How neuroscience offers hope for a more peaceful world

The flood of tribal hate and violence in the news can lead to a feeling of inevitability that human beings are inherently violent. But some involved in conflict resolution are finding hope in neuroscience.

Some who work with ethnic, racial and religious conflict are pairing with neuroscientists to understand how small advancements in brain research can help explain how we experience emotions like prejudice and disgust and fear. It will take time to devise strategies for using that knowledge of how the brain works in the peace-building process. But simply teaching people that there was a neurological basis for prejudice had the potential to help them view the deep-seated roots of their conflicts more objectively, said Timothy Phillips, co-founder of the conflict resolution organisation Beyond Conflict.

"There is something deeply powerful about knowing it's not just about culture, race, ethnicity, and that all those things sit on an operating system called the human brain, and that it is universal," said Phillips. "Contrary to social and political science that says humans are rational, we are deeply emotional beings. What drives our behaviour is deeply emotionally based but we don't have access to what drives us."

Phillips was among a group that met at the El-Hibri Foundation in January in Washington for the first meetings connecting neuroscientists and peace-builders who work on issues including the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Dr Emile Bruneau - a cognitive neuroscientist at MIT who has made advances in showing how stereotypes are formed and reinforced, how empathy develops, and how such things might be rewired to advance peace - presented some of his research.

A participant in conflict resolution programmes held around the globe, he recounted a story about a peace-building retreat he'd been part of with some 100 Protestant and Catholic youth from Northern Ireland.