How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain

by Lisa Feldman Barrett

The very history of stand your ground laws is, ironically, potent evidence against their value. It’s impossible to determine reasonable fear for one’s life in a society where racist stereotypes abound and affective realism literally transforms how people see each other. The whole line of reasoning for stand your ground is gutted by affective realism. If stand your ground doesn’t scare the crap out of you, think about the impact of affective realism on people who legally carry concealed weapons. Affective realism indisputably influences people’s perceptions of threat; therefore it virtually assures that innocent people will be shot by accident. It’s simple: you predict a threat, sensory information from the world says otherwise, but then your control network downplays the prediction error to maintain the prediction of threat. Bam, you’ve shot a harmless fellow citizen. Human brains are built for this sort of delusion, through the same process that produces daydreams and imagination.