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Q

&A

You believe that the ability to ‘read other people’ is the

human brain’s greatest asset. Please explain.

This ability — which I also call our social sense or sixth sense

— enables us to achieve life’s most important goal: connect-

ing with other human beings. It allows us to cooperate with

those we should trust and avoid those we shouldn’t. At its

best, it enables understanding between friends, empathy

between strangers, forgiveness among enemies and coop-

eration between people, co-workers — even countries.

Psychologists have been studying this ability for some

time now, and we have found that people use three intuitive

tools to make inferences about what is going on in another

person’s mind. The first one is no surprise: Given that we are

egocentric, we use our own thinking as a guide to what oth-

ers are thinking. So, if I think onion ice cream sounds ter-

rible, it is reasonable for me to assume that you will agree.

Secondly, we make regular use of stereotypes about

other people and the groups and categories we feel they

belong to. So, if I find out that you’re a member of a liberal

A leading behavioural

scientist describes

the ability that helps

us achieve life’s most

important goal: connecting with

others.

Interview by Karen Christensen

QUESTIONS FOR Nicholas Epley, Professor of Behavioural Science, University of Chicago