89. The Mentalization Gap - Lura Forcum

My name is Laura Forkham and I'm a consumer and social psychologist and I help people understand the hidden forces driving political behavior. My work examines tribalism, identity, and the non conscious psychological dynamics that fuel outrage, division and social conflict.

It's very nice to see you again, David. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, so mentalization is something that you can do both consciously and automatically when you are consciously mentalizing somebody. It's also just called theory of mind. You are thinking about what's going on in their heads, you're thinking about thinking in some sense of the word. But that also happens automatically. And you know, we can see like little children. I think it's really noticeable. Like if you're a parent, you've seen your kid kind of like coordinate their behavior with you because they understand what you're thinking. And like that kind of mind reading reading ability is actually like one of the really cool aspects of social cognition. I kind of joke that I'm like a fan girl for social cognition and I like to go tell people how exciting and amazing it is. And that's one of the things that's so incredible is that we can read other people's intentions, we can predict what they're going to do. We know why they're doing it. We understand if they're doing something because they have misunderstood the situation that they're in. Right? Like, that's how sophisticated this mind reading ability is. And so mentalizing is just that, that process of, like, how do I understand this person? And it lets me coordinate my behavior with them. So, you know, we do the most mentalizing of really close other people because we're going to work with them on some kind of project. I often, I don't, I'm not a sports person. I don't understand how football works. And so when I'm watching football, like, what I'm thinking about is, is how expert sports watchers are looking at that field and they understand what all those players are thinking and what they're about to do in a way that's actually like, really remarkable.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And so that is kind of one of the convenient things about mentalization is because we're like telling ourselves a story. We can tell ourselves a story about what's in the other person's mind that fits with whatever our goals are. And you've probably done this in your personal life, right? Where, like, you have somebody, you have a frenemy, you have like, arrival at work, and you attribute things, you attribute beliefs and attentions to them that support your goal of continued conflict, right? So, like, that's kind of the helpful thing of mentalization is that you, you can attribute whatever you like, right? Because unless you talk to that person, you don't know that you're wrong. And you know, even when you have really great intentions, I think it's fair to say even with somebody you're really close to, right? Like, if you think about a romantic partner, somebody you know well, you've spent a lot of time together and you have, you have the incentive to understand them really well. Even then, like, we still get it wrong, right? So mentalization is something that, like, you know, there are levels of accuracy, there are things that push us to be more accurate. There are things that push us to be less accurate. And particularly across group membership is where we see that gap in mentalization. So for example, in group members we see higher levels of mentalization, more accurate mentalization, and out group members is, are where we will mentalize less. And so obviously like this is where the political ramifications come in. Right. Because we mentalize differently, members of our own political party versus non members versus the opposing party. And that has a whole lot of side effects or outcomes that come with it. When we just say like, and I hear this all the time, and I see it all the time, you probably do too. It's really striking where, you know, nobody's mentalizing the other political party. So they are instead of saying like, hey, why would a Republican have concerns about legal immigration? Right. They don't do that. They just say, well, Republicans are bigots and that's why they don't want immigrants. And of course the same happens on the other side. This is a very much a symmetrical phenomenon. Right. And so instead of actually going through the work of trying to say like what, what would you be thinking to arrive at this conclusion? We just say like they're dumb or they're bad people and turn off that mentalization.

I mean, yes, I think it's true that when all you have is a written word, it can be harder because you know, we didn't evolve to, to interact with each other through a screen or over text. We, we evolved for face to face interaction and, and these extraordinary social cognition capabilities that we have, they are really impressive. But they, they did come about for face to face interaction. So I think social media, media and the written word makes it harder. And I then the other thing that goes on top of it is this algorithmic sorting, right. So that you're just never seeing the content that disagrees with what your position is. So I think that makes it doubly hard because you aren't presented with people who are making a strong case for something that, that you disagree with.

Yeah. So you know, the mentalization is what lets us coordinate our behavior with other people. And sometimes that coordination is to be cooperative and pro social. Sometimes that coordination is to compete or even fight and harm. And so there's, there's quite a bit of evidence in the research literature showing that when you turn off mentalization, you're much more likely to harm other people or to just not care that they're being harmed. So there's actually a really nicely designed natural experiment by some researchers, Cuddy, Rock and Norton, who looked at post Katrina responses and basically what they found was that the across group membership, so this is not political party, it's racial in groups and out groups. And they found that when they saw out group members, they were less likely to attribute these more complex emotions to them, like anguish or suffering. Right. Like they were less likely to attribute those emotions. And that also made them less likely to say they wanted to do anything to help them. So you can see this like really clean relationship between they're not suffering, I don't need to do anything. And so, and it's a very motivated perception. Right. Like the reason to turn that off is so that you, you don't need to do anything to benefit this out group member.

Exactly.

Exactly. So. And I think the thing is, like a lot of people, if you said to them, is it okay to dehumanize people on the basis of political party? They would say absolutely not. You know, and if you said like, what if I called?

But, but you know, you said, if you said something like, you know, those people are vermin. Right. Like I think a, a super majority of, of, of humans would say, oh no, I, no, thank you. Right. The problem with this reduction in mentalization is that people don't realize they're doing it and, and it's harder to stop yourself. And we don't see it as the same kind of, like, problematic behavior. So they're, they're just sort of like, you know, there are these incremental differences in seeing other minds that actually do lead up to differences in, in, in behavior. And, and the thing that I think is really important is that, you know, this, the subtlety, like, we, we can't anticipate that we're doing it. And, you know, I'll, I'll go a little further. So, so the distinction that they're making in the, in the research literature, this is the work of a French psychologist, Leon, who, Who distinguished between primary emotions and secondary emotions. So primary is like your basic emotions like anger, fear, happiness. Like, that's. There are a few more, but that's about it. Secondary is these complicated ones. Like, this is being guilty, this is being remorseful, this is being nostalgic. Right? And so it's, it's this very subtle difference. And I bet if you asked people, right, like, if you tried this on the street and said, hey, does your opposite political party, how often do you think they feel nostalgic? They would have no idea that, like, actually what they're doing is decreased mentalization. And then like, that there are other outcomes that flow from that.

Oh, no, absolutely. Right. So if you can, if you think about it this way, right, if other people don't have fully human minds, they don't suffer when bad things happen to them, so it's less upsetting to harm them or treat them differently or exclude them. And that is the pathway. And so, you know, again, I think, like, we, when we think in our minds, well, we'd never harm somebody on the basis of their political party. That's quite true. True. But it might mean that you're more likely to kind of shrug off if somebody else is, is proposing that they harm them. So even if you wouldn't do it, you're not concerned by it.

Yeah, exactly. Like, you're more. I think that's like the really beautiful thing, right? Like, you are showing that you're more complex than what they assumed, and that kind of like, challenges their initial perception and they're having to actually, like, grapple with you in real time and understand what your mental state is so that they can interact with you in a way that meets their goals. So, you know, that face to face interaction actually promotes mentalization. And, and you can imagine why, right? Because, like, the, the time you really need to understand somebody's intentions accurately are when they're face to face with you. And the potential outcomes of conflict are, like, a lot more serious than if they're far, far away from you or if you think they're not a threat to you.

That's a, that's a great starting point. So I think if you can catch yourself sort of like generating reasons why harm isn't a problem, for someone, that's a really helpful nudge to kind of say, like, oh, wait, that's. I probably wouldn't look at it that way if it were my child or, or somebody in my family. Right. And so the, in the research on this, this is called infra humanization, by the way. So this is like the kinder, gentler form of dehumanization is called infra humanization. Right. So it's sort of saying, like, you're slightly less human. I'm not saying you're non human. You're just slightly less. Right. And so the research on infra humanization shows the kind of. Kind of justifying statements people will make when they're for humanizing somebody. And often it sounds something like, oh, they're used to that. Oh, it doesn't really bother them. And it's something that you can see in like, disaster response. Actually, it's not. Not just Katrina, but in other. In other places. Right. Where there's been tsunamis or there's famine, our tendency tends to be to say like, oh, well, they're used to it. And, and that sounds right. Like, I, I think that wouldn't grab people and immediately strike them as a terrible thing to say. But I, I do think, like, that's something to kind of challenge and say, like, wait a wait, why? How would that feel happening to me? How would I feel if that was happening in this country instead of far away? So I, I think, like, you can catch that. You're doing it, and it is very subtle. And, you know, I guess one other thing to kind of add to that is, you know, if you think about how you would evolve human beings with this fantastically powerful ability to read each other's minds and understand the mental states of each other. Right. And that for them to be able to be incredibly cooperative, but then also incredibly violent, you have to be able to turn off that mind reading ability. And that's the entire point of dehumanization and infra humanization is to make it more comfortable or less painful to either inflict harm or witness harm and not intervene. That's its entire purpose.

Yes, I've heard that.

So my response to why you would want to do that is that like, it doesn't strategically make sense to me that you would misunderstand your opponent. Right. Like, if you're a Democrat and you would like to, to effectively fight the policy, planning and efforts of the Republican Party or Republican voters, like, don't you need to start with an understanding of why they're doing what they're doing? Because then you'll understand what their strategy is. Or you might also understand what kind of persuasive message you would need to reach them with your point of view. Right. So like, shouldn't you want to understand their mental state? And of course, the answer is, the reason we don't want to understand is because we're not planning to coordinate at all. We're planning harm. And that, that's really what worries me as a researcher and as somebody who works in this space is that we're kind of like walking down this path where the end result is, is going to be like violence and harm. But, you know, there's, there is good reason to do it. You know, the other thing is, you know, we could talk about some other interventions I guess that like, that kind of change this, this mentalization itself, they're, they're kind of surprising, I think. So, so like one of them is face to face interaction. And it's interesting because I hear people say a lot like, I, I don't, I don't want to talk to them. I don't want to be around them. That really concerns me. But, but we know mentalization is more accurate when you're interacting face to face as long as you haven't reached the point of violence. Which I just want to like, reassure people that like humans are, are very sociable. It's a, it's an academic term that actually means like sociable. Sociability is like our inherent tendency to get along with each other and not have conflict. And so face to face interaction tends to be low conflict. So that face to face interaction will actually heighten mentalization without you having to deliberately do anything. So that's a great one. Another one is any kind of like shared goals and they don't have to be shared goals. Like, we are going to come up with a policy framework on immigration, right, or entitlement. They can be shared goals. Like, we're going to have a block party. We are going to, you know, I had a potluck on Sunday. So we can. It was fun. Like, we just ate. We didn't talk about politics. But, like, that's a shared goal. So it, you know, it promotes the understanding, a more accurate understanding of other people's mental states because you. You see them in a more complex fashion. And then the last one is really cool. It is perspective taking. And so it's really interesting. I don't know if you've talked about on your show or if you've seen the Undivide Us movie. Okay, so there's a movie called Undivide Us. It stars Ben Cloot, say, of the Mercatus center, who is very active in this space. He's an expert on PL journalism, Tony Woodleaf of spn, and it was produced by Christina Kendall and Carrie Conko. So this movie, what they do is they go around and put together their focus groups of voters who are on opposite sides of issues. And what they do is they have them answer questions about their policy belief, and then instead of defending what they believe, they ask them to explain what somebody else believes. So that is mentalization, and it's perspective taking. And there are all kinds of ways where you can create perspective taking, where you're just trying to understand somebody else's point of view. I just had Mike Lee on my podcast with Lauren hall, which is we made this political. And Mike Lee was talking about how debate work supports perspective taking. Because if you want to have a civil debate with somebody, you have to start with an understanding of what they actually think. So I think debates are really good for that. And then he actually also told us about just different, like, Icebreakers, where you're kind of, like, playing with other people's beliefs. So he was saying, I love this example. I never heard it before. You can have somebody, you can ask people what their favorite movies are and then try to come up with, like, what would the. If those two movies got together and had a child, what would that movie be? It's the midpoint of your two perceptions, your two preferences, Right? And so, like, that's asking you to kind of mentalize the other person's point of view in a way that you might not if you were having, like, more typical icebreaker kind of conversation.

Yeah. And so they actually, in the Undivided movie, the question they start with is, are you a cat person or a dog person? And the only thing that's really being flipped there is that instead of justifying your decision, you try to justify the other person's decision and then ask if you got it right or not. So I think there's ways to, you know, if you can't. If you're. If you're interacting with somebody and you think like, oh, my gosh, I just can't handle a political conversation right now. You can try something that's not about politics and yet still get this heightened mentalization.

Yeah. And. And I. One thing I didn't realize about debate until I was talking to Mike is that, like, in a lot of cases, the. The entire setup is that, like, you are being assigned a point of view to argue. Right. So it's not that you're getting to choose your pet issue or your pet position. You're really having to, like, take on the perspective that you don't already hold. And I think, like, that practice is really good because it gives us a chance to say, like, I can try on other ideas without losing who I am. You know, it's not. It's not harmful, and it's not as bad as I thought it was. There are good reasons for this belief, so that's huge. I don't know how many Americans really want to, you know, do debate on a regular basis, but at least. At least not the. The kind that's happening outside of the pages of Facebook where people are arguing about politics.

No. And, you know, I. I suspect that what most people envision when they say debate is a presidential debate, which, of course, is two people just totally talking past each other. They're not mentalizing each other at all. Right. Like nobody's responding to what the other person said. And, and if you've ever seen a really effective debate, like somebody, two people who are really like, peeling apart the differences in their views, it's really noticeable that what they're doing is really deeply understanding each other'.

Yeah. So I'm the president of the Independent center, which is a nonprofit group trying to engage people who feel like they are politically homeless. Because we think that if you are swing voting or split ticket voting, you are really positive force for political change. And we want you to know how to vote even if you are not registered as an independent. And so sometimes that's tricky, depending on what state you're in. We have a lot of resources. We're at www.independentcenter.org. and then I also write a substack called how to Human where I talk about things like this. You know, I go on and on at quite some length about the magic of social cognition. And you know, that we actually have the tools we need to understand each other and get along with each other and we can make a choice to understand each other better and to use social cognition for our benefit instead of turning it off and having more conflict, having, you know, divisiveness and just government that's, that's non functional. So I write a lot there at Substack and I also podcast at We Made this Political with my fabulous co host, Lauren hall, who is a political scientist.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, David. It's great to see you again.