The Hidden Brain summary

As we’ve learned, we remain largely unaware of the hidden brain in our daily lives. But the hidden brain is more than just a glitch in our cognitive function. In fact, our unconscious guides us through the world and regulates our social interactions.

Neuroscientists don’t have a precise understanding of how unconscious cognitive mechanisms function. But they have observed what occurs in patients with conditions that affect parts of the brain thought to control these mechanisms.

Humans are wired to recognize faces. It makes sense. Recognizing Mom provides us with food and security, and so her face becomes a symbol of safety. Soon enough, our ability to recognize faces in our own ethnic group helps us orient ourselves within a particular culture.

Unfortunately, this unconscious evolutionary trait means that we are less able to discern faces from unfamiliar ethnic groups. Today, the pervasiveness of American popular culture around the world has created a disparity in global representation. And when it comes to how white people perceive Black people in North America, the unconscious biases of the hidden brain have taken a toll.

Few people consider themselves racists. But, just like children, adults form unconscious racial biases based on associative patterns in the world around them.

While there are certainly people who are consciously racist, the author believes that these people belong to a minority. The real problem is unconscious racial bias.

The fact that racial biases influence the criminal justice system in the United States may sound obvious to some Black Americans. Yet, for many white people, admitting this would mean redesigning the criminal justice system altogether.

In order to study the effects of bias in the criminal justice system, Jennifer Eberhardt and other researchers at Stanford University analyzed over six hundred criminal cases serious enough to sanction the death penalty. From these cases, the researchers selected photographs of Black people who had been convicted for murdering white people.

While vacationing on the Mexican island of Isla Mujeres, the author swam to a desolate spot away from the main snorkeling area. Just as he turned around, he was hit with a terrible realization. His journey around the bay had been aided by the ocean’s current. Without flippers or a life jacket, swimming back was going to be a battle. In the end, he made it, but just barely, and his struggle was utterly exhausting.

Reflecting on the incident, the author had another realization: his experience swimming with the current was like the unconscious gender bias aiding most men in their professional lives.

When an airplane crashed into the World Trade Center’s North Tower at 8:46 a.m. on September 11, the employees at Keefe, Bruyette, and Woods in the adjacent South Tower heard what sounded like an earthquake.

The investment-banking firm was spread between the 88th floor and the 89th floor. No one on either floor knew that just 16 minutes later, a second United Airlines plane would crash into their building, the South Tower. But this is where the similarities between the two floors ended. The people on the 89th floor stayed where they were, and nearly all of them perished. The people on the 88th floor evacuated, and nearly all of them survived. 

The hidden brain’s proclivity for conformity isn’t limited to our response to disaster. On the other side of the spectrum, it also reveals the psychology of terrorists. 

Most people assume that suicide terrorists are motivated by one thing and one thing only: religious fanaticism. Al-Qaeda suicide bombers are willing to die because they believe their sacrifice will be rewarded in the afterlife. Or so the theory goes.