Conscientiousness versus the Modular Mind

1. Conscientiousness versus the Modular Mind • 1. Evolutionary psychology 101: Modules and implicit processing • 2. Domain general mechanisms and explicit processing: General intelligence and Conscientiousness/Effortful Control/Active Inhibition • 3. Conscientiousness and Life History Theory • 4. Effortful control inhibits implicit processing • Moral Outrage • Aggression • Ethnocentrism • Sexual Arousal

2. Evolutionary Psychology 101 • Human cognitive architecture evolved to solve recurrent problems our ancestors faced during the the environment we evolved in: Pleistocene hunter-gatherers. • “For humans, the situations our ancestors encountered as Pleistocene hunter-gatherers define the array of adaptive problems our cognitive mechanisms were designed to solve” (Cosmides & Tooby, 1994, p. 87). • The mind is made up of many domain-specific mechanisms= “modules.”

3. Each module is specifically designed to solve an adaptive problem: The mind as a Swiss Army knife.

4. Evolutionary Psychology • Humans are designed to solve problems that range from “solicitation of assistance from one’s parents, to language acquisition, to modeling the spatial distribution of local objects, to coalition formation and cooperation, to the deduction of intentions on the basis of facial expressions, to avoiding incest…, to the interpretation of threats, to mate selection, to object recognition” (Cosmides & Tooby, 1994, p. 88).

5. Evolutionary Psychology 101 • Modules are “dedicated intelligences” that receive characteristic inputs and produce characteristic output. • Their operation is mandatory (i.e., they are automatically triggered in the presence of appropriate environmental stimulation), fast, and unconscious (but their output may be conscious). (= implicit processing)

6. Massive Modularity • Modules have a built-in sense of relevance about what information is needed to solve an adaptive problem. • They are sensitive to correlated features of the evolutionary environment. • E.g. 1: Waist-to-hip ratio is an easily perceivable cue correlated with the ability to have future offspring (Singh, 1993). • E.g. 2: Facial recognition module. • E.g. 3: Spatial information module—rotating figures in space, etc.

7. Evolutionary Psychology and the EEA • Organisms adapt to recurrent problems in the EEA (= the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness—the environment humans evolved in which presented the problems solved by the set of human adaptations). When the environment presents recurrent problems, the optimal solution is to develop domain-specific cognitive and psychological mechanisms specialized to handle specific types of input and generate certain types of solutions. • “Transient conditions that disappear after a single or a few generations may lead to some temporary change in the frequency of designs, but the associated selection pressures will disappear or reverse as often as conditions do. Therefore, it is only those conditions that recur, statistically accumulating across many generations, that lead to the construction of complex adaptations (Tooby & Cosmides, 1992, p. 69).

8. Modular Information processing domains: David Geary, The Origin of Mind, 2005. • Folk Psychology • Self • Self awareness: Represent self as social being and have a sense of persistence of self through time • Self schema: Knowledge of one’s own personality and relationships with other people • Individual • Nonverbal behavior: e.g., postural cues • Facial expression • Language • Theory of Mind: Ability to infer intentions, beliefs, emotional states and future behavior of individuals; no evidence in monkeys; controversial in chimpanzees • Person Schema: Knowledge of specific other people and their networks • Group • Kin recognition: Mothers and babies recognize each other by smell; children able to identify odor of full siblings, not half siblings or step-siblings • In-group/Out-group

9. Modular Information processing domains: David Geary, The Origin of Mind, 2005. • Folk Psychology • Self • Self awareness: Represent self as social being and have a sense of persistence of self through time • Self schema: Knowledge of one’s own personality and relationships with other people • Individual • Nonverbal behavior: e.g., postural cues • Facial expression • Language • Theory of Mind: Ability to infer intentions, beliefs, emotional states and future behavior of individuals; no evidence in monkeys; controversial in chimpanzees • Person Schema: Knowledge of specific other people and their networks • Group • Kin recognition: Mothers and babies recognize each other by smell; children able to identify odor of full siblings, not half siblings or step-siblings • In-group/Out-group

10. Modular Information processing domains: David Geary, The Origin of Mind, 2005. • Folk Biology • All humans classify flora and fauna on basis of morphology, behavior, growth patterns, and ecological niche; • Disruptions of anterior temporal cortex disrupts ability to name living but not non-living things. (Not conclusive) • Folk Physics • Systems sensitive to invariant features of physical space. • For humans, this includes ability to mentally represent physical objects and manipulate the objects, as in tool use. These may engage working memory: spatial intelligence. • Navigation via mental maps of routes and landmarks both involve parietal cortex, but route task also involved hippocampus. Posterior hippocampus of taxi drivers in London larger than age-matched men. Volume correlated with time spent as taxi driver (Maguire et al., 2000)

11. Characteristics of Implicit and Explicit Cognitive Systems Implicit System Explicit System • Unconscious Conscious • Automatic Controllable • Fast Relatively slow • Evolved Early Evolved Late • Common Across May be unique to Species Humans • Pragmatic, context- Logical, dependent de-contextualized, abstract, rational • Social discourse Chess • Domain specific Domain general

12. Characteristics of Implicit and Explicit Cognitive Systems Parallel Processing Sequential Processing of multiple sources of de-contextualized, of contextual abstract representations information (e.g., face, body posture) High capacity Limited by attentional and working memory resources. Effortless Effortful Heuristic processing as General Intelligence as paradigm paradigm Acquisition by biology or Acquisition by culture and overlearning formal tuition

13. Social (Evolved?) Heuristics versus the Rational Brain: Moral Outrage • Sanfey et al. 2003: “The Neural Basis of Economic Decision-Making in the Ultimatum Game” Science, 300, 1755. • Proposer offers to split $10, and responder can either accept or reject offer. Only one interaction. • More people will reject more unfair offers (9-1, 8-2) made by other people than offers made by computers • This is irrational: Should accept any offer greater than 10-0. • fMRI results: Unfair offers (not = 50/50) result in activation of brain areas related to negative emotion, rational processing, and cognitive conflict. • Anterior Insula: Negative emotion: pain, disgust, and personal threat (=evolved heuristic) • Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex: linked to goal maintenance, executive control, and explicit processing (Rationality, effortful control) • Anterior Cingulate Cortex: implicated in cognitive conflict.

14. Social (Evolved?) Heuristics versus the Rational Brain • Greater emotional activation to unfair offers made by another human than a computer: Illustrates people’s tendency to place things in a social context when interacting with people rather than use abstract, decontextualized reasoning. • Conflict between rational areas of brain and irrational: Unfair offers that are subsequently rejected have greater anterior insula than DLPFC activation, whereas accepted offers exhibit greater DLPFC than anterior insula. • Conflict between emotional goal (resist unfairness) produced by automatic processing and rational goal (get money).

15. Conscientiousness: The Other Inhibitory System Conscientiousness in personality psychology: • Effortful Control: Involves explicit processing • Delay of gratification • Inhibition of dominant responses (overlearned or innate) • Pay close attention to detail (= focused attention) • Persevere in unpleasant tasks • Correlated ~.5 with school success • Planning for long-term goals • Dependable, responsible behavior • Linked to pfc functioning • Inhibitory connections to Behavioral Approach System. (BAS linked to reward-oriented behavior, impulsivity, sensation seeking, dominance, sex, etc.) • Slow developing ― Lack of conscientiousness defines immaturity.

16. Conscientiousness: The Other Inhibitory System Development of Conscientiousness: Kochanska et al. • Increasing coherence between 22 and 33 months of age among a variety of tasks assessing the ability to inhibit dominant responses • waiting for signal before eating snack, • not peeking while gift is wrapped, • not touching wrapped gift until experimenter returns. • In general, inhibitory ability increased during this age span • Girls > Boys • Effortful control also predicted ability to modulate anger (tight seat belt restraint) and ability to modulate joy (reaction to puppet show). • This suggests effortful control is linked to control over automatic processing stemming from affective reactions. Kochanska, G., Murray, K.T., & Harlan, E. (2000). Effortful control in early childhood: Continuity and change, antecedents, and implications for social development. Developmental Psychology, 36, 220–232.

17. Effortful Control and aggression: The general aggression modelAnderson and Bushman, 2002.

18. Prepotent, evolved cues for aggression: Berkowitz • Aversive experiences produce tendencies for fight or flight in animals and humans. • hot temperatures • shock-induced pain • loud noises • foul odors • Crowded freeways?? Berkowitz, L. (1990). On the formation and regulation of anger and aggression: a cognitive-neoassociationistic analysis. American Psychologist, 45, 494–503.

19. Evolutionary Psychology and Aggression: David BussWhere’s the pfc? • Motives for aggression: Status, reputation, honor and sexual jealousy as key motives for aggression. • Adaptive problems “to which aggression might have evolved as a solution” (p. 608): • Co-opting resources held by others • Defending against attack • Inflicting costs on intrasexual rivals • Negotiating status and power hierarchies • Deterring rivals from future aggression • Deterring long-term mates from sexual infidelity • Reducing resources expended on unrelated children. • Costs (e.g., possibility of retaliation) built into the module. Buss, D. M., & Shackelford, T. K. (1997). Human aggression in evolutionary perspective. Clinical Psychology Review, 17, 605–619. Duntley, J. D., & Buss, D. M. (2004). The evolution of evil. In A. G. Miller (Ed.), The Social Psychology of Good and Evil. New York: Guilford

20. Buss: Impulsivity as design feature of aggression as an evolved module • After being beaten, “I had stone hatred for him, and I righteously couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when I blew him away. As soon as he popped out of the liquor store door, I charged right up to him, rammed the barrel in his chest, and pulled the trigger” (in Duntley & Buss, 2005, p. xxx). • “Effective strategies sometimes require immediate action. Ponderous time delays and real-time extended reflection would result in failure. Stated differently, we propose that “impulsivity” is actually a design feature of certain adaptations that promotes their tactical effectiveness. The fact that they appear to external observers to be products of the lack of judicious reflection may speak to the profound inability of human intuitions to grasp the logic of evolved design, or to our moral judgments that classify certain strategies as good or bad. Speedy, immediate, real-time responses can be the product of adaptive design rather than “mechanical failure.” ” Duntley & Buss, 2004, p. 118

21. Explicit processing and Aggression • Costs and benefits calculated via explicit prefrontal mechanisms. • Explicit assessments of costs/benefits influence aggression (Tedeschi & Felson, 1994) • Aid for victim, retaliation • Likelihood of being caught (e.g., DNA fingerprinting) • Penalties at law • PFC is involved in active inhibition of prepotent subcortical impulsive aggression.

22. PFC Inhibition of sub-cortical aggression impulses: Damasio; Anderson et al. • Patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex are driven by immediate rather than long-term rewards • Children with damage in this area have immature, egocentric moral reasoning and are prone to stealing and aggression. Damasio’s “somatic marker” hypothesis proposes that the deficit stems from the lack of inhibitory emotions normally attached to negative future possibilities. • Patients with prefrontal damage originating in infancy exhibited a general lack of conscientiousness (lack of dependability, inability to plan for the future, proneness to immediate rewards rather than long term goals), impulsive rather than instrumental, goal-directed aggression, and lack of guilt for transgressions against others. Damasio, A. R. (1994/2000). Descartes’ error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York: Quill (HarperCollins). Anderson, S. W., Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., & Damasio, A. R. (1999). Impairment of social and moral behavior related to early damage in human prefrontal cortex. Nature Neuroscience  2, 1032–1037.

23. PFC Inhibition of sub-cortical aggression impulses: Raine et al., 1998 • Impulsive murderers had relatively lower left and right prefrontal functioning and higher right hemisphere sub-cortical functioning. • Predatory murderers whose crimes involved planning and deliberation had prefrontal functioning that was more equivalent to comparisons, while also having excessively high right sub-cortical activity. • Results “support the hypothesis that emotional, unplanned impulsive murderers are less able to regulate and control aggressive impulses generated from sub-cortical structures due to deficient prefrontal regulation” (p. 319).

24. PFC Inhibition of sub-cortical aggression impulses: Raine et al., 1998 • Both impulsive and predatory murderers have “excessive subcortical activity” (p. 319)—what one might term “modular aggression.” • Predatory murderers are better able to control these impulses stemming from subcortical areas because of adequate prefrontral functioning. • Raine, A., Meloy, J. R., Buhrle, S., Stoddard, J., LaCasse, L., & Muchsbaum, M. S. (1998). Reduced prefrontal and increased subcortical brain functioning assessed using Positron Emission Tomography in predatory and affective murderers. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 16, 319–332.

25. Inhibition of sexual arousal by the pfc: Beauregard et al., 2001; Journal of Neuroscience 21, RC 165-1-6. • Subjects observe erotic films that brought “rapidly and automatically a marked positive change in the subjective emotional experience of healthy male subjects, change correlated with significant activation of [sub-cortical] limbic brain regions” • Inhibitory condition: subjects instructed to voluntarily inhibit sexual arousal to the erotic stimuli. Subjects “were encouraged to distance themselves from these stimuli, that is, to become a detached observer.”

26. Inhibition of sexual arousal by the pfc: Beauregard et al., 2001; Journal of Neuroscience 21, RC 165-1-6. • Erotic films activated right amygdala, the hypothalamus, and the right anterior temporal pole [Brodmann area (BA) 38]. Inhibition resulted in no difference between erotic film and neutral film in these areas. • Inhibition associated with activation of right dorsolateral PFC (superior frontal gyrus) and the right Anterior Cingulate Cortex. Subvocal rehearsal component of verbal working memory also involved. Sexual ideology??

27. Inhibition of sexual arousal by the pfc: Beauregard et al., 2001; Journal of Neuroscience 21, RC 165-1-6 • “The normal functioning of the neural network linking the right dorsolateral PFC, right ACC, right amygdala, right anterior temporal pole, and hypothalamus may constitute a fundamental psychobiological mechanism through which human beings can consciously and willfully self-regulate their emotional responses, using various metacognitive processes. From a phylogenetic perspective, such a circuit may implement one of the most remarkable human faculties that has emerged in the course of human evolution. At both an individual and a collective level, a defect of this neural circuitry . . . may have disastrous psychological and social consequences. Ontologically, the present findings suggest that humans have the capacity to influence the electrochemical dynamics of their brains, by voluntarily changing the nature of the mind processes unfolding in the psychological space.”

28. Is Conscientiousness/Effortful Control/Active Inhibition Adaptive? Adaptiveness of Conscientiousness/Effortful Control/Active Inhibition: • Expand universe of potential costs and benefits for behavior beyond evolutionarily recurrent implicit contexts (e.g., cheating wives, ) to include explicit representations of the context and costs and benefits, allowing, e.g., plans to take advantage of arbitrary associations between rewards, punishments and behavior. • Implies domain-general learning mechanisms. • Ability to inhibit prepotent responses when costs outweigh benefits, as calculated by explicit processing • Example: Aggression: Explicit assessments of costs/benefits influence aggression (Tedeschi & Felson, 1994) • Aid for victim (explicitly represented networks of allies) • Likelihood of being caught (e.g., DNA evidence) • Penalties at law

29. Is Conscientiousness/Effortful Control/Active Inhibition Adaptive in the Modern World? • Yes: Strong correlations between lack of inhibitory control and school and work force failure, incarceration for violent crimes (sociopathy, psychopathy, Buss’s examples), etc. • Eisenberg, N., et al. (2000). Prediction of elementary school children's externalizing problem behaviors from attentional and behavioral regulation and negative emotionality. Child Development,71, 1367-1382. • Downside: Public explicit space may not reflect individual interests. • Explicit public space: Social controls, ideology, media images. • Enormous energy expended on controlling explicit space: Media, government (US, USSR, National Socialism), schools • Explicit public space often reflects conflicts of interest but most people can’t influence explicit cultural space.

30. Conclusion • Conscientiousness/Effortful Control/Active Inhibition is a central system for inhibiting evolved tendencies and other automatic responses in the service of long term goals (e.g., college education and good job) and dealing with exigencies of the real world (e.g., calculating costs and benefits, such as aware of social controls providing penalties for engaging in disinhibited behavior) = Rationality.

31. Conclusion • Data suggest that the basis is a set of non-modular, domain-general control mechanisms: • Conscientiousness as a personality trait with a wide range of correlates; suggests domain-general control function. • “The consistent involvement of control–appraisal system dynamics in various forms of regulation [selective attention; reappraisal] suggests a common functional architecture that might be flexibly deployed to support multiple types of control strategies that regulate multiple types of emotional responses” (Ochsner & Gross, Trends in Cognitive Science, 9, 246, 2005) • These control mechanisms are separate from general intelligence.