Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently by Gregory Berns Ph.d. Page B
Authors: Gregory Berns Ph.d.
Tags: Religión, General, Medical, Psychology, Business & Economics, fear, Neuropsychology, Neuroscience, Management, Industrial & Organizational Psychology, Creative Ability, Behavior - Physiology, Thinking - Physiology, Psychophysiology - Methods, Risk-Taking, Psychology; Industrial, Perception - Physiology, Iconoclasm
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constantly tries to predict what’s going to happen next, and when it can’t, a sense of foreboding ensues. Some people are better at dealing with ambiguous situations than others, but when fear of ambiguity bubbles to the surface, it is universally experienced the same way.
Recent advances in neuroeconomics offer clues about heading off this demon before it inhibits behavior. Consider a classic conundrum, known as the Ellsberg paradox. 14 There are two large urns placed in front of you (see figure 3-1). The urns are completely opaque, so you cannot see their contents. The urn on the left contains ten black marbles and ten white ones. The urn on the right contains twenty marbles, but you do not know the proportion of black to white. Now, the game is to draw a black marble from one of the urns. If you are successful, you win $100. You only have one chance, so which urn will you draw from? Keep the answer in your mind.
Let’s play again. Now, the game is to draw a white marble. Again, you only have one chance, so which urn will it be?
Most people when confronted with these choices choose the urn on the left—the one with the known proportions of black and whitemarbles. And therein lies the paradox. If you choose the left-hand urn when trying to pull a black marble, that means you think your chances are better for that urn. But because there are only two colors in both urns, the odds of pulling a white must be complementary to the odds of pulling a black. Logically, if you thought the left-hand urn was the better choice for a black marble, then the right hand urn should be the better choice for a white marble. The fact that most people avoid the right-hand urn altogether suggests that people have an inherent fear of the unknown (also called
ambiguity aversion
).
FIGURE 3-1
The Ellsberg paradox
The urn on the left contains ten black marbles and ten white marbles. The urn on the right contains twenty marbles of an unknown ratio of black to white. Draw a black marble to win $100. Which urn do you choose to draw from?
In 2005, researchers at Caltech performed an important neuroimaging study of the Ellsberg paradox. Although the paradox had been known for decades, the neurobiological reason for ambiguity aversion remained a mystery. Economists had relegated the effect to the growing garbage bin of anomalies from expected utility theory. The Caltech group placed subjects in an MRI scanner while they performed a series of trials based on the Ellsberg paradox. When the researchers examined the brain responses to risky versus ambiguous decisions, they found two regions that were more strongly activated to ambiguity. One region was the underside of the cortex that sits above the eyeballs, called the
orbitofrontal cortex
. The other region was the amygdala.
Taming the Amygdala Through Reappraisal and Extinction
The amygdala is a twitchy character with a long memory. Once the amygdala encodes an unpleasant association, it doesn’t forget. These memories sometimes resurface at the most inopportune times, and in the worst of circumstances, the amygdala is responsible for traumatic flashbacks. But all is not lost. There are two ways to keep the amygdala in check. One is proactive, preventing or limiting the brain from making unpleasant associations that it will remember. The second is reactive,which acknowledges the fact that unpleasantness is unavoidable but need not be paralyzing.
For many people, the types of fears that get in the way of iconoclastic thinking were laid down long ago. Although key brain structures like the amygdala are responsible for the fear response, it is often formative experiences during childhood and adolescence that end up rearing their heads in adult life. Consider the fear of public speaking. Thirty percent of the U.S. population has a fear of public speaking. 15 It is, by far, the most common phobia. Although some fears may be innate and hardwired, such as the fear of snakes and
Recent advances in neuroeconomics offer clues about heading off this demon before it inhibits behavior. Consider a classic conundrum, known as the Ellsberg paradox. 14 There are two large urns placed in front of you (see figure 3-1). The urns are completely opaque, so you cannot see their contents. The urn on the left contains ten black marbles and ten white ones. The urn on the right contains twenty marbles, but you do not know the proportion of black to white. Now, the game is to draw a black marble from one of the urns. If you are successful, you win $100. You only have one chance, so which urn will you draw from? Keep the answer in your mind.
Let’s play again. Now, the game is to draw a white marble. Again, you only have one chance, so which urn will it be?
Most people when confronted with these choices choose the urn on the left—the one with the known proportions of black and whitemarbles. And therein lies the paradox. If you choose the left-hand urn when trying to pull a black marble, that means you think your chances are better for that urn. But because there are only two colors in both urns, the odds of pulling a white must be complementary to the odds of pulling a black. Logically, if you thought the left-hand urn was the better choice for a black marble, then the right hand urn should be the better choice for a white marble. The fact that most people avoid the right-hand urn altogether suggests that people have an inherent fear of the unknown (also called
ambiguity aversion
).
FIGURE 3-1
The Ellsberg paradox
The urn on the left contains ten black marbles and ten white marbles. The urn on the right contains twenty marbles of an unknown ratio of black to white. Draw a black marble to win $100. Which urn do you choose to draw from?
In 2005, researchers at Caltech performed an important neuroimaging study of the Ellsberg paradox. Although the paradox had been known for decades, the neurobiological reason for ambiguity aversion remained a mystery. Economists had relegated the effect to the growing garbage bin of anomalies from expected utility theory. The Caltech group placed subjects in an MRI scanner while they performed a series of trials based on the Ellsberg paradox. When the researchers examined the brain responses to risky versus ambiguous decisions, they found two regions that were more strongly activated to ambiguity. One region was the underside of the cortex that sits above the eyeballs, called the
orbitofrontal cortex
. The other region was the amygdala.
Taming the Amygdala Through Reappraisal and Extinction
The amygdala is a twitchy character with a long memory. Once the amygdala encodes an unpleasant association, it doesn’t forget. These memories sometimes resurface at the most inopportune times, and in the worst of circumstances, the amygdala is responsible for traumatic flashbacks. But all is not lost. There are two ways to keep the amygdala in check. One is proactive, preventing or limiting the brain from making unpleasant associations that it will remember. The second is reactive,which acknowledges the fact that unpleasantness is unavoidable but need not be paralyzing.
For many people, the types of fears that get in the way of iconoclastic thinking were laid down long ago. Although key brain structures like the amygdala are responsible for the fear response, it is often formative experiences during childhood and adolescence that end up rearing their heads in adult life. Consider the fear of public speaking. Thirty percent of the U.S. population has a fear of public speaking. 15 It is, by far, the most common phobia. Although some fears may be innate and hardwired, such as the fear of snakes and
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