Neurodualism: People Assume that the Brain Affects the Mind more than the Mind Affects the Brain.

Jussi Valtonen,Woo-Kyoung Ahn,Andrei Cimpian

doi:10.1111/cogs.13034

Abstract

People commonly think of the mind and the brain as distinct entities that interact, a view known as dualism. At the same time, the public widely acknowledges that science attributes all mental phenomena to the workings of a material brain, a view at odds with dualism. How do people reconcile these conflicting perspectives? We propose that people distort claims about the brain from the wider culture to fit their dualist belief that minds and brains are distinct, interacting entities: Exposure to cultural discourse about the brain as the physical basis for the mind prompts people to posit that mind-brain interactions are asymmetric, such that the brain is able to affect the mind more than vice versa. We term this hybrid intuitive theory neurodualism. Five studies involving both thought experiments and naturalistic scenarios provided evidence of neurodualism among laypeople and, to some extent, even practicing psychotherapists. For example, lay participants reported that "a change in a person's brain" is accompanied by "a change in the person's mind" more often than vice versa. Similarly, when asked to imagine that "future scientists were able to alter exactly 25% of a person's brain," participants reported larger corresponding changes in the person's mind than in the opposite direction. Participants also showed a similarly asymmetric pattern favoring the brain over the mind in naturalistic scenarios. By uncovering people's intuitive theories of the mind-brain relation, the results provide insights into societal phenomena such as the allure of neuroscience and common misperceptions of mental health treatments.

Highlights

We are grateful to Sarah Hulsmann, Angelica Mehta, Jasmine Miller, Liam North, and Molly Tallberg for their help in conducting this research
We propose that people tend to (1) view the mind and the brain as distinct, interacting entities, a notion consistent with dualism, and (2) extrapolate the notion that the brain is the biological source of the mind—a notion incompatible with popular dualism— into a belief that the brain is more likely to affect the mind than the mind is to affect the brain
Locus-of-change task consistent with neurodualism, participants reported that psychotherapy would exert much stronger proximal than distal effects (M = 75.4 [72.5, 78.3] vs. M = 47.0 [43.1, 50.8], respectively), whereas the anticipated proximal and distal effects of medication were virtually equal (M = 63.8 [60.0, 67.7] vs. M = 63.8 [60.1, 67.6]; see Figure 4)

Summary

Introduction

We are grateful to Sarah Hulsmann, Angelica Mehta, Jasmine Miller, Liam North, and Molly Tallberg for their help in conducting this research. A recent study conducted in the United States, Ghana, Thailand, China, and Vanuatu found that the mind– body distinction was common across these cultures and emerged in childhood (Weisman et al, in press). While these findings stop short of demonstrating that popular dualism is a universal human tendency, they point to its prevalence across a range of cultures (see Chudek et al, 2018; Hodge, 2008; Slingerland & Chudek, 2011)

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Conclusion