Scientists have begun to investigate the most abhorrent human qualities. It turned out that nature itself "wants" us to be bad.
Lust
What happens if you scan the brain of a person who is watching a porn movie? The University of Illinois (USA) tried to answer this question.
“We tried to understand what happens in the brains of men and women when they experience sexual arousal, or, according to the Bible, lust,” says university researcher Adam Safron. - Using the latest research methods, we came to the conclusion that a person sins unconsciously. Brain scans have shown that the limbic system (the center of emotions) located deep in the brain is sharply activated in subjects of both sexes during viewing. The brain structures responsible for pleasure and cravings are at the heart of this system. Thus, it turns out that the craving for sin is inherent in us by nature. After all, the Bible says that adultery is not for the sake of procreation - it is a sin.
And in one experiment at the University of Montreal (Canada), it was found that porn films elicit a response in deep, primitive parts of the brain of volunteers, such as the amygdala. But when the subjects were asked to suppress sexual arousal, two different parts of their brain turned on - the right upper frontal and the right front. These are the parts of the brain that are responsible for the "human" in us.
Gluttony and indolence
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It is quite clear that a person gets pleasure while eating. This obvious fact was confirmed by brain scans of the subjects. Of course, food itself is neither good nor bad. The problem appears when satiety turns into gluttony. It turns out that here, too, nature is to blame for our sinfulness.
“During the evolutionary development of man, food has always remained difficult to access and scarce - there were no cheeseburgers and hamburgers,” smiles Adam Safron. - People in ancient times, in order to survive, had to show, if not physical strength, then cunning and resourcefulness. Therefore, even today, in certain parts of our brain, significant activity is recorded if we see what we really want. If before a person did some things to be full, and this did not cause a negative assessment of others, now, doing the same, he looks unimportant in the eyes of the public. For example, a stronger Neanderthal, who took away a piece of a weaker fellow tribesman, could not have been a moral sinner in any way. Today, hardly anyone would approve of such an act. According to the researcher, many of us were born too late. Our irresistible desire to feast on cheeseburgers would greatly help us survive somewhere in the four thousandth year BC.
Safron also believes that the roots of idleness go deep into the past:
- A person in ancient times did not know when the next meal would be, therefore, if there was an opportunity to rest, he rested. Calories not spent on some business were saved for future use.
Envy
But not all sins are pleasurable. Take envy, for example.
If you are jealous of a more successful colleague, this is far from the most pleasant feeling.
Interesting experiments were carried out at the Japan Institute of Radiology. A group of male volunteers were offered a description of three people. The first was a completely successful smart man, in addition, the ladies liked him, and his life goals coincided with those of the volunteers. The second is a woman who is also smart and sexy. But her interests in life were different from those of the volunteers. The third is an ordinary loser girl, unpopular in her student environment. The same descriptions, but of people of the opposite sex, were given to women in another group of subjects.
The volunteers were hooked up to a scanner to check which part of their brain is activated when the descriptions are read. In all subjects, without exception, the greatest activity was manifested in the anterior part of the cerebral cortex when they heard about successful people whose vital interests coincided with theirs.
“It is this part of the brain that is activated when a person experiences physical pain,” says Japanese neurophysiologist Hidehiko Takahashi.
“Therefore, we believe that envy of more successful people can cause almost the same pain.
True, envy has one undoubtedly positive quality: it motivates a person to make every effort to achieve the desired result. Or, if it is impossible to outperform a competitor, there is another option - to change the task. However, envy can also provoke a desire to harm a competitor. That is, this feeling sometimes leads to immoral behavior or even crime.
Pride
The study of this mortal sin was carried out at one of the universities in New York. The method used was to temporarily turn off certain parts of the brain using a special device - a magnetic stimulator. The idea is simple. If you turn off a part of the brain, you can determine what it is responsible for. A magnetic stimulator was attached to the volunteer's forehead, thereby disrupting the functioning of neurons. Then the subject was put on a cap with marks that allowed him to accurately “aim” at a certain part of the gray matter.
The stimulator was placed in such a way that the magnetic field acted on the prefrontal cortex. And something interesting happened!
“Ordinary Americans often think they’re better than they really are,” says Professor Julian Paul Keenan, head of the neurodiagnostics laboratory. - But when the magnetic stimulator was working, their high self-esteem turned off, and they became much more modest.
“We recently completed a study of the phenomenon known as high self-esteem,” the professor continues. - We asked the volunteers to explain the meaning of some non-existent word. They could not admit their own ignorance and said that, of course, they heard about this, and even tried to attribute the word to some area of knowledge. Again, turning on the magnetic stimulator knocked out their self-confidence.
Julian Keenan's research has shown that self-criticism is associated with activation of the same brain region as pride and arrogance. It's like two sides of the same coin. Scientists wondered if the subjects would develop depression when pride was turned off. It turned out that people who lack a sense of self-esteem often turn out to be mentally unhealthy. For example, a person who has convinced himself that he is too fat (or, conversely, thin) destroys himself morally.
Anger and greed
An Australian university investigated changes in the brains of volunteers when they were angry. During the experiment, the middle prefrontal part of the cerebral cortex was sharply suppressed. This is the department responsible for calm behavior.
Some people deal better with their emotions than others. And for some, primitive impulses win. The choice of a line of behavior is the result of a dialogue between the developed and primitive parts of our brain. Evolutionarily ancient parts of the brain constantly interact with the cortex, which developed much later, which determines human actions. This conclusion becomes clearer when studying psychopathic behavior. Last year, King's College London examined the structure of the brains of nine criminals accused of attempted murder, manslaughter and rape followed by asphyxiation. It turned out that psychopaths, and all criminals were such, had a weakened connection between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex compared with normal people of the same age and with the same IQ.
But have we not forgotten about yet another mortal sin? It's about greed. In studies of this quality, brain scans have not been performed. And with the answers to questions about the nature of greed, the situation is unimportant. It turns out that there may be a genetic predisposition to greed, but, most likely, the wrong upbringing makes such people.
- Emotions are the engine of evolution. This is what nature uses for natural selection, making living organisms more successful in life, says Adam Safron. - We are puppets in the hands of Mother Nature, dancing to her predetermining melody, which becomes louder from generation to generation.
However, in order to be in harmony with ourselves (and not sin from the point of view of the Bible), we need moderation in everything. Not too much and not too little. Of course, in the modern world it is very difficult to keep the golden mean and control your instincts, but this is what makes a person a person.
Source: Magazine "Secrets of the XX century" № 12. Translated from English by Irina Bakhlanova