Volume 2 | Why We Dehumanize

Middle School Couples   Me to my newsletter

                     Happy 1 week, babe

Week 2 already? Morale is high at Makes Ya Think headquarters thanks to my new favorite people: the 27 of you who subscribed to the newsletter after the first week.

And no, I didn't create 27 fake email addresses. 

Haven't subscribed? New here? This newsletter, Makes Ya Think, poses questions about human behavior, and hopefully, provides insights that challenge your beliefs, offer a unique perspective and if nothing else...makes you think.

Here's what I've been thinking about lately:*

*I'm also thinking about if you understood the meme I opened up with. After all, first impressions are everything. If not, just pretend you did and laugh.

Why do sports fans (sometimes) cheer when players get hurt?  

Toronto Raptors fans infamously cheered loudly after Golden State star Kevin Durant went down with an Achilles injury in Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals.

Toronto, on the verge of winning its first NBA Championship, led the series 3-1. This injury to the Warriors superstar certainly increased their chances of doing just that.

So what's the deal here? Were all the fans in the arena that night a bunch of disrespectful assholes?

Some of them, maybe. But as for the rest of them, I'd argue no - just human.

Even Warrior guard Stephen Curry, having lived in Toronto for several years growing up, said he was "very confused" by the fans' reaction.

The reasons that follow may provide clarity as to why.

*Note: I'm not justifying the fans' actions (they were wrong), I'm simply using what I know about the human mind to explain why they may have reacted this way

***

I’d argue our brain’s greatest strength is its ability to think about and understand the minds of others – their thoughts, beliefs, emotions and wants.

A coach can better motivate his players if he understands their wants and needs. A sales rep closes more deals when she understands the motivations of her customer and adjusts the pitch accordingly.

Unfortunately, this great strength of ours - the ability to reason about the minds of others - often becomes disengaged.

One main factor in this? Distance.

Making matters worse, the more distance we feel between ourselves and another person, the less likely we are to view them as human.

Conversely, the less distance we feel between ourselves and another person, the more likely we are to view them as human.

This is true in both a physical and psychological sense. Let’s look at a few examples:

• Physical: soldiers in battle find it much more difficult to shoot at an enemy right in front of them than someone that is far away

This quote from a soldier in war illustrates how physical distance plays a role in viewing others as human:

"a man jumped out of the trench and ran along the top of the parapet in full view. He was half-dressed and was holding up his trousers with both hands as he ran. I refrained from shooting at him...partly because of that detail about the trousers. I had come here to shoot 'fascists' and a man who is holding up his trousers isn't a 'fascist', he is visibly a fellow-creature, similar to yourself, and you don't feel like shooting at him."

When you can see into your enemy's eyes, you are far more likely to view them as human and far less likely to shoot.

Distance also plays a role from a psychological standpoint, the degree to which you feel closely connected to someone else.

• Psychological: studies showed that college students found homeless people, those they deemed as most different from themselves, as being less mindful – less intelligent, articulate and less emotional

You see, there’s a small part of your brain called the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). It's involved in making inferences about the minds of others.

Research confirms your MPFC is activated when you are thinking about yourself, your close friends and family and others who have beliefs similar to yourself. It's much less active when thinking about the minds of those you don't feel a connection to - just like the homeless people to the students in the study.

Unfortunately, when you feel psychologically distant from others, your MPFC stays uninvolved and leads you to think of other humans as something less than fully human.

***

There are many reasons why fans cheered for the injury to Durant that night. Given the role distance plays in our ability to think about the minds of others, maybe just maybe, that played a factor as well.

• Physical: most fans couldn’t see the pain on Durant's face or the tears moving down his face. The anguish his teammates and coaches felt for him wasn't visible either. I'd suspect the fans sitting courtside, those the closest physical distance to Durant, were much less likely to cheer.

• Psychological: Former NBA players cheering? Those that know the feeling of working your whole life to win an NBA championship and getting it taken from you? No chance. Friends and family of Durant? Certainly not. Warriors fans - those that live and die with every shot, steal and score? I wouldn't think so. But Raptors fans? The ones that felt the least personal connection to Durant? They weren't thinking about his pain, the impact of the injury on his career or his mind. Their focus centered around the Raptors' chances to win the NBA title, which increased after the injury.

Does this justify the reaction? Certainly not. Indifference is one thing, cheering is another. Does this help explain it? Possibly. Does this make you think? I hope so.

As we learned above, when distance keeps our ability to understand the minds of others disengaged, we may see other humans, in this case Kevin Durant, as less than fully human.

*Another possible reason is that people tend to search for cues from the group. If a stadium starts cheering, you're more likely to conform. Just like smiles, laughs, frowns and yawns - which are contagious in crowds. See someone yawn and you are much more likely to do so yourself.

Is this why Kevin gets into arguments with strangers on Twitter and not with strangers in real life?

Look what we have here! Our first subscriber question - this one from my dear friend Michael. Mike actually encouraged me to publish this newsletter once per week (I initially wanted to publish every other week), so I very much appreciate the additional content (and the extra push).

To answer your question: yes, I think so. In fact, I think distance (as we discussed above) is a big reason why people tend to be much more viscous online than in real life.

You see, I've been known to get into occasional arguments over Twitter - usually over nothing serious, just things like Indiana basketball, (the defense of) Jon Rothstein and why college basketball is superior to the NBA.

But why am I much more confrontational (and more likely to be mean-spirited) to basketballguy420 on Twitter than I am to a stranger I'm talking to in person?

Distance is one explanation.

Chatting through a phone or computer screen eliminates any sense of physical distance.

Do I feel a deep connection to this person? Certainly not. But I'd be willing to bet if we were to discuss things face-to-face, me and basketballguy420 may realize we're just two dudes that have a passion for basketball (and have other shared interests as well).

Instead, admittedly, this internet interaction leads me to more likely think of him as, not someone with feelings, emotions, hopes and dreams, but a username on Twitter - something less than fully human.

Tweet I'm Thinking About

Right? Always a weird feeling. Like I appreciate the card, but again, what else do you want me to do?

Story I'm Thinking About

Confucius was once asked for advice by a student. His response? Wait and be patient. Later, another student asked him for advice. Confucius advised this student to not wait and solve this problem immediately. An observant third student noticed Confucius' contradicting responses and asked him to explain. Confucius replied, "Ran Qiu is over cautious and so I wished to urge him on. Zilu, on the other hand, is too impetuous, and so I sought to hold him back."

A great reminder that every person and every situation is different. Context and timing are everything.

Parting Thoughts

Makes Ya Think faced adversity this week. While writing Monday night, I exited the email platform. It's one of those that works on auto-save - always a bit scary when you don't physically hit save yourself, but hey, it hadn't failed me yet...

Until then. After re-opening my draft, it said "last saved 2 hours ago". I let out a few yells and several curse words and then went to bed. But then I realized I couldn't go to bed, so I frantically wrote down everything I could remember and then finally went to sleep.

Lesson learned. Let's just say this newsletter edition was written in Microsoft Word.

Love u guys (signing off like one of my favorite podcasts, Pardon My Take),

Kevin