Studies have shown that anger causes raised activity in the motivational system in the left hemisphere, potentially prompting someone to deal with a stress-causing threat, thus lowering cortisol further. The regions associated with producing motivation and responsive behaviour are present in both brain hemispheres, but do different things on each side in the right hemisphere they produce negative, avoidance or withdrawal reactions to unpleasant things, and in the left hemisphere they produce positive, active, approach behaviour.Īnger is seen as negative and harmful, but it turns out that anger is sometimes useful, because it lowers cortisol, and thus reduces the potential harm caused by stress. The metaphorical devil and angel on your shoulder are actually lodged in your head. Apparently it’s human nature that we pay more attention to confident clowns than to insecure intellectuals, who can be perceived as a threat by our egotistical brain. Less intelligent people usually have illogical self-confidence, and the more confident a person is, the more convincing he is and the more others tend to trust and believe the claims he makes. To the brain, bad things are typically more potent than good things, and criticism typically carries more weight than praise praise is just telling us what we already know. The brain’s love of patterns and hatred of randomness leads many people to bizarre beliefs, superstition and conspiracy theories. The brain is primed to think up potential threats and makes us constantly afraid. Everything you are is a feature of your brain, and much of what your brain does is dedicated to making you look and feel as good as possible: the brain is largely egotistical. Our sense of self and all that goes with it – memory, language, emotion, perception and so on – is supported by processes in our brain. It’s not an easy thing to put up with, so well done.”ĭean Burnett, a neuroscientist who also dabbles in stand-up comedy and writes a popular science blog ‘Brain Flapping’ for the Guardian, has written a very accessible and entertaining book on the weird and peculiar processes in the brain that influence everything we say, do and experience.

The Idiot Brain by Dean Burnett