When ‘I’ Becomes ‘We’ | Mina Cikara | TEDxCambridge

Описание: Group living has been essential for our survival since the first humans walked the Earth. Beyond just surviving, people who accurately identify, value, and cooperate with in-group members enjoy numerous material and psychological benefits. However, group life is also a source of social strife and destruction. From Israelis and Palestinians to Red Sox and Yankees fans, group identity has led to innumerous conflicts. Much of the research into this intergroup conflict has focused on group members’ perceptions of the other. However, this focus neglects that when we become part of an “us,” we change as well. Recent evidence from psychology and neuroscience indicates that individuals acting on behalf of a group will often act more ruthlessly than individuals acting alone. Better understanding how we change when we shift from “me versus you” to “us versus them” may generate new avenues for interventions among individuals and groups in conflict.

Mina Cikara is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology and Social Policy from Princeton University and completed a National Institutes of Health Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT.

Professor Cikara studies how the mind, brain, and behavior change when the social context shifts from “me and you” to “us and them.” She focuses primarily on how group membership, competition, and prejudice disrupt the processes that allow people to see others as human and to empathize with others. She uses a wide range of tools – standard laboratory experiments, implicit and explicit behavioral measures, fMRI and psychophysiology – to examine failures of empathy, dehumanization, and misunderstanding between groups.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx