Many years ago James Burke (known at the time as 'the most intelligent man on TV') connected 2 people up to a machine that would read the brain's "beta waves" (Wikipedia says: 'Low-amplitude beta waves with multiple and varying frequencies are often associated with active, busy or anxious thinking and active concentration'), gave them a brick and asked them what they could do with it. The first person got stuck after suggesting you could use it to build a wall or a house; he had quite a low beta-wave readout. The second person, who had a high beta-wave readout, came up with all sorts of things you could do with it (most of them wouldn't work, but that's beside the point). Burke then pointed out that you can get a high beta-wave score if you're relaxed and not trying too hard, but if you're stressed and under pressure to produce a result your beta-wave score drops dramatically. How scientifically accurate this is I don't know, but I do know you can do it yourself - if you relax and stop trying to get a result, you can come up with load of inventive answers. So that aspect, at least, of the Zmigrod account appears to be flawed - narrowly focused, non-inventive thinking is not (necessarily) hard-wired into the geography of the brain, but depends on your state of mind. And (like IQ) you can learn how to be more inventive.
Mike, Creativity will still fluctuate around some baseline range though. Some people are going to be more creative than others when both are at the same stress level. The idea that there is a predisposition toward more or less rigid thinking is not debunked by the idea that stress levels or practicing thinking creatively can also influence your level of creativity. They are not mutually exclusive concepts. Some people are just not very creative thinkers no matter how relaxed they are and others are comparatively very creative even when stressed and not being very creative compared to themselves when not stressed.
It is an interesting point however when you think about the two way street of extremist ideology. When people are indoctrinated and believe something in an extremist way they tend to get stressed when that ideology is challenged so that could possibly be a reinforcement feedback loop for lack of a better term. It would be an interesting area of study.
Why would we necessarily conclude that the size of the amygdala is predetermined and that the result is an extremist who overreacts to fear, threat, and disgust, rather than that the amygdala grows in response to regular extremist reactions to fear, threat, and disgust? It seems more intuitive to me that beliefs change the brain, rather than that the brain structure is immutable and predetermines beliefs.
From what little I have seen this seems to be an active area of research and the answer could very easily be both. If you used the amygdala more during development it may grow and will certainly have more activity, but there are also very likely genetic factors that cause some people to develop a larger or smaller amygdala. Just like peoples brains are predisposed to other things.
I imagine they will need to do brain scans on a sizeable sample of youth and repeat over a number of years coupled with psychological tests to really get good grasp on what part different factors play. Or maybe actually manage to locate some genes that can be specifically tied to development of that region of the brain.
Interestingly I saw recently that brain scans of the amygdala and prefrontal cortex actually correlate better with conservative or liberal views than the views of a person's parents which implies that some of it is likely genetic rather than environmental.
This is probably why fascists tend to try to squash and control art. It’s a conduit for emotional expression and for exercising cognitive pliability. Engaging in art and creativity in our daily lives together is part of the answer. And also, considering external forces that create conditions that foster extremism, looking together at when and where people are falling through the cracks (or are being shoved into the cracks) and what interpersonal and systemic things need to happen to prevent this.
That ties in nicely with what Mike posted above. If creativity decreases with stress, keeping a population stressed all the time would likely make them more susceptible to extremist ideology for that reason as well as the other psychological reasons.
Same for hyping up fear. If a larger amygdala predisposes one to ideological extremism then there is a good chance keeping it activated all the time would predispose people to extremist ideology.
Many years ago James Burke (known at the time as 'the most intelligent man on TV') connected 2 people up to a machine that would read the brain's "beta waves" (Wikipedia says: 'Low-amplitude beta waves with multiple and varying frequencies are often associated with active, busy or anxious thinking and active concentration'), gave them a brick and asked them what they could do with it. The first person got stuck after suggesting you could use it to build a wall or a house; he had quite a low beta-wave readout. The second person, who had a high beta-wave readout, came up with all sorts of things you could do with it (most of them wouldn't work, but that's beside the point). Burke then pointed out that you can get a high beta-wave score if you're relaxed and not trying too hard, but if you're stressed and under pressure to produce a result your beta-wave score drops dramatically. How scientifically accurate this is I don't know, but I do know you can do it yourself - if you relax and stop trying to get a result, you can come up with load of inventive answers. So that aspect, at least, of the Zmigrod account appears to be flawed - narrowly focused, non-inventive thinking is not (necessarily) hard-wired into the geography of the brain, but depends on your state of mind. And (like IQ) you can learn how to be more inventive.
Mike, Creativity will still fluctuate around some baseline range though. Some people are going to be more creative than others when both are at the same stress level. The idea that there is a predisposition toward more or less rigid thinking is not debunked by the idea that stress levels or practicing thinking creatively can also influence your level of creativity. They are not mutually exclusive concepts. Some people are just not very creative thinkers no matter how relaxed they are and others are comparatively very creative even when stressed and not being very creative compared to themselves when not stressed.
It is an interesting point however when you think about the two way street of extremist ideology. When people are indoctrinated and believe something in an extremist way they tend to get stressed when that ideology is challenged so that could possibly be a reinforcement feedback loop for lack of a better term. It would be an interesting area of study.
Why would we necessarily conclude that the size of the amygdala is predetermined and that the result is an extremist who overreacts to fear, threat, and disgust, rather than that the amygdala grows in response to regular extremist reactions to fear, threat, and disgust? It seems more intuitive to me that beliefs change the brain, rather than that the brain structure is immutable and predetermines beliefs.
From what little I have seen this seems to be an active area of research and the answer could very easily be both. If you used the amygdala more during development it may grow and will certainly have more activity, but there are also very likely genetic factors that cause some people to develop a larger or smaller amygdala. Just like peoples brains are predisposed to other things.
I imagine they will need to do brain scans on a sizeable sample of youth and repeat over a number of years coupled with psychological tests to really get good grasp on what part different factors play. Or maybe actually manage to locate some genes that can be specifically tied to development of that region of the brain.
Interestingly I saw recently that brain scans of the amygdala and prefrontal cortex actually correlate better with conservative or liberal views than the views of a person's parents which implies that some of it is likely genetic rather than environmental.
This is probably why fascists tend to try to squash and control art. It’s a conduit for emotional expression and for exercising cognitive pliability. Engaging in art and creativity in our daily lives together is part of the answer. And also, considering external forces that create conditions that foster extremism, looking together at when and where people are falling through the cracks (or are being shoved into the cracks) and what interpersonal and systemic things need to happen to prevent this.
That ties in nicely with what Mike posted above. If creativity decreases with stress, keeping a population stressed all the time would likely make them more susceptible to extremist ideology for that reason as well as the other psychological reasons.
Same for hyping up fear. If a larger amygdala predisposes one to ideological extremism then there is a good chance keeping it activated all the time would predispose people to extremist ideology.
Could you imagine a child 5 years old who's answer to the question "What can you create?"is "Only poop!" Would you like our future to be so stinky?
Some people obsessed with paranoia deliberately create conditions that foster extremism
First things first: prevent mentally sick from positions of power- no sprouts of extremism could flourish ever.
To think anew is a good thing to do.