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The Wisdom of Psychopaths
In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychopaths and their infamously crafty behaviors, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals that there is a...
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A crooked tooth. That funky mole. A pimple on your chin. When you stare into the mirror and pick apart the little imperfections, you're doing more than being too hard on yourself. In fact, that behavior—understanding that your reflection is you, and seeing how you differ from other people—is often taken as a demonstration of some complex cognitive gymnastics that not all species can pull off.
Since the 1970s psychologists have used mirrors to search for signs of self-awareness in both humans and animals. Along the way, they came to believe that humans were almost universally able to pass a mirror-based self-recognition test by 24 months of age. But a 2004 study published in Child Development called that idea into question. Researchers found the widely accepted finding only applied to kids from Western nations, where most of the previous studies had been done. Now, a study published September 9 in The Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology is reinforcing that idea and taking it further. Not only do non-Western kids fail to pass the mirror self-recognition test by 24 months—in some countries, they still are not succeeding at six years old.
What does it mean? Are kids in places like Fiji and Kenya really unable to figure out a mirror? Do these children lack the ability to psychologically separate themselves from other humans? Not likely. Instead researchers say these results point to long-standing debates about what counts as mirror self-recognition, and how results of the test ought to be interpreted.
Strange results and 'freezing' behavior
The classic mirror test of self-recognition starts with a mark placed on a subject's body, somewhere he or she can't see it without help—such as the forehead or back of the shoulder. Then subjects are put in front of a mirror. To pass the test they have to first figure out that the reflection they see is not somebody else, understand that it is themselves, and then examine their bodies enough to find the mark. Finally, they have to realize the mark shouldn't be there and try to remove it.
The theory is that subjects who pass the test—animal or human—are self-aware, says Tanya Broesch, a doctoral candidate in Emory University's Department of Psychology and lead author on the 2010 study. That is, the subject understands the concepts of "self" and "others," can differentiate between the two, and can recognize themselves in the reflection. Based on results with Western children, psychologists have linked the age humans start passing the mark test with other milestones that happen around the same time, such as development of empathy. The ability to separate oneself from others is often thought of as a prerequisite for understanding that someone else might be hurt or sad, even if the beholder is not.
But when Broesch tried the mark mirror test outside the U.S. and Canada, she got some strange results. In Kenya, for instance, only two out of 82 children, some as old as six, passed. But the kids who did not pass were not psychologically damaged or lacking empathy. And most displayed what Broesch calls "freezing" behavior—the children did not greet or smile at their reflection. Instead, they stood still and seemed deeply uncomfortable.
Broesch thinks that freezing is indirect evidence of self-awareness. The kids didn't pass the mark test, per se, but their behavior still demonstrated that they knew they were looking at themselves. Diana Reiss, a professor of psychology at Hunter College in New York City, agrees. She works with animals, primarily dolphins, and she says that relying solely on the mark test to measure self-awareness can give you a false negative.
"I think it's gotten confused in the field. We've forgotten that the behavior itself is also an objective means of showing that the subject understands self," she says.
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13 Comments
Add CommentAfter reading this article through a couple of times, because something seemed out of place, I realized that it didn't seem like self-awareness was being tested, but vanity. Females are more vain than males and I can only imagine, since it wasn't tested, that more females passed the mark test than males. This doesn't mean that males are less self-aware than females...it probably means that we are less vain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo I tried this test with my 10 yr old Labrador. He was not interested at all with the "dog" in the mirror.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI took some treats and placed one right in front of the mirror while he sat 2 feet away. He was not worried the "dog" in the mirror would get it first, he hardly looked at himself, no bark, growl, etc...
I then placed a barrier so he could only see if the treat was placed if he looked in the mirror. The very first time he came to look if there was a treat, after the mock placement. I repeated the placement(s) with additional treats and he never attempted to get the treat when no treat was placed. He used the mirror to determine if there was a treat, and never assumed the other "dog" might get it first. Seems to me he knows the reflection is his and doesn't care how cute he is, but that dough-nut was yummy.
@JamesDavis
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have to assume you are referring to human males and females in you comment, as in many other species it is the males that use colourful displays in order to attract a mate.
And assuming that human females are more vain than males means that you have not seen a man spend hours preening in the bathroom. A lack of makeup does not imply a lack of vanity.
James - way to miss the entire point of the article. If you choose to focus on sexist stereotypes instead of tackling the question of self-awareness, you must live in a pretty dull world.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFemales are VAINER than males? Sheesh, James, you know almost nothing about animals and have a long way to go to achieve a grade any higher than a D- in your own empathy training!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo start, go to the Web and into Google Image Search, then look up page after page of the many, MANY portraits of King Louis XIV of France, the "Sun King". With his Big Hair, fantastic hats and trophy mistresses, Louis was the vanity champion of them all. The hundreds of rooms in his Versailles palace were practically walled in floor to ceiling mirrors in ornate gilded frames.
He was hardly the only vanity displayer among the males of our species. The Chinese court of his day would rival Versailles, not to mention the surroundings of England's royals, Russia's czars, and every last one of those minor rajas of India. Not until the mid-19th century did Western men cease festooning themselves like peacocks draped in brocade, silk and jewels!
Nowadays, why do you think the "monly" men just LOVE dressing up and preening around in uniforms and medals?
humans are so vain, especially the "western" countries, and most of all the U.S. population. At least those belonging to the category known as the "haves".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot all animals, in fact, no others I can really think of right off the top of my head, really care at all about all the trivial bull crap, humans do. Why would other animals worry about such matters as a scar on their face, or grey hair appearing, how big their den, or shelter is, how long their eye lashes are, whether or not they are as nice looking as their litter mate or another in their herd, pod, troop,flock, pack, gaggle, or whatever? I would have to say most of the commonly referred to as "seven deadly sins", are found only in the human species in the animal kingdom. The fact that some animals may be able to identify themselves in a mirror,then become so fascinated and amazed, that they feel compelled to begin all these experiments and waste their time and whatever financial resources available to them on something so very unimportant and what should be common sense to anyone who actually had the ability to think for themselves instead of living within a dogmatic mindset.
And yes, Science is just as dogmatic if not more so,as religion is or ever has been.
What is it with all you people who are so damn arrogant?
Why do you think that because humans have certain abilities, allowing for tasks to be completed which may not be available to other animals, that humans are somehow superior or more popularly stated, are "higher in intelligence"? Why is that? Do any of you ever think of all the animals, who have abilities beyond anything we, as the "highest" intelligence on the Planet (and the one single species responsible for killing it slowly, in all of their HIGH INTELLIGENCE" while killing off other animals, over populating, poisoning themselves, the soil, and trusting in other humans, known to be liars, thieves, criminals,and in fact, continuing to put them in high levels of power, through voting for them, over and over again. And still considering themselves, "intelligent")could ever imagine? Even with our precious, technology, which has caused to regress, instead of evolve, although that is certainly a topic many would love to argue about,I am sure. But, no one has to look very far or hard to see the truth, if they really are wanting to see what is true.
We are really very weak without a large part of what technology has given. Meet the other animals on "their" terms, and match up abilities. I think anyone would see then,ability isnt synonymous with intellgence.
If any animal has an instinct of preservation (ie, all that does is meant to preserve its existence as an individual), it is assumed that any animal has a certain self-consciousness. The problem is that this "consciousness" is manifested in two ways, depending on how the individual relates to reality. This difference in attitude is manifested in our way of thinking. Consequently, there are two fundamental ways of thinking (two fundamental perspectives of thought): "bird's perspective" and "mole's perspective" (as I like to say).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Mole's perspective" is the perspective of analytical thinking (and I mean now Kant's distinction between analytic and synthetic), one in which the individual is connected to reality and does not distinguish between him and the subject of empirical experience. It is the perspective of thinking where Aristotle's Logic works. The specific behavior is that of the beast: the type of "tertium non datur" or "tooth for tooth". It is the "freezing behavior", which speaks Tanya Broesch, from Emory University's Department of Psychology. It is a behavior that has no concept of irony or humor.
"Bird's perspective" is the perspective of synthetic thinking, that the individual is disconnected from the "empirical reality" and reflects somewhat outside (or above) on this "reality". Proof is the smile of the child in the mirror. What he means is: Oh! Is fake (untrue). It is a joke. It's just an illusion. He realizes that there is an obvious difference between what he sees (perceives with the senses) and what really exists. He sees the "transcendental illusion", in Kant's terms.
"Cold eyes" and "searching behind the mirror" is proof that the dominant thinking of that individual is in analytical perspective.
We can not say that one perspective is better than the other. Each perspective of thinking has its own advantages and its own limits (its own illusions, as Kant said).
Also, we can not say that some beings think in one way and another in another way. But there are some dominants of thinking. You could say, for example, that the dominant of female's thinking is in analitical perspective and the dominant of male's thinking is in synthetic perspective. In fact, these two perspectives of thinking alternate to every individual, depending on the attitude (on how it relates to reality). It is important to understand what is the ontological profile of these two perspectives of thinking, how they are intertwined and which is their appointment in the economy of our existence.
I have already completed the first steps towards this research, in a book that, unfortunately, is not yet translated into English.
Marcel Chelba
@ James
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou're an idiot
I wonder when someone will catch the "visual bias" for this test, in that humans depend on sight to define the world around them far more than most animals.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCanines depend on smell and sound far more than vision. It's the reason why such an advanced canine has such relatively inexact poor vision vs. a vs. humans.
Blind river dolphins, many bats depend on sonar to define their world not sight.
Lesser creatures often rely on touch - like moles Etc.
Just how the results are distorted by this bias is easy to understand, because no naturally blind animal, like the river dolphin, would ever pass, regardless of its self-awareness. Interestingly blind river dolphins are not considered very bright vs. a vs. their more vision reliant ocean dwelling cousins.
I wonder if their lower ratings stem from our visual bias, and our inability to construct awareness tests using their dominant senses as the context.
To better measure the "self-awareness" of animals a more inclusive measure using more than just sight needs to be developed.
One that uses scent, hearing Etc.,
Somewhat surprisingly, imagining such a system hasn't occurred to researchers so far, but intelligence is not an automatic measure of intuitive ability or creativity.
Most of us would have a hard time imagining such systems, because compared to sight, our other senses are ancillary, and if I recall correctly smell and taste are considered rudimentary even vestigial.
Perhaps some in depth discussions with blind from birth humans might help in constructing non-vision based tests of self-awareness.
As it stands what we know is many animals lacking the human dependence on vision, also lack the ability to demonstrate a valid sense of self-awareness based on vision alone.
Some of you are looking at this in the wrong way. This is a psychology test for many years. At 24 months old children were able to recognize themselves in a mirror & perform a test. A test to see if they were aware of them self. By 2 yrs old that is connected other important traits that develop at same time. Also a newborn baby will mimic you sticking your tongue out at them. I know this due to the fact my mother told me. So the 1st time I held my now 20yr old I tried it. He began right away. slowly at first then he got better. He was only hours old. Try on a baby one day & see. maybe in the other part of the world that testing went so bad even at 6 has something to do with not as many mirrors. Or just being very under developed given their sate of life. this has 0 to do with vanity. it is about the Brain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is not at all surprising that children, seeing their own image, probably for the first time in their life, would "freeze" and display discomfort especially if they were as old as six. It's more than likely that a hundred years ago western children would have elicited the same response.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf certain animals can recognize themselves in a mirror I doubt that they do so immediately, they probably take a while to figure it out.
I think I got my dog to realize that the dog in the mirror is him. To do this hide something the dog likes from his vision. Make it so the dog can see the mirror but not the object. Then show him it through the mirror. He may try to take it from the mirror at first but after a few tries he'll get it. Then every time he looks in the mirror he knows where everything is relative to himself and there for knows where he is in the mirror's reflection.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe mirror test presumes that only an animal that attempts to remove the marking is self-aware, and that an animal that does not does not have self-awareness. This is a huge presumption. In my opinion, it only measures is an animal's need to "correct" its self-image, not whether the animal is aware of its reflection.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor example, my border collie sees herself in the hallway mirror all the time, but she does not react to the reflection as if it's another dog; she is just indifferent to the reflection. However, she must understand the concept of reflection because, when I'm in the bedroom perpendicular to the hallway mirror and I call her, sometimes she will look at my angled reflection in the mirror rather than coming all the way to the bedroom door to look at me. If I continue to call her, she will then come right into the bedroom to look at me. She doesn't walk up or into the mirror thinking that the reflection is actually me.
On the other hand, she doesn't fully understand reflection because sometimes she will be facing a glass door and will see a reflection of a person behind her in the glass and she will bark at the reflection, obviously thinking it is a person on the other side of the glass door (because normally she can see through the glass door without seeing any reflection). But she then seems to realize that it's a reflection of a person, not another person, because she will stop barking.