Thread: Research Shows Evolution Has Buried Post-Hypnotic Suggestions in Our Behavior

Interesting...

I smell a conspiracy theory.

Hmmm, makes you wonder about all those hollywood movies portraying aliens as intelligent, evil, carnivorous blood-thirsty creatures who want to kill us off.

It seemed that the "snakes suck" wiring was always there, but until it was externally triggered it never manifested.

Very curious.

Makes me think of the Little Albert experiment with the white rabbit.

This is essentially a highly sensationalized way of packaging information that is already widely known in the scientific community. This research was originally conducted in the 1960's. Also note that a genetic predisposition toward a certain behavior (such as fearing snakes, but not plants) has nothing whatsoever to do with hypnosis. It goes back to the fact that we are not born as "blank slates."

The thing I find most interesting then is how the concept of a snake exists in some form in our DNA.

Originally Posted by DuB

This is essentially a highly sensationalized way of packaging information that is already widely known in the scientific community. This research was originally conducted in the 1960's. Also note that a genetic predisposition toward a certain behavior (such as fearing snakes, but not plants) has nothing whatsoever to do with hypnosis. It goes back to the fact that we are not born as "blank slates."

Agreed. But what I find interesting is much less the article (or the sensationalized way it was presented), but with the research, and how accurate it might have been.

Originally Posted by Xei

The thing I find most interesting then is how the concept of a snake exists in some form in our DNA.

Possibly in the form of a schema? If behavioral traits and stimulus experienced through the mother, while in the womb, can carry over into the child's brain, could it be possible that schema which link "snake" to "bad" find some way to carry over as well?

Yeah don't get me wrong, it's really cool stuff. I just don't like the way this author presented it.

Moving away from monkeys and towards humans; research like this is at the roots of fields such as evolutionary psychology, which is concerned with how certain behavioral patterns arose through natural selection. It's really pretty remarkable the kinds of behaviors that are innate in newborns. For example, they have some capacity for social evaluation; infants preferentially reach for adults who display 'helpful' versus 'hindering' behavior and display fear in response to 'suspicious looking' individuals, particularly males. Presumably these behavioral patterns led to increased chances of survival in our environment of evolutionary adaptedness.

Possibly in the form of a schema? If behavioral traits and stimulus experienced through the mother, while in the womb, can carry over into the child's brain, could it be possible that schema which link "snake" to "bad" find some way to carry over as well?

No, I very much doubt it.

This will have arisen through natural selection, like every other animal trait.

The interesting thing is simply how specific a neural response the genetic code can code for.