Chapter Content
Okay, here we go.
So, who are we, right? You know, it's funny, I was reading this book the other day, it's called "This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch." And it's by this author, Tabitha Carvan, who is, like, completely obsessed with Benedict Cumberbatch. Like, *really* into him. But the book, well, it's more about, like, that joy of just being super passionate about something, you know? Like, letting it totally consume you.
My friend Rebecca, who's also a neuroscientist – a brilliant one, actually – gave me the book. Now, I gotta be honest, before reading it, I really didn't get the whole Benedict Cumberbatch thing. I mean, I wouldn't have called him, like, a total heartthrob or anything. I'd never even seen "Sherlock," the show that, like, made him famous and started this whole fandom. And, if I'm being really honest, I thought he was, well, kind of plain looking, with his, uh, uniquely shaped face. But, after reading this whole book about him, I went online and, you know, I had another look. And I could *kinda* see it, I guess, but I wasn't, like, totally sold.
Then, the next morning, I was out for a run with a friend – it was one of those perfect summer mornings – and I mentioned the book. And she *stopped dead* in her tracks. "Oh yeah!" she says, her face completely lighting up. Turns out, she's a *huge* fan, just like Tabitha. So, I'm thinking, "Okay, what am I missing here?"
That night, after the kids were in bed, I told my partner, Brett, that I wanted to watch "Sherlock." And he'd already seen the whole series! He said he'd watch it again with me, though, which was nice. And, as he was making a salad, I asked him, like, "Okay, so, what's the deal with Cumberbatch?" And he just says, "Well, Sherlock *is* a hot character."
And you know what? As we watched the first episode, I started to see it. I began to find Sherlock's, like, competence and attention to detail, surprisingly charming. But what *really* got me was watching some of his interviews online. There's this one where he's asked about being named, like, the "hottest person this summer," and he just laughs and says, "It just makes me giggle." And another where he's joking about how he mispronounced "penguins" – yeah, "penguins!" – when he was narrating some nature documentary.
So, in just a few weeks, I went from not really thinking much about him to, well, kind of agreeing with everyone else: he's, like, attractive! But it made me wonder, you know, how could the opinion of some author, or some random people in a magazine, change how *I* feel about him? I mean, these are people I'll probably never even meet!
And that’s when I was like, hold on, this is *exactly* the kind of thing I study. As a neuroscientist, I'm fascinated by how what other people think – or, more accurately, what *we think* other people think – changes our own opinions and actions. Basically, how our brain figures out if something is socially relevant and how that shapes what we value.
So, there's this study that was done a while back where researchers showed women pictures of other women's faces. They asked the volunteers to rate the attractiveness of each face. Then, they told them what other people *supposedly* thought of the same faces. And then, after that, they asked them to rate the faces *again*. They wanted to see if the volunteers would change their ratings based on what they were told other people thought.
Now, here’s the clever part: the "other people's" ratings were totally made up by a computer. So, any changes in the volunteers' ratings were purely due to social influence, not, like, some objective measure of attractiveness.
And what they found was pretty amazing. It turned out that our brain's value system not only notices when our opinions are different from everyone else's, but it also tries to, like, bring us back into sync. When the volunteers learned that their views differed from the group, there was a dip in activity in their brain's value system. It was like an alarm going off, signaling that they were out of step.
And it turned out that if the brain responded really strongly in that way, they were way more likely to change their rating of the face. Peer feedback triggered the same kind of prediction errors that help us learn from our own experience.
But did they actually *change* their minds? Or were they just pretending to agree? Well, another study scanned people's brains *while* they were making their second ratings. And it turned out that both their ratings *and* the activity in their value systems actually matched the "peer" ratings. They weren't just conforming; their underlying value calculations were being updated by what other people thought.
Like, think about it, going back to the Cumberbatch example, when I was watching "Sherlock," my friend wasn't there, the author of the book wasn't there. And nothing about Cumberbatch's face had changed, but I was like, "Yeah, okay, I see it." And this study helps explain why, right? Our ideas about what our peers think – or, social relevance – influence what we see as beautiful or valuable.
And since then, other neuroscientists have found that this applies to all sorts of things, not just attractiveness. From what foods we want to eat to what art we like, what we *think* other people think guides our judgments.
So, we often think that if we change what we're doing because of what other people think, that it’s somehow inauthentic. But all this research suggests that that is just not true. When we pay attention to what other people think and do, it can change not only our outward behavior but also our own value calculations, our beliefs, and, honestly, who we *are*.
Our brain's social relevance system helps us figure out what others think and feel. And that can change what we value and find enticing. This, of course, includes my, uh, brief obsession with Benedict Cumberbatch and whether to watch "Sherlock." But it also influences things like whether to vote, pay taxes, or even exercise. Drawing attention to what other people think and feel can be a really powerful way to change our own decision-making and that of others. But, of course, for any of this to work, we need to actually *know* what others are thinking in the first place, right?
You know, when my kids were little, we used to play this game called "You Read My Mind." You stare into someone's eyes and ask, "What am I thinking about?" And they guess. "Are you thinking about unicorns?" And if they're wrong, you give them a hint. "No, not unicorns, but something related to unicorns." And then they try again. "Fairies?!" And if they're right, you shout, "You read my mind!"
Most of us play a version of this game *all the time*, every time we interact with someone. Our brains are constantly making predictions about what the other person is thinking and feeling. We're basing it on our past experiences, things we know about that specific person, their facial expressions, the situation. It's like our brains are running a constant simulation of what's going on in their head.
Scientists call this "mentalizing" or "theory of mind." And, like, my friend Rebecca, the one who gave me the Cumberbatch book? She's one of the world's leading experts on the neuroscience of this whole area. She's identified specific regions in the brain that are involved in these processes, which she calls the "social relevance system."
So how do we know what parts of the brain help us think about thoughts and feelings? In one experiment, Rebecca and her colleague looked at what happened in people's brains when they thought about what others might think and feel, compared to other types of thinking. So they read stories that made them think about other people’s thoughts and feelings.
Like, for example, what do you think when you hear this story? “A boy is making a papier-mâché project for his art class. He spends hours ripping newspaper into even strips. Then he goes out to buy flour. His mother comes home and throws all the newspaper strips away.”
The story itself doesn't say whether the kid cared that his mother threw the materials for his project away. But you probably have a pretty good idea that the boy might feel upset. And you probably have a guess about what he'll do next.
Now consider this story: “A pot of water was left on low heat yesterday in case anybody wanted tea. The pot stayed on the heat all night. Nobody did drink tea, but this morning, the water was gone.” This story is similar to the one about the boy, in that it prompts you to make an automatic inference. For example, perhaps you spontaneously inferred that the heat made the water evaporate.
Thinking about other people's thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, like in the first story, uniquely activated a region of the brain that sits just behind and above your ears, along with other regions that are part of the social relevance system. But when people thought about things like why there was no water in the pot, these regions stayed relatively quiet. So, it suggests that these areas in the brain specialize in understanding what others are thinking and feeling.
And it turns out, we're not born with this ability fully formed. It develops over time. As kids grow up, their social relevance systems get better and better at making predictions about other people's thoughts and feelings.
For example, they did this experiment with kids. They had young children – three- and four-year-olds – and slightly older kids – six- and seven-year-olds – watch this animated short film called "Partly Cloudy" twice. It's about a cloud who makes baby animals, and a stork who delivers them. The movie has a lot of different emotions in it.
And when the older kids saw "Partly Cloudy" a second time, their brains anticipated what was going to happen next. But for the younger kids, their brain activity stayed basically the same, indicating that they hadn't yet developed the ability to anticipate what was going to happen, socially.
And that’s, like, one of the reasons it's so fun to play "You Read My Mind" with a five-year-old. They're just starting to be able to more accurately decode other people's thoughts and feelings. I love the wonder with which kids shout, "You read my mind!" And I think we should all take a moment to be amazed that we can actually read other people's minds in this way.
Now, our brains are *really* interested in what other people think about us. We want to be liked, respected, and cared for, right? Evolutionary psychologists think that these feelings were super important for survival way back when. I mean, if you were liked, people would help you stay warm, defend you, share food. If you didn't care what people thought, you'd be more likely to get kicked out or left alone, and not survive.
You can see it even today. I remember one time, I was at a happy hour with friends, and someone asked me what music I listened to in high school. I froze! In that moment, memories of judgy high school peers' opinions of my music came to the surface. I loved the Indigo Girls and Dar Williams. But what if revealing my uncool music preferences made my friends at the happy hour think less of me? I mumbled something about the Indigo Girls, and the conversation moved on.
When I got home, I was like, "This is ridiculous! I'm an adult!" Then I started thinking about how often what's seen as cool or normal isn't about an objective standard. Cultural norms and values are shaped by media industries dominated by men.
And so, I decided to make a playlist of all the artists I loved in high school. And I sent it to the happy hour group! It felt, like, absurdly brave.
Like the study participants who judged faces and learned that their tastes were out of sync with their peers, in high school I experienced a negative prediction error when I came to think that some of my friends at the time disapproved of my musical choices, and what my value system learned then stuck with me for decades. Turns out that, just like physical pain, negative social feedback activates an alarm system that motivates us to repair our social ties.
Now, as they responded to my playlist, my social relevance and value systems were updating again. "This is so cool!" wrote one friend. Another made her own playlist. It included many songs I also loved, both in high school and now. I felt amazing. As these responses came in, it created a positive prediction error that made me more likely to share again in the future.
That's because, as it turns out, the brain's value system treats positive social feedback like it treats other tangible rewards, like chocolate and money. Feeling connected to others also releases chemicals in your brain, like opioids. The warm and affectionate feelings we get from being with people we love come from this natural drug. And it motivates us to maintain those relationships.
This helps explain why social rewards can feel so good. Once, I tried to bribe my kid to do his spelling homework with a quarter. And he said, "If I learn all of them, will you make me a certificate with today's date and write 'Good job, Theo!'" A quarter was worth less than proof of my praise.
Social rewards can be a powerful motivator. So, can we use this knowledge to change our behaviors?
When was the last time you really looked at your electricity bill? I bet it shows how much electricity your household uses compared with your neighbors, right? Because just telling me what others are doing can nudge me to change my behavior.
These messages are common now because research has shown that learning about others' behavior can encourage people to conserve. One study surveyed Californians about their energy conservation practices and how much they thought their neighbors conserved. When asked what influenced their energy conservation decisions, the respondents generally rated what others were doing lower than saving money or benefiting society. But when they looked at how much energy people used, people's perceptions of other people's energy use were the best predictor of their behavior.
Based on those results, the research team then ran an experiment where they distributed door hangers promoting energy conservation to households in California. Some of the door hangers highlighted what others were doing, while others simply encouraged saving energy in a more abstract way, or appealed to other motivations. The households that were told about their neighbors’ conservation efforts reduced their consumption by larger amounts than people who received other kinds of messages.
Turns out this use of "social proof" – highlighting what others are doing – proved so effective that many energy providers now include this type of nudge on every bill they send out. If I see that I am using more electricity than others around me, I may be more likely to decrease my own energy use. Highlighting social relevance can make people more likely to do all sorts of things from reusing towels in hotels, to voting, to exercise – even while they remain unaware of how powerfully social influence is affecting their opinions and actions.
Did the participants in these studies really start to see the world differently? Did they really come to attach greater value to conserving resources, voting, and exercising?
My team tested how social norms in people's social networks relate to their value calculations. We scanned the brains of volunteers in Philadelphia while they were coached about getting more exercise. We asked them how active or sedentary their friends were. We wanted to know if people who had more friends who were exercisers would spontaneously infer more social relevance from the coaching messages.
In the lab, we monitored each volunteer’s brain activity while they viewed coaching messages. These messages weren't focused on conveying normative information – they didn’t focus on how others were behaving. Still, we found that the participants’ brain responses were related to how often their friends exercised. People who had a lot of active friends also had value systems that responded more positively to the coaching messages, which in turn predicted who would change their behavior and get more exercise. The people who saw that their friends exercised may have been primed to see more value in the coaching messages suggesting that they get more exercise themselves.
In our daily lives, our behavior change is a combination of intentional messages we receive and the influence of people around us. We can practice becoming more aware of the social influences that contribute to our decision-making, deciding what kinds of influences are best aligned with our goals and cultivating agentic alignment. What do you see people around you doing that you respect, admire, or want to emulate? What do you see people around you doing that you want to challenge or avoid?
We can deliberately create and participate in relationships with other people in support of our goals. At biweekly planning meetings for my lab, each person lays out their goals for the upcoming two weeks, and the rest of the team gives feedback. This has several positive effects. Seeing how others are prioritizing their well-being can make it easier to explicitly build in time for doing it ourselves. To make a task more rewarding – in other words, to dial up social relevance in their value calculation – other team members will offer to do a "work on that thing you don't want to work on time" session (WOTTYDWTWOT). They’ll get together for a set amount of time, give each other support and encouragement, and hold each other accountable. Having another person there tips the value calculation to make it more enjoyable to get started, and committing to doing it together makes it more likely they’ll follow through.
Our brains usually work really well to parse social interactions, but it's also important to recognize when those same systems might be leading us to conform at times when it doesn't serve us, or the world around us.
The Petrified Forest National Park had a problem: Visitors were picking up the fossils and taking them home.
So they installed signs admonishing visitors: “Many past visitors have removed the petrified wood from the park, destroying the natural state of the Petrified Forest.” And when that didn’t work, they called in a team of psychologists who suspected they might actually be part of the problem.
The psychologists conducted an experiment where some visitors saw the park service’s original signs, some saw signs that simply asked people not to steal, and some visitors saw no signs at all. A simple message asking people not to steal reduced theft, compared with no message. But a message highlighting how many other people had already stolen increased theft severalfold. Social relevance can backfire.
We've explored the way our friends can serve as positive role models whose actions and opinions help tip the scales of our value calculations. The same can work in reverse. The influence of social relevance judgments on the value calculation can also have broader societal consequences. For example, a stereotype that women tend to prepare more than men might become self-perpetuating. Stereotypes are created by the social world we live in and tell us social information: “what I think you think.” Ideas about what is socially relevant aren’t universal – but when society expects certain things from one group of people more than another, these stereotypes can become self-perpetuating.
The power of social relevance can also cause people to go along with patently false information. You know the story of the emperor’s new clothes, where everyone agrees that the clothes are beautiful, even though the emperor is naked.
In the 1950s, the psychologist Solomon Asch conducted experiments in which volunteers were shown a line and asked which of three other lines it matched. When asked on their own, it was an easy task. But when asked in the presence of a group of “confederates” who confidently gave an incorrect answer, a third of the volunteers went along with the group. They agreed to an answer that their senses clearly contradicted.
Many of us would probably like to believe that we wouldn't fall prey to the false line judgments in Asch's study, that we’d proclaim that the emperor is naked, and that we're not influenced by what we see online. But social rewards are very powerful. Recently, my friend’s boyfriend’s friends were messing with her and convincingly so! By insisting as a group that the sun was the moon, they made her doubt a basic fact so strongly that she then passed on the false information to us.
False news spreads farther and faster online than true news, and mainstream media also sometimes amplify misleading information. Information need not be patently false to leave us with the wrong impression: “Presenting partial or biased data, quoting sources selectively, omitting alternative explanations, improperly equating unequal arguments, conflating correlation with causation, using loaded language, insinuating a claim without actually making it (e.g., by quoting someone else making it), strategically ordering the presentation of facts, and even simply changing the headline can all manipulate the reader’s (or viewer’s) impression without their awareness.”
Creating the infrastructure and partnerships to understand and address this problem at scale is an enormous frontier for researchers, industry, and governments; individuals cannot be expected to take these issues on alone.
What are the ways that we can protect ourselves from being led astray while letting in the useful information that can help us become the people we want to be? How do we learn from other people's triumphs and missteps and reap the benefits of social connection that come from caring deeply about what others think and do, without falling prey to the perils of malicious influence, false information, and bad examples? Social influence depends on what and whom we pay attention to and spend time with, and it fundamentally shapes how we calculate value, how we see ourselves, and who we become.
Understanding how the brain's value calculation works, how we determine what is self-relevant and socially relevant, highlights how subjective these processes truly are and how much the cultures we are part of play a role in shaping our views and behaviors. It also highlights some of the ways that societal expectations and resources can either open up or constrain the possibilities we might naturally imagine for ourselves. Our decisions can be malleable and subject to both visible and invisible influences. Next, we’ll explore how we can more purposefully curate some of what goes into our value calculations, how to let useful information in, and how to set up our environments to support our bigger-picture goals.