{"id":229,"date":"2010-11-20T01:10:00","date_gmt":"2010-11-20T00:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2010\/11\/suppose-we-were-to-transplant-your-brain.html"},"modified":"2014-11-12T04:52:04","modified_gmt":"2014-11-12T03:52:04","slug":"suppose-we-were-to-transplant-your","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2010\/11\/suppose-we-were-to-transplant-your.html","title":{"rendered":"Suppose we were to transplant your brain…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u2026 what would happen to your personality? I mean, if we took the brain of an African-Caribbean and stuck it in the body of a white Englishman \u2013 would the resulting person be black, or white?<\/p>\n

And what about if you took the brain of a woman and transplanted it into a man? A rich person into the body of a poor person? Would their behaviour change, or stay the same?<\/p>\n

What about transplanting the brain of a Catholic into the body of an atheist?<\/p>\n

These are all questions designed to dig into whether social categories depend on \u2018essentialism\u2019 \u2013 the folk-logic argument that items carry with them some kind of essence that defines what they are. If you think that a man\u2019s body with a woman\u2019s brain would act like a man then you are (in one interpretation, at least) an \u2018essentialist\u2019.<\/p>\n

Essentialism is interesting because it seems to be closely related to a range of spiritual and religious beliefs. It\u2019s what psychologist Bruce Hood<\/a> calls \u201cSupersense\u201d.<\/p>\n

Now, the brain-transplant situation is a little more complicated because social categories can be driven by situations as much as brain function, but what\u2019s interesting about this new study, lead by Marcos Pereira at the Universidade Federal da Bahia in Brazil, is that they compared how responses varied in different countries.<\/p>\n

Take a look at this figure. These show the responses from students at three of the top universities in Spain, Brazil, and England. When the bar goes above the line, it indicates essentialist beliefs (i.e. the new creature would act in a manner appropriate for its body, not its mind).<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

So, taking the first case, of a white man\u2019s brain transplanted into a black man. In Spain, the response averaged zero \u2013 so they were equally split as to whether behaviour would be \u2018black\u2019 or \u2018white\u2019. In Brazil, they tended to think in essentialist terms \u2013 the new creation would be \u2018black\u2019. In England, on the other hand, it would be white. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s a couple of things to note about this study. Firstly, overall the English students were much less essentialist, on average, than the Spanish or Brazilian.<\/p>\n

Secondly, the Spanish seem to be more essentialist about Catholicism (\u201ccat oth\u201d) than politics (\u201crig lef\u201d).<\/p>\n

They also asked the question the other way around \u2013 what would happen if you put the brain of a non-Catholic into the body of a Catholic. The results were similar, except for the English. Put this way round, the English are more essentialist (although still less so than the Spanish and the Brazilians).<\/p>\n

In other words, for the English, a non-Catholic body becomes Catholic if you put a Catholic brain in. But put a Catholic brain into a non-Catholic body, and they are more inclined to think the result would be non-Catholic. Very odd!<\/p>\n

In fact, this reflects a general trend. In all three countries, the students were more essentialist if it was a \u2018non-dominant\u2019 brain going into a \u2018dominant\u2019 body. A female brain put into a male body is more likely to be male than a male brain put into a female body is likely to be female.<\/p>\n

But for me, at least, the most interesting result of this study is that the students were not particularly essentialist about Catholicism. They saw it as being more similar to politics than to age or gender. It\u2019s something you decide (or is generated by your brain) rather than something that you are as a result of birth or society.<\/p>\n

\n

\"ResearchBlogging.org\"<\/a><\/span>Pereira ME, Alvaro Estramiana JL, & Schweiger Gallo I (2010). Essentialism and the expression of social stereotypes: a comparative study of Spain, Brasil and England. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 13<\/span> (2), 808-17 PMID: 20977029<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Creative<\/a><\/span> This article by Tom Rees<\/b> was first published on Epiphenom<\/a>. It is licensed under Creative Commons<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2026 what would happen to your personality? I mean, if we took the brain of an African-Caribbean and stuck it in the body of a white Englishman \u2013 would the resulting person be black, or white? And what about if you took the brain of a woman and transplanted it into a man? A rich […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2091,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nSuppose we were to transplant your brain...<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"... what would happen to your personality? 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