Mind Wide Open

"It turns out that one of the human brain's greatest evolutionary achievements is its ability to model the mental events occurring in other brains."


"Chances are you've had an experience roughly like this: you're at a social gathering with colleagues or peers--say it's an office holiday party--and you run into a coworker with whom you have an unspoken rivalry. It's one of those relationships that is chummy on the surface, but right beneath there's a competitive energy that neither side acknowledges. When you first encounter your colleague, there's the usual pleasant banter, but before long he's confessed to you that something has gone wrong with his career trajectory: either he's lost a big account at work or the fellowship didn't come through or the last batch of short stories got rejected. Whatever it is, it's bad news. It's the sort of news that a friend should perhaps greet with a concerned, doleful expression, which is exactly the expression that you deliberately contort your face into as he delivers the news.

The trouble is , you're only a friend on the surface. Below the surface, you're a rival, and a rival wants to grin at this news, wants to relish the schadenfreude. And so for a split second, as you're hearing the fateful syllables roll off his tongue, his tone foreshadowing his disappointment before the sentence is even complete, you let out the slightest hint of a grin.

And then an intricate dance begins. As your face wraps itself up in dutiful concern, you detect a flash of something in his face, a momentary startle that says, 'Were you just smiling right there?' Perhaps his eyes suddenly lock on to your pupils, or he pauses in midsentence as though something has distracted him. In your mind, an interior closed-captioning emerges: 'Did he see that grin?' As you offer your condolences, you can't help wondering if your words sound cruel rather than comforting. 'Is he thinking that I'm faking all this sympathy? Maybe I should tone it down a notch just in case.'"

--Steve Johnson, Mind Wide Open