Strikingly, atheists showed the same ingroup bias as religious participants, suggesting the bias is not so much about religion as it is about the degree of affiliation to a group. Labels alone can spur bias.

antagonism can emerge from arbitrary divisions

A deeper dive into the data, however, revealed that the participants displayed more brain activity while watching the pain of fans who liked the same team they did. They showed less brain activity when watching fans of a rival team. Their brains simply responded more to their ingroup

minimum amount of information required to trigger an ingroup bia

Although many participants reported that they cared for all people equally, brain imaging revealed a different story: people care about some more than others, and their subconscious selectivity was based on nothing more than a one-word label.

the more empathic a participant claimed to be, the more she was biased in favor of her ingroup.

Remarkably, even though participants knew they had been randomly assigned, their brains showed the same patterns of ingroup allegiance and outgroup disregard. “Us” versus “them” does not need to be predicated on deep meaning: even arbitrary labels rapidly create bias.

, understand our own biases

build a better model of others

Theatre and books let people to step into the shoes of others, and with the printing press these stories spread widely.

learn and resist the tactics of dehumanisationlearn and resist the tactics of dehumanisation

, “blind” your biases

entangle group membership

I don't comment on other people's opinion.

The same sort of thing happened in my dispute with the National Trust book: Follies: A National Trust Guide, which implied that the only pleasure you can get from Folly architecture is by calling the architect mad, and by laughing at the architecture.

Yeah, I think if I were to go again, I'd try to go more on gut feelings and stick with it. I was on to Frederique. I found clues for everything, I found tons of stuff.

The decision violates both the letter and spirit of the law.

In Cuba, I didn't even have a bicycle.

The drum is the heart of music. The saxophone can play and then rest as can all of them except the drums the drummer keeps going he cant afford to stop.

I think Whitman more than any other poet possessed the gift of revealing to others the beauty of everything around us, the beauty of nature, the beauty of human beings.

Punishing honest mistakes stifles creativity. I want people moving and shaking the earth and they're going to make mistakes.

I just love the American spirit of racing. It feels just great to get involved with that.

Try on 100 different hats if you can, until you find the one that suits you best. It's a trial and error thing.

I grew up in St. Louis in a tiny house full of large music - Mahalia Jackson and Marian Anderson singing majestically on the stereo, my German-American mother fingering 'The Lost Chord' on the piano as golden light sank through trees, my Palestinian father trilling in Arabic in the shower each dawn.

In my industry, a shirt and a shoe are still made the exact same way they were 80 years ago.

How someone treats a waiter or doorman can tell you so much about a person.

I believe in living today. Not in yesterday, nor in tomorrow.

My earliest memories are of the civil rights era. My earliest experiences were rage.

Whatever else may divide us, Europe is our common home; a common fate has linked us through the centuries, and it continues to link us today.

I often think that the last holiday is the greatest, but then some really stand out in my mind. One of the best was one my wife and I had in the Lake District. We stayed in a B&B and walked around the countryside for two weeks.

Texting has reduced the number of waste words, but it has also exposed a black hole of ignorance about traditional - what a cranky guy would call correct - grammar.

Honor bespeaks worth. Confidence begets trust. Service brings satisfaction. Cooperation proves the quality of leadership.

I felt like it was a great secret when I found out that I could be in my 30s.

I don't think nobody's doubting I can play basketball.

No woman has an abortion for fun.

While the web is very much the first draft of history, a rough-cut, it still has to be good journalism, well-sourced, reliable. Clearly, the printed form is going to have more effort put into it, going to be more reflective and relevant.

I meet people on the street or at book signings and they tend to treat me as if they know me, as if we're connected. It's great.