensen said such spitefulness "is the evil twin of altruism." Just as an empathetic person may help someone even when the only reward is feeling good about the charitable act, a spiteful individual could hurt another even when the only reward is enjoying, or gaining satisfaction from, the other's suffering.

This also touches on the concepts of schadenfreude (delight in another's suffering) and its opposite, "mudita" (Sanskrit). The fact that English doesn't have a single word to describe the concept of empathetic joy is perhaps telling, and hopefully I'll get around to writing about the relationship between language and emotion some other time.

Columbine revisited

I wasn't planning to post today, but I came across this insightful piece about the Columbine shootings. I'm way late to the party, but Dave Cullen is an incredible writer, and he does a much better job explaining this stuff than I'm able to, so I'd like to share it.

Everyone probably remembers the horrific story of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the two "school shooters" whose names were etched into my memory as a high schooler. But I had never been aware of the true story of the tragedy, one that is much more complex than the media led me to believe.

I'll leave the details of their intended exploits for you to read, but I do want to highlight a few sections. The first point is that while Klebold was apparently indeed "just" an angry young man, all clues point to Harris being a psychopath. Take note of the last parenthesized section in particular:

Diagnosing Harris as a psychopath represents neither a legal defense, nor a moral excuse. But it illuminates a great deal about the thought process that drove him to mass murder.
...
It begins to explain Harris' unbelievably callous behavior: his ability to shoot his classmates, then stop to taunt them while they writhed in pain, then finish them off. Because psychopaths are guided by such a different thought process than non-psychopathic humans, we tend to find their behavior inexplicable. But they're actually much easier to predict than the rest of us once you understand them. Psychopaths follow much stricter behavior patterns than the rest of us because they are unfettered by conscience, living solely for their own aggrandizement. (The difference is so striking that Fuselier trains hostage negotiators to identify psychopaths during a standoff, and immediately reverse tactics if they think they're facing one. It's like flipping a switch between two alternate brain-mechanisms.)

Lest you worry that "empathy" is merely a touchy-feely word used to usher in the Age of Aquarius, here we have a poignant example of where the ability to understand another's viewpoint serves a vital purpose.

What else does it suggest? If the current views on psychopathy are correct, then the shellacking Harris' parents surely received -- presumably for being lousy role models -- is exceptionally cruel. Imagine living an honest life, having earned several meritorious service and commendation medals in the USAF. You spend 18 years trying to impart some wisdom unto your progeny, and your first reward is a particularly clever son:

Klebold and Harris had avoided prosecution for [a] robbery by participating in a "diversion program" that involved counseling and community service. Both killers feigned regret to obtain an early release, but Harris had relished the opportunity to perform. He wrote an ingratiating letter to his victim offering empathy, rather than just apologies. Fuselier remembers that it was packed with statements like Jeez, I understand now how you feel and I understand what this did to you.

"But he wrote that strictly for effect," Fuselier said. "That was complete manipulation. At almost the exact same time, he wrote down his real feelings in his journal: 'Isn't America supposed to be the land of the free? How come, if I'm free, I can't deprive a stupid f---ing dumbshit from his possessions if he leaves them sitting in the front seat of his f---ing van out in plain sight and in the middle of f---ing nowhere on a Frif---ingday night. NATURAL SELECTION. F---er should be shot.' "

After discovering the inconceivable nightmare he has wrought, your next prize is 85% of Americans blaming you and lawsuits up the wazoo. Oh well; at least you can rest soundly at night, knowing that the vast majority of your peers are holier than thou.

As for Klebold, well, who knows what might have happened had he not been drawn into that lethal partnership? There are plenty of angry, depressed teenagers with gentler destinies.

The psychiatrists can't help speculating what might have happened if Columbine had never happened. Klebold, they agree, would never have pulled off Columbine without Harris. He might have gotten caught for some petty crime, gotten help in the process, and conceivably could have gone on to live a normal life.

Eric, a lost soul whose neurons could never hope to orchestrate the symphony of intimacy so many of us take for granted. Dylan, who couldn't be rescued from his own pain despite a glimmer of hope: he had blamed himself for his problems. And their parents, who we can only hope were left with enough sanity and courage to carry on, without the support their fellow countrymen couldn't see they both needed and deserved.

If I were more clever, perhaps I could have motivated a tidier conclusion. Maybe some hints about who to blame and who to absolve. Instead, I can only manage to gape in awe at the intricate weave of causes and conditions shimmering just under the surface.

A shocking experience

You've probably heard of the famous Stanley Milgram "shock experiment," in which participants were instructed to deliver a series of increasingly painful electrical shocks to an unseen (but clearly heard) subject, with voltages increasing to an incredible 450 volts. As the voltage increased, the subject (who was actually an actor and not really receiving the shocks) banged on the wall, confessed he had a heart condition, and eventually went silent.

As for the results, you're probably aware of some, but I'd like to highlight some of the lesser-known details.

• 65% of the 40 participants complied to the very end, although every last one of them paused and questioned the experiment.

• Only one participant refused before the 300 volt level.

• None of the 35% who stopped before the end insisted that the experiment be cancelled, nor left to check on the health of the victim without getting explicit permission.

65% is a pretty surprising number, but subsequent replications seem to bear it out. Milgram polled 14 Yale psychology major seniors as to what they believed the percentage would be; they guessed on average 1.2%. Given that people tend to believe that they are more ethically responsible than their peers, we can guess that fewer than 1.2% of such students believed that they themselves would complete the gruesome task.

So where's the disconnect? One hypothesis was that the actor wasn't sufficiently convincing, and that the participants knew it was fake. Despite the extreme duress witnessed in the subjects, one research group decided to test out the hypothesis -- by using real shocks on a real puppy.

The results? All 13 female participants delivered the final zap (although apparently, many were very distraught and some cried openly), as did 7 of the 13 men. Shocking, indeed.

But I'm curious: although the results have been consistent across replications over time, must it always be this way? To that end, I'd like to point out one of the more inspiring outcomes of the study:

84 percent of former participants surveyed later said they were "glad" or "very glad" to have participated, 15 percent chose neutral responses (92% of all former participants responding). Many later wrote expressing thanks. Milgram repeatedly received offers of assistance and requests to join his staff from former participants.

Okay, so first of all, we can probably assume that the original 40 participants would behave differently if "tested" again. We might even suspect that people who are merely familiar with the outcome of the experiment would have a lower compliance rate (indeed, researchers replicating the experiment are always very careful to select subjects who aren't aware of the original study).

But how well does this generalize? Does knowledge of the dangers revealed by this experiment give people moral fortitude in other stressful situations? It seems to have in at least one case:

Six years later (at the height of the Vietnam War), one of the participants in the experiment sent correspondence to Milgram, explaining why he was glad to have participated despite the stress:

"While I was a subject in 1964, though I believed that I was hurting someone, I was totally unaware of why I was doing so. Few people ever realize when they are acting according to their own beliefs and when they are meekly submitting to authority… To permit myself to be drafted with the understanding that I am submitting to authority's demand to do something very wrong would make me frightened of myself… I am fully prepared to go to jail if I am not granted Conscientious Objector status. Indeed, it is the only course I could take to be faithful to what I believe. My only hope is that members of my board act equally according to their conscience…"

What about people who haven't taken part in (or even heard of) this experiment? What other sorts of experiences equip one with the presence of mind to act in accordance with their beliefs under duress?

It's not always possible (or even ethical) to insert people into intense situations that can so deeply ingrain the courage alluded to above; a gentler, more gradual approach would be preferable.

We've already seen that only a small percentage of people -- so-called psychopaths -- are (apparently) completely lacking in empathy. If "the rest of us" could just figure out how to ensure that our existing decency cannot be so easily subverted, we just may be onto something.

There will always be Hitlers, but perhaps there won't always be conscripts ripe for the picking. Stay tuned for an exploration of how such a fantasy may one day come to pass...

(Note: all the above data and quotes are from the Wikipedia article on the Milgram experiment)