29. Neurons and Narratives

Hi friends,

Welcome to the twenty-ninth dispatch of How Humans Flourish, a research-informed newsletter on how humans.

For the month of July, we’ve been reading Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect by neurologist Dr, Matthew Lieberman, Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab Director at UCLA. 

During the last few weeks, I’ve shared the ways in which Dr. Lieberman painstakingly breaks down his research to show just how interdependent we are as a species…whether we like it or not. I’ve also shared examples of indigenous/ community-based frameworks that expand how we can think about and navigate our interdependence. 

Much of Dr. Lieberman’s research is polemical. For example, I imagine for many of us (myself included), we’d like to think of ourselves as quite independently-minded…as innovators…and for the particularly bold, as mavericks walking to our own drumbeat. 

What is it that makes us so adamant about our separateness, despite so many of us listening to similar types of music, wearing similar types of clothes, and even believing our sexual preferences should be similar?

As with most things we explore in this newsletter, the brain has some answers.

There are two neural circuits at play when an individual is perceiving herself:

1. Self-recognition: the act of seeing yourself as a distinct human apart from others. This happens when you look in the mirror and see yourself. fMRI scans show activity in the prefrontal cortex and parietal cortex regions of the brain when this is happening.

2. Self-conception: the act of considering yourself, i.e. thinking about who you are conceptually– I am nice, I am a hard worker, etc. fMRI scans show activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and the precuneus when this is happening. 

The medial prefrontal cortex is pivotal to self-conception. In fact, Dr. Lieberman writes, “In one review that I published, the MPFC was observed in 94 percent of all studies of self-reflection, and it is the only region that is so reliably associated with thinking about ‘who we are.’” (Lieberman, pg 186 - Kindle)

Despite this, the MPFC is a bit of a red herring because it is also activated when we are being persuaded by others.

“Suggestibility and the process of being persuaded have been studied in a few different ways with fMRI… The MPFC not only represents our sense of self but also…allows those around us to influence us...Despite our intuitive sense that knowing ourselves is what keeps us from being unduly influenced by the social world, the MPFC is actually central both to self-knowledge and to being influenced by others…

In the West, we call this conforming, something looked down upon. But in the East, the same behavior is called harmonizing, something essential for successful group living.” (Lieberman, pg 196-196 - Kindle)

Africans refer to this as Ubuntu– I am because we are. The Anishinaabe and Cree call this mino-bimaadiziwin – the way of a good life, where all beings are interconnected and harmony is maintained.

Even before fMRI’s, Nietzsche believed our sense of self is not something inherently internal to us that we gain greater access to as we age. Instead, he argued that our sense of self is constructed, primarily by the people in our lives.

Food for thought: is the desire to be seen as “distinct” and “special” a way to maximize personal rewards and achievement through increased self-knowledge, or is it a strategy to be seen and (shhh…loved!) in a chaotic and unpredictable world?

With gratitude,