Snitching is a behavior based in conflict aversion. It allows people to displace responsibility. Most of the risk involved in addressing a problem, or managing conflict, shifts to someone else, generally an authority, because the brain HATES being responsible for hard shit. 🧵
We're most conflict avoidant w/ our in-groups. Your brain wants you to stay in the good graces of your friends and family, so being direct with people you care about when they do something wrong feels hard specifically because your brain is processing a risk to the relationship.
Brains LOVE letting other brains be responsible for hard stuff. It's comforting when there's someone else around to handle it. This is why little kids tend to tattle a lot. It's their way of recruiting adults to fix problems they've perceived as outside of their control.
But adults suck at teaching kids better methods of managing their problems and relationships DIRECTLY, so this habit of outsourcing problem solving can follow them into adulthood where the become full time snitches, "Karens" if you will, or silent, complicit bystanders.
So on one hand, conflict avoidance can lead to an over-reliance on authority figures. On the other hand, it can drive people to overlook some really heinous shit just because they don't like telling their friends to stop. Or because they fear a fight. Or the end of a relationship
Shitty people exploit both ends of this spectrum. They might seat themselves in the role of authority and abuse that power. Or they might use the silence of those around them as a shield to cover their bad behavior. Usually, they do both.
Conflict avoidance is a survival instinct, and it manages to be one of the brain's best AND worst features.

It helps us to maintain relationships, but not necessarily healthy ones. It keep us from having disagreements, but sometimes at the expense of our integrity.
Like all brain stuff, it isn't just about a singular, controversial behavior like snitching. It's about a web of behaviors that we're primed all for, but based on temprament and upbringing, we express differently.
Regardless of your opinion on snitching, you're guaranteed to be conflict avoidant somewhere in your life. Knowing how you're avoidant is the 1st step to ensure you're not complicit in another person's harmful behavior, or putting off a problem that's only getting bigger w/ time.
Assess your feelings about the interactions that you avoid w/ the people closest to you. Consider when/why you might seek intervention from an authority and what their power will help you do. Self awareness and honesty about your relationships can help limit conflict avoidance.

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More from @JonelleCapri

22 Dec
A lot of people see this lady’s story and think “mental illness”. But her brain is likely standard issue and pulling some very typical neurochemical fuckshit. Because the human brain is a monster, and the process of romantic attraction is terrifying. I’ll explain:
In very basic terms, the brain evolved to get high on survival. It doses itself with bursts of feel good when encountering things that assist in staying alive. Food, new information, other people, all of these feed into various brain highs.
The problem is that the brain’s reward system can really press the point, and what are meant to be reinforcements to feed your body, or learn something important, or reproduce, become addictions to sugar and twitter, and, of course, being attracted to a psychopath.
Read 20 tweets
3 Dec
Twitter is a behavioral addiction & cocaine is a substance addiction. Substance addictions suck b/c they alter neurotransmitter-receptor interaction & change the brain's homeostatic set point. Behavior addictions suck b/c the brain is basically addicted to its own damn self 🧵
Addictions that are BOTH substance & behavioral, like smoking (addiction to nicotine AND to the act of smoking), are surveyed consistently as the hardest to kick.

Spontaneous resolutions to both kinds of addiction do happen. Some people just... stop. But it's NOT typical.
Because the brain is a big ol' asshole about addiction, and it really digs in on those reward pathways once they're set.

The pathways used in both addiction types are super similar. But the engagement with the neurotransmitter-receptor system is different (direct vs indirect).
Read 18 tweets
19 Sep
For no reason at all, here's a behavioral scientific review of hypocrisy

Definition of behavior: Hypocrites are people who violate standards that they publically enforce. There are a few types of hypocrite that have been individually studied.
1. Inconsistent hypocrite: Telling you to do what they will not (ex: a senate leader telling opponents to follow the norms of democracy while he does not)

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
2. Pretense/Moral hypocrite: Appearing to be virtuous, or pretending to hold specific beliefs to curry favor or rewards from an ingroup (ex: the lady picketing the local reproductive health clinic w/ fellow church members the wk after clinic staff helped her get a safe abortion)
Read 13 tweets
25 Aug
Power is intoxicating & the human behavioral response to it is fucking bonkers. Brains love power. Power=controlled environment=improved survival chances. But the more we have, the more likely we’ll abuse it, and the less likely anyone will tell us “Go home, you’re power drunk”
When given social power (the ability to influence others, control resources, and mete out reward/discipline), studies show that we become more goal oriented & less anxious. Cognition increases, as does self-actualization. We reach peak human.

We also reach peak butthole.
Studies have shown that people with social power tend to objectify others based on their productive value, experience a decrease in empathy and an inflated perception of their own reputation, as well as a decreased willingness to accept ideas different from their own.
Read 29 tweets

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