When good people fall to the dark side, what is going on in the brain

ByMindaugas Danys

To act in a groupExercise great powerSometimes, tragedy is born by collective psychology on the other hand. When acting individually is a good people but grouping it down when falling to the dark side, what is happening in the brain,Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyIt became clear by the study of.

When good people do bad things | MIT News Office
https://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/when-good-people-do-bad-things-0612

Dr. Mina Cikara, who conducted this research, had been investigating "mass psychology" before. Because Dr. Cikara and her husbandYankee StadiumIt was because I had a bad knack when I went to. Dr. Cikara's husbandNew York YankeesIt is a rival ofBoston Red SoxDr. Cikara, who thought that "the one who was wearing a woman is still better," he took the stomach because he was wearing a hat, received a hat from him. However, the gnaws never cease, and this time Dr. Cikara is supposed to be haunted.

Dr. Cikara is not a fan of Red Sox, "I noticed that I was not a individual but a member of the" Red Sox Community "by wearing a hat of Red Sox, I changed the way I reacted to it and my reaction to that.When I feel that I was attacked as a representative of the group, people will be freely changed psychology as well. " .

In other words, even if we know that it is "bad" as an individual's moral standard, "I" becomes "us" and "he" becomes "them", so that human psychology changes and people It will cause destructive behavior and cruel things. There are various factors in such psychological transformation, but as people gather anonymity to gather anonymity and reduce responsibility to individuals, it seems like to do a "hurt" for greater "good It is considered to become.

To support this, the research team of Dr. Cikara et al. Infer motivation and motivation · inner side to infer the feelings and thoughts of othersPrefrontal cortexFocus on the brain's workFMRIIt visualized with.

By The National Institute of Mental Health

Prior to starting the experiment, researchers investigated the morals of subjects, beliefs, wields, etc. in social media. I summarized what the subjects as individuals do, such as "I took food from a shared refrigerator" or "I apologize if someone collided with it".

Then they asked the subjects who came to the lab to play the game and scanned the brain at that time. In the game, the subjects show sentences related to social media such as "I have 600 friends on Facebook" and the buttons are pushed. In the form of brain scanning, when the game is played by one person and as a team It was done twice when I was doing.

Texts related to the moral standards of individuals obtained by preliminary survey are mixed while sentences related to social media are displayed, and while the game is being played by one person, the medial prefrontal cortex of men has morality Although I responded when I saw sentences related to the moral standards that I own rather than the standard criteria, when playing games in a group, there are people who have less responses to the moral standard I have It was. I conducted a task experiment with the team after the game experiment, and it turned out that those who had a small response to moral standards as a group got a strong tendency to hurt their competitors.

Also, in the experiment of selecting some photos from the photos of the teammates and the members of the rival team, those who had weak reactions of the medial prefrontal cortex were "smiley teammates'" "smiley rival team's It turned out to choose "Photo". Research also revealed that "people with poor response to the medial prefrontal cortex can not memorize sentences related to morals heard during the game".

ByWill Lion

However, it is certain that there was a person who does not forget the moral which it is inherent in the group in the experiment, so having moral standards of myself may have the power to weaken the mass psychology, Dr. Cikara I talked.

Dr. Cikara further plans to conduct further research on "what will deprive people from morals" and "when collecting, people will be slow in self-recognition".