We activate the classical physiology of vigilance while watching a scary movie. We activate a stress response when thinking about mortality. We secrete hormones related to nurturing and social bonding, but in response to an adorable baby panda. And this certainly applies to aggression—we use the same muscles as does a male chimp attacking a sexual competitor, but we use them to harm someone because of their ideology.#2047•
6
Here are some words of central importance to this book: aggression, violence, compassion, empathy, sympathy, competition, cooperation, altruism, envy, schadenfreude, spite, forgiveness, reconciliation, revenge, reciprocity, and (why not?) love. Flinging us into definitional quagmires.#2889•
Let's examine this with respect to different types of "aggression." Animal behaviorists dichotomize between offensive and defensive aggression, distinguishing between, say, the intruder and the resident of a territory; the biology underlying these two versions differs. Such scientists also distinguish between conspecific aggression (between members of the same species) and fighting off a predator.
Meanwhile, criminologists distinguish between impulsive and premeditated aggression.
Anthropologists care about differing levels of organization underlying aggression, distinguishing among warfare, clan vendettas, and homicide.#2892•
This plays out in a fascinating realm, as reported in Larissa MacFarquhar's 2009 New Yorker piece "The Kindest Cut." It concerns people who donate organs not to family members or close friends but to strangers. An act of seemingly pure altruism. But these Samaritans unnerve everyone, sowing suspicion and skepticism.
Is she expecting to get paid secretly for her kidney? Is she that desperate for attention? Will she work her way into the recipient's life and do a Fatal Attraction? What's her deal? The piece suggests that these profound acts of goodness unnerve because of their detached, affectless nature.#2893•
Hot-blooded badness, warmhearted goodness, and the unnerving incongruity of the cold-blooded versions raise a key point, encapsulated in a quote of Freud's emphasized by Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and concentration camp survivor: "The opposite of love is not hate; its opposite is indifference."#2293•
7
Limbic function is now recognized as central to the emotions that fuel our best and worst behaviors, and extensive research has uncovered the functions of its structures (e.g., the amygdala, hippocampus, septum, habenula, and mammillary bodies).#2299•
In another study subjects waited an unknown length of time to receive a shock. This lack of predictability and control was so aversive that many chose to receive a stronger shock immediately. And in the others the period of anticipatory dread increasingly activated the amygdala.
Thus the human amygdala preferentially responds to fear-evoking stimuli, even stimuli so fleeting as to be below conscious detection.#2557•
In the very front is the prefrontal cortex (PFC), the newest part of the frontal cortex. As noted, the frontal cortex is central to executive function. To quote George W. Bush, within the frontal cortex, it's the PFC that is "the decider." Most broadly, the PFC chooses between conflicting options—Coke or Pepsi; blurting out what you really think or restraining yourself; pulling the trigger or not.
And often the conflict being resolved is between a decision heavily driven by cognition and one driven by emotions.#2546•
Introduction
Where do these "Ohhh, the tone isn't scary anymore" neurons get inputs from? The frontal cortex. When we stop fearing something, it isn't because some amygdaloid neurons have lost their excitability. We don't passively forget that something is scary. We actively learn that it isn't anymore.*#2555•