For over 50 years, the tireless efforts and boundless goodwill of tens of thousands of people have been poured into conflict resolution programs that are aimed at decreasing intergroup hostilities and putting people on a path to peace. However, mounting evidence shows that often these efforts are prone to either fall flat or even backfire. Why do many of these efforts sometimes fail, and how can we do better? Using the lens of cognitive neuroscience, Emile Bruneau, PhD, will discuss how and why our brains set our common sense interventions up to fail, how intuitively appealing goals such as empathy and trust can be deeply problematic, and how the tools of experimental psychology and functional neuroimaging (fMRI) can be employed to understand intergroup hostility and promote peace.
Emile Bruneau, PhD, is a visiting scholar at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, and a research affiliate of UPENN with the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department at MIT. Prior to his formal training in neuroscience, Bruneau worked, traveled and lived in a number of conflict regions: South Africa during the transition from Apartheid to Democracy, Sri Lanka during one of the largest Tamil Tiger strikes in that nation's history, Ireland during "The Troubles", and Israel/Palestine around the Second Intifada. Inspired directly by his past experiences, Bruneau is now working to bring the tools of science to bear on the problem of intergroup conflict by (1) building methods to better characterize the (often unconscious) cognitive biases that drive conflict using explicit, implicit and functional neuroimaging (fMRI) techniques, and (2) critically evaluating efforts aimed at transcending these biases. Bruneau is the recipient of the 2015 Ed Cairns Early Career Award in Peace Psychology.
Admission/Cost: FREE
RSVP
Dates and times:
Wednesday, February 10 - 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM
For more information, please call (619)224-4684 or visit: www.sandiego.edu
Emile Bruneau, PhD, is a visiting scholar at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, and a research affiliate of UPENN with the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department at MIT. Prior to his formal training in neuroscience, Bruneau worked, traveled and lived in a number of conflict regions: South Africa during the transition from Apartheid to Democracy, Sri Lanka during one of the largest Tamil Tiger strikes in that nation's history, Ireland during "The Troubles", and Israel/Palestine around the Second Intifada. Inspired directly by his past experiences, Bruneau is now working to bring the tools of science to bear on the problem of intergroup conflict by (1) building methods to better characterize the (often unconscious) cognitive biases that drive conflict using explicit, implicit and functional neuroimaging (fMRI) techniques, and (2) critically evaluating efforts aimed at transcending these biases. Bruneau is the recipient of the 2015 Ed Cairns Early Career Award in Peace Psychology.
Admission/Cost: FREE
RSVP
Dates and times:
Wednesday, February 10 - 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM
For more information, please call (619)224-4684 or visit: www.sandiego.edu
