Chapt 10. The Hive Switch

Haidt’s Hive hypothesis: “Human beings are conditional hive creatures. We have the ability (under special conditions) to transcend self-interest and lose ourselves (temporarily and ecstatically) in something larger than ourselves … The hive switch is an adaptation for making groups more cohesive, and therefore more successful in competition with other groups”.

Muscular bondingCommunal effort in battle high point of many veterans’ lives.“I passes insensibly into we” (McNeill) The Macedonian phalanx

Chapt 10. The Hive SwitchBarbara Ehrenreich: “Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy”

Emile Durkheim: Criticized Freud (and others) “who tried to explain morality and religions using only the psychology of individuals (God is just a Father Figure said Freud). Durkheim argued, in contrast, that Homo sapiens was really Homo duplex, a creature who exists at two levels: as an individual and as a part of the larger society.”

Ways to Flip the Hive Switch1. Awe in nature2. Drugs (‘Durkheimogens’)3. Raves (Dances etc.)

…and waiting in the wings: Religion!

Synchronized Marching/Dancing etc -- Muscular Bonding

Synchronized Marching/Dancing etc -- Muscular Bonding

Synchronized Marching/Dancing etc -- Muscular Bonding

Synchronized Marching/Dancing etc -- Muscular Bonding

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdMCAV6Yd0Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUFsL6o8y5s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjVqZkDZrgg

All Blacks Haka

The Haka is a traditional Maori dance from New Zealand. There are thousands of Haka that are performed by various tribes and cultural groups throughout New Zealand. The best known Haka of them all is called "Ka Mate". This particular haka dates back over 200 years. A warrior chief named Te Raupahara composed it, having just escaped capture by a tribal rival. It was reflective of his relief and excitement at survival. The words, “ka mate, ka mate, ka ora, ka ora” literally means “I die, I die, I live, I live.” Te Raupahara became something of a heroic figure as a leader and a warrior and his haka was kept alive after his death.

Aztec mushroom eater, about to be whisked away to realm of the sacred

Chapt 10. The Hive Switch

“All of a sudden I felt sort of drawn out into infinity, and all of a sudden I had lost touch with my mind. I felt that I was caught up in the vastness of Creation…Sometimes you would look up and see the light on the altar and it would just be a blinding sort of light and radiations…We took such an infinitesimal amount of psilocybin, and yet it connected me to infinity”. subject quoted by Rick Doblin

Chapt 10. The Hive SwitchBiology of the Hive Switch Oxytocin!

• Love philter: drink credited with magical power; can make the one who takes it love the one who gave it, or the nearest person (Tristan und Isolde, L'elisir d'amore, The Sorcerer, “Love potion #9”)

• When female prairie voles’ brains are injected with oxytocin (usually oxtoycin release stimulated by mating), they pair-mate with the closest male, not their favorite and not the most evolutionary fit - the closest.

• Ewes injected with oxytocin bond to an unknown lamb like it is her own.

• People sniffing oxytocin are more likely to trust strangers while playing a gambling game, whether the strangers deserve it or not.

Chapt 10. The Hive Switch

Biology of the Hive Switch

Oxytocin! De Dreu et al (2010): Oxytocin regulates parochial altruism

Mirror Neurons

Hives at WorkTransactional vs Transformative LeadershipRecommendations for your business:• Increase similarity, not diversity (uniforms!)• Exploit synchrony (e.g., Toyota)• Create healthy competition among teams, not

individuals

Next Tuesday

Chapt 10. The Hive Switch

Emile Durkheim: We live most of our lives in the ordinary (profane) world, but we achieve our greatest joys in those brief moments of transit to the sacred world, in which we become simply ‘a part of a whole’

JFK: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”.

Haidt:It would be nice to believe that we humans were designed to love everyone unconditionally. Nice, but rather unlikely from an evolutionary perspective. Parochial love – love within groups – amplified by similarities, a sense of shared fate, and the suppression of free riders, may be the most we can accomplish.

Love Potion No. 9

I took my troubles down to Madame RueYou know that gypsy with the gold-capped toothShe's got a pad down on Thirty-Fourth and VineSellin' little bottles of Love Potion Number Nine

I told her that I was a flop with chicksI've been this way since 1956She looked at my palm and she made a magic signShe said "What you need is Love Potion Number Nine"

She bent down and turned around and gave me a winkShe said "I'm gonna make it up right here in the sink"It smelled like turpentine, it looked like Indian inkI held my nose, I closed my eyes, I took a drink

I didn't know if it was day or nightI started kissin' everything in sightBut when I kissed a cop down on Thirty-Fourth and VineHe broke my little bottle of Love Potion Number Nine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt7htnE1s4o