The Brain: The Story of You

by David Eagleman

Our brains constantly pull information from the environment and use it to steer our behavior, but often the influences around us are not recognized. Take an effect called “priming”, in which one thing influences the perception of something else. For example, if you’re holding a warm drink you’ll describe your relationship with a family member more favorably; when you’re holding a cold drink, you’ll express a slightly poorer opinion of the relationship. Why does this happen? Because the brain mechanisms for judging intrapersonal warmth overlap with the mechanisms for judging physical warmth, and so one influences the other. The upshot is that your opinion about something as fundamental as your relationship with your mother can be manipulated by whether you take your tea hot or iced. Similarly, when you are in a foul-smelling environment, you’ll make harsher moral decisions – for example, you’re more likely to judge that someone else’s uncommon actions are immoral. In another study, it was shown that if you sit in a hard chair you’ll be a more hard-line negotiator in a business transaction; in a soft chair you’ll yield more.