A few days ago, Iran began multilateral talks in Vienna in search of a compromise about its nuclear ambitions. I'm no expert on international politics, but I'm sure that these vital negotiations will be influenced by the history of the relationships between the countries involved, the state of nuclear proliferation around the world, as well as by local political factors in Iran and its region. Psychology will also come into play in terms of the negotiation partners' perceptions about what's fair, their interpretations of historical events and their beliefs about the future. Recent research into the psychology of morality, fairness, punishment and cooperation will be especially relevant.
In stark contrast, I'm not convinced that findings from contemporary neuroscience have any relevance to our understanding of these negotiations whatsoever. There are interesting papers on the neural correlates of fairness judgments, rejection, cooperation and revenge, but I don't believe they add practical insights for the way these negotiations will be conducted or understood. So I was shocked and amused to discover that last month The Atlantic published an article, apparently in all seriousness, headlined: "The Neuroscience Guide to Negotiations With Iran," and subtitled: "Wondering whether the historic nuclear talks will succeed or fail? Study the brain."
Co-written by a neuroscientist (Nicholas Wright) and an expert on Iranian and International politics (Karim Sadjadpour), the article marks the high point (or low point, depending on your view) in recent attempts by many journalists and scholars to show that the science of the brain has important lessons for everyday affairs. The Atlantic article makes some excellent points about the Iranian negotiations, especially in terms of historical events and people's perceptions of fairness, but it undermines its own credibility by labelling these insights as neuroscience or by gratuitously referencing the brain. It's as if the authors drank brain soup before writing their article, and just as they're making an interesting historical or political point, they hiccup out a nonsense neuro reference.
Unfortunately, this clumsy repackaging of psychology as neuroscience is part of a wider cultural theme. Today university psychology departments are changing their names to market themselves as neuroscience departments. Politicians are invoking the brain to justify arguments more sensibly grounded on social or psychological principles. And new business sub-disciplines are continually emerging, using the allure of the brain to impress - such as neuroleadership and neuromarketing, to name but two.
Let's take a look at The Atlantic article in more detail. The authors' first point, relevant to the Iranian perspective, is that "Humans pay high costs to reject unfairness". This is true. Research using economic games shows that people will often sacrifice their own rewards, if that means they can punish another person who they feel has treated them unfairly. This isn't neuroscience, it's psychology and behavioural economics. Unfortunately, Wright and Sadjadpour spin this point as a neuroscience insight. Here's their neuro belch: "A decade of studies using brain imaging shows that human neural activity, particularly in the insula cortex region, reflects the precise degree of unfairness in social interactions." But what does this brain reference add? Would it matter if it were some other brain region that mirrored levels of perceived injustice? We already knew that people have a sense of fairness before the neural correlates of this process were documented. The specific finding that the insular cortex is active in such situations is hardly surprising too - as neuroscientist Russ Poldrack has pointed out, the anterior portion of the insular is active in nearly one third of all brain imaging studies!
A related argument that runs through the Atlantic article is that neuroimaging studies of perceived fairness, and desire to punish, show that such judgments are grounded in biology and therefore the same the world over. "The fundamental biology of social motivations is the same in Tokyo, Tehran, and Tennessee," say Wright and Sadjadpour. This is an example where, in their desire to invoke the brain, the authors undermine their own credibility. They seem to be implying that particular patterns of brain activity cause specific fairness judgments and behaviours, rendering them equivalent across cultures. But this is false. For example, there's research showing how willingness to punish varies across cultures. Identifying the neural correlate of a fairness judgment doesn't explain how that judgment was made in the first place. In the complex dance between psychology and biology, brain changes are just as likely the consequence of fairness judgments, as the cause. I'm sure that an understanding of cross-cultural differences in judgments about fairness and interpretations of past events could be useful to the current Iran negotiations - but no brain scanner is required!
Wright and Sadjadpour's final lesson from neuroscience is that "Unexpected conciliatory gestures are more effective". For a historical example they point to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's surprise trip to Israel in 1977. "The more surprising a reward or punishment is, the bigger the event’s impact is on our decision-making," they write. OK, but what's this got to do with neuroscience? Here comes another neuro burp. Many scanning studies have revealed that "the brain has sophisticated machinery to compute the crucial difference between what is expected to happen and what actually happens," the authors say. But again I'm left wondering what that adds to our understanding of the Iranian negotiations. We already knew, without the help of a brain scanner, that people form expectations and are surprised when those expectations are inaccurate. And yes, there's interesting psychology research showing how we respond to surprises - for example, we edit our understanding of the world to imply that we knew the surprise was going to happen all along (known as hindsight bias). But again, no brain scanner required for this. And actually, I'm not convinced that the psychology of surprise carries any straightforward lessons for the Iran negotiations either. Wright and Sadjadpour explain the recent thawing of relations between the West and Iran in terms of a series of unexpected conciliatory gestures on both sides, but we can't know for sure the causal role that these events played.
Here's a line from the penultimate paragraph of the Atlantic article: "… a comprehensive resolution to the nuclear conflict will be extremely challenging, not least because it must accommodate Israeli security concerns, Iranian ideology, and U.S. domestic politics." Hard to disagree with that, but then another neuro-burp. "As the parties try to negotiate a final deal," the authors add, "these lessons from neuroscience can help us comprehend the nature of the enormous trust deficit between Washington and Tehran."
I'd love to know the motivations behind articles like these. Are the authors hoping that dressing their article up in neuroscience will help them get attention for the political points they want to make? Or are they trying to show that neuroscience is relevant to today's most pressing international affairs? I fear that such articles could be harmful. Exaggerating the relevance of neuroscience to everyday matters risks breeding skepticism and apathy towards the field as a whole.
Have I been too harsh? What did you think of The Atlantic's neuroscience guide to the Iranian negotiations?
