Empathy represses analytical thought, and vice versa.
Researchers at Case Western Reserve University studied how our brains cycle between the social and analytical networks.
When presented with a task, healthy adults engage the appropriate neural pathway.
When the analytic network is engaged, our ability to appreciate the human cost of our action is repressed.
MRI images showed that social problems deactivated brain regions associated with analysis, and activated the social network.
This finding held true whether the questions came via video or print.
Meanwhile, physics questions deactivated the brain regions associated with empathizing and activated the analytical network.
This could explain why why even the most intelligent, complex brains can be taken by a swindler's story – one that upon a second look offers clues it was false.
Or why a CEO, engaged in analysing a company's plan, will fail to see the human impact of his decisions.
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