Wanting what others have may be hardwired in the brain

[weakmagneto]

Thou can’t not covet
By Laura Sanders
Science News
Web edition : Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012

As every kid knows, the very best toy is the one that someone else is playing with. A new study on covetous adults explains why other people’s possessions always seem better.

Seeds of this desire are sown in the mirror neuron system, a part of the brain that is activated in a similar pattern whether a person is performing an action or merely watching someone else do it.

“Mimetic desire” was first articulated by the French philosopher René Girard in the 1980s. Envy can spread among people like a disease, a force that explains much of human behavior, Girard proposed. Now, French neuroscientists have verified the phenomenon and even attempted to explain how it happens.

“They really take a philosophical theory and make it an experiment,” says neuroscientist Marco Iacoboni of UCLA.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic ... _not_covet

[wolfhnd]

While it's nice that the details are being worked out I wonder how anyone could be surprised that predispositions are at least partially innate.

[Marshall]

The way I think of it, its different when one gets to the stage of designing experiments, tracing activity in the brain, understanding how it may have evolved, measuring the behavior in other animals.

We already heard about this as a known aspect of human nature, we had philosophers, moralists, psychologists working on it. But there's a different level of understanding when you go empirical.
If *mimetic desire* is hardwired, then I'd like to know WHERE and in which strucutres of the brain, and where in the evolutionary tree you see it. Is it hardwired in BIRDS for example?

BTW that's a witty title to the piece: Thou can't not covet. Playing off the 10th commandment in exodus, thou *shalt* not covet.

[Marshall]

This is pretty good:
==quote==

Brain scans revealed that two systems are behind the phenomenon. First, activity in parts of the brain’s mirror neuron system — the parietal lobe and the premotor cortex — increased. Second, the parts of the brain involved with deciding how much objects are worth — the ventral striatum and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex — got busy.

These two systems are linked, so that the mirror neuron system kicks on and tells the brain’s valuation system to rank the object highly, the team’s analyses of the brain scans revealed.

The strength of this connection was associated with how much mimetic desire a person felt, the team found. A stronger connection meant a deeper longing for someone else’s candy. “The stronger the connection, the more susceptible you are to social influence,” Pessiglione says.

These results raise lots of questions that can now be tested, Iacoboni says. “This could start a whole snowball effect.” Similar experiments could test whether people with autism spectrum disorders, who seem to value social interactions less, have a weaker connection between the mirror neuron system and the brain valuation system.
==endquote==

It suggests there is a built-in channel from one region of brain to another. Almost like a part of your anatomy. If the connection is weak you might be less apt to learn by social interaction. If it is extra strong you might just naturally be a copycat whether or not you want to be.
They can see stuff happening in the brain by means of brainscans, and somehow contrive to MEASURE the strength of the connection.

It sounds nontrivial, but Neuro may point out weak points. It might not be clear how much of this "connection" is learned and how much is genetically hardwired. But if it isn't clear that just means there is more research to be done. Other scientists will be seized with a mimetic desire to do similar research. I'd say we are apt to learn something useful about ourselves from this.

[owleye]

Perhaps all this is tied to psychology's interest in subliminal messaging, sometimes used in advertising. In any case, I hope the research isn't so productive that advertisers discover the path around our free-will. And if they in fact find the magic potion, I hope it can be banned.

James

[Marshall]

James,
Advertising looks to me like very much based on *mimetic desire*.

Visual ads depict smiling attractive people wearing certain clothes or using a certain product, and it makes the victims desire to wear those clothes or use that product.

I think, in your words, they found the magic potion already. It's called Models.

Imagine a world in which only text and vocal advertising is legal. The visual cortex of your brain was not being used to sell you stuff.

Actually I would miss the ads in the New Yorker. the models are sooooo beautiful. But I hate their young svelt rich sophisticated pampered a**es too. Conflicted about this.

[weakmagneto]

James,
Actually I would miss the ads in the New Yorker. the models are sooooo beautiful. But I hate their young svelt rich sophisticated pampered a**es too. Conflicted about this.

Thanks for the belly laugh Marshall!! :D I totally agree with both you and Owleye about advertising and its use of subliminal messaging. I think this study didn't take into account behaviours and attitude to a large degree. Thanks for the laugh again Marshall!

[neuro]

The strength of this connection was associated with how much mimetic desire a person felt, the team found. A stronger connection meant a deeper longing for someone else’s candy. “The stronger the connection, the more susceptible you are to social influence,” Pessiglione says.

These results raise lots of questions that can now be tested, Iacoboni says. “This could start a whole snowball effect.” Similar experiments could test whether people with autism spectrum disorders, who seem to value social interactions less, have a weaker connection between the mirror neuron system and the brain valuation system.

==endquote==

It suggests there is a built-in channel from one region of brain to another. Almost like a part of your anatomy. If the connection is weak you might be less apt to learn by social interaction. If it is extra strong you might just naturally be a copycat whether or not you want to be.

Apart from biological defects (and in most forms of autism the main "anatomical" defect appear to concern long-range connections, so nothing to wonder if the connection between the two systems are weaker...), I would not use the expression "naturally be".

Most connections in the brain are subject to plastic changes during development and following each experience.

Although few words are spent in textbooks about descending connections from the cortex to the subcortical systems in charge of attributing "worth" (gratificational and motivational value), it is rather obvious that they are there and play a quite important role. In fact, we are able to FEEL PLEASURE as a consequence of emotional, social and cognitive activities of the brain (including resolving a problem, looking at the ocean or the sky or Monna Lisa, seeing a happy child, making somebody happy). Furthermore, the relative ability of these activities in eliciting pleasure is different in various subjects depending on culture, social environment, education and personal experiences.

This indicates that all pre-wired systems that let us attribute a value to an (external or internal) experience (or desire thereof) are widely plastic.

The ability, in marketing, consist in exploiting the paths which appear to be most efficient in the target population. No need to change the efficiency of one or the other path.

Sadly, if you aim at influencing an audience toward a more socially, ethically or culturally concerned attitude, then you would need to make the connections that reward social acceptance, empathy and discovery stronger, which is not easy to do, unless you act on overall culture and education.

Conclusions:
1) YOU CANNOT SUCCESFULLY MARKET WHAT GOES AGAINST CULTURE AND EDUCATION.
2) if the prevailing worth attribution system is [">" means greater than]:
- WORTH(having) > WORTH(mimicking) >> WORTH( knowing | doing | being)
- you are bound to lose your marketing battle

[Keep_Relentless]

BTW that's a witty title to the piece: Thou can't not covet. Playing off the 10th commandment in exodus, thou *shalt* not covet.

Hahah!
Stephen Hawking: Science will win, because it works.