Oxytocin - The "Love" Chemical

The neurotransmitter responsible for feelings of love and closeness is also responsible for dividing factors in race, gender, and general xenophobia.

     I talked briefly about in-groups in my last post. Basically, an in-group is anybody that is similar to us in customs, social aspects, or race, depending on what is important to you and whose company you prefer. The group of people you call your friends, family, and acquaintances, the people you would associate as similar to you, are your in group. You see these people as the ones more closely aligned to your views and outlook on life. This is a good thing, and is part of the evolutionary need for acceptance and altruism within an in-group that helps us survive together.

     However, seeing your group as the one more similar to you can also make you see those not part of your in-group in a more negative light. Oxytocin has been thought to create this feeling of in-groups and out-groups, and promote closeness to those you associate with to help you help each other. However this same chemical that makes you feel emotions of love, happiness, and closeness to the people you associate with can also make you discriminate against those who do not fit in your circle. 

    We naturally associate with people that we find similar to us in some way. Because of dividing factors like cultural differences, socioeconomic factors, and physical differences, this can account for social inequality in regards to race, gender, or social status.

     This is another thing I think we as a species can grow past. In the beginning stages of our evolution, discriminating strictly based on in-groups and out-groups was beneficial because there was no defined society, no law of order, no rules of compliance and general altruism for anybody but your own. If you ran into other humans you had never met before, logically you have no reason to trust them. But our world has become to huge and so widely connected this distrust in completely unfounded now in the context of our society.

     In matters of social inequality, it is important to realize and accept that there are inherent tenencies of our minds developed from years of those assumptions being necessary. But if we want to continue the evolution of our species in a beneficial path, growing our minds and becoming more peaceful and collaborative, we have to accept that right now, that is not our natural tendency. I'm not say it's natural or normal or acceptable to be racist, but that activity is encouraged by the thought process we have had for a very long time.

     But just like anything, I think accepting these intrinsic assumptions and ideals that we are often unconscious of can help us grow past them, just by our awareness of them. If we know we naturally assume things about those different than us, we can recognize those thoughts as they happen and consciously contradict the assumption. And after that point, every time an assumption like that comes up, it will be negatively reinforced by our mental awareness of that assumption and the conscious contraindication of it, and we can essentially train ourselves to make less of these assumptions.

Related Reading: http://time.com/49399/oxytocin-racism-study/

Psychology and Our Evolutionary Tendency for Conformity and Obedience

     I am somebody that has always held a strong belief in our capacity to change on both an individual level and in the larger span of our world. I am also very aware of the factors that make us resistant to change. 

     I also find the factors behind this interesting. We, as a species, are social creatures. Both conformity and individuality have been beneficial to our species, and in our evolution we have operated with a balance of the two. Conforming to our in-group's standards and operations has been crucial to our survival throughout our existence. It allowed us to have a standard of operation and methods of protecting members of groups that were accepted.

   However, I believe that, at least in first-world, developed countries such as the U.S., most of us are past the point of needing to survive and reproduce, which up to this point, has been the basis of our evolution. Yes, social skills can help us succeed, but ultimately there are ways to succeed while forgoing the social norms and abilities that have gotten us to this point. Especially with the advent of dating sites, survival and reproduction no longer have the same need for conformity as it did in earlier states of our species. 

   Evolution, though, does not realize these things quickly. There are still many intrinsic tendencies and instincts we carry with us in our interactions with the world and our thoughts about ourselves that are no longer necessary but can be hard to let go of.

     One of my inspirations in the ideas I've been mulling over has been experiments such as Stanley Milgram's tests of obedience. While his studies were often seen as controversial, I admire his methods of performing objective science in order to study human nature. If you're not familiar, in his obedience study he brought subjects in to perform on experiment on learning, and the effect of punishment on learning. Two "random" subjects in a room were handed cards reading "Teacher" and "Learner."

     The trick is, both cards say Teacher. One of the subjects was a hired actor, and would always assume the role of the Learner. The Teacher was instructed to operate a set of switches that would administer an electric shock of increasing strength to the Learner should he answer a question wrong. The Teacher was initially given a test shock of medium strength so he knew the pain he would be giving to the Learner. The shocks led up to 450 volts, which the Teachers were told was very strong and potentially dangerous.

     Throughout the experiment, the Learner answered more and more questions wrong, The Teacher, through a microphone in the Learner's room, began to hear shouts of pain, and eventually protests and pleas to end the experiment. Most Teachers would look back at the experiment Director at this point in question, and the Director would instruct them to go on for the necessity of the experiment.

     60%-65% of subjects went on to the last shock.

     They then learned that the Learner, in each case, was an actor who had pre-recorded shouts of pain and such, and the actual experiment was how far people will go to punish somebody because they were instructed to. Many were upset at being duped, and at being forced to examine themselves and learn that they would have willingly hurt somebody because they were told to.

     Conformity and obedience are ingrained into our cultural and neurological tendencies. It was beneficial, in the survival and reproduction focused beginnings of our race, to obey and conform because if one was not accepted, there was very little chance their genes would be passed on. 

     What I have found extremely fascinating is the idea that we could overcome these tendencies by studying them and increasing out awareness. If the subjects in that study had been told what the true research was, and how many people went through to the end, do you think they would second guess their actions and maybe act differently? I think this idea could be implemented on a personal level across a very wide span, and could potentially change the way we think if we choose to be aware of ourselves. Often, it is not pretty to realize these things about ourselves, but we must be aware of our undesirable tendencies in order to change them.