Smith vs Rock: Brain Functions Plead No Contest
On an average Sunday night of reading and relaxing prior to starting a new week, I checked Twitter for news about the untimely death of Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins. Instead of updates on my favorite band, I saw that an assault at the Oscars was trending. Celebrity X slapped Celebrity Y onstage and on-air purportedly attributed to a joke. I, like everyone, was in a state of “what!?”. Then the shock mushroomed- from the jolting hit to the standing ovation; from the performative crying to the boastful dancing; from the orchestrated apology to the indifferent resignation. With all that went on and the divided opinions, cutting through the layers is essential for discontinuing future negative behavior. Honestly, what was Will Smith’s brain thinking when he attacked Chris Rock?
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The Payback
Angry people do not invariably attack those who trigger negative feelings. Brain areas that operate during anger differ from areas that control acting on or inhibiting aggression. In social settings, they need to cooperate to balance feelings and actions. Transforming perceptions into actions during a situation where one feels insulted differs from a fight or flight response, which occurs when a real threat of physical danger is presented. Though the amygdala is involved with a network of brain areas during situations of zero or negligible threat, it is important to note that a joke is only threatening to ego.
Amygdala = fight or flight
Ego = a person’s sense of self-importance
Will Smith’s 53-year-old brain permitted acting out anger with physical aggression. Chris Rock’s 57-year-old brain inhibited aggressive retaliatory behavior after angry feelings had the opportunity to be provoked. This response may be linked to Rock’s brain developing empathy from past violent interactions.
Empathy = an ability present in 2-year-old children
Managing emotionally charged behaviors relies on brain activities and communications that incorporate several processes: 1. memories, 2. emotions, 3. facial recognition and assessment, 4. conflict resolution, 5. social acuity, 6. cognition, 7. decision-making, 8. language, 9. audiovisual and 10. motor functions.
The interconnection of these neural functions likely determined the emotional and behavioral outcome in the Oscars incident where 1. Smith was angered, 2. Smith saw Rock’s face, and 3. Smith and Rock individually decided to either retaliate or de-escalate their publicized conflict.
Feeling Angry
Brain areas that control social awareness, like the amygdala and temporal regions, cooperate to appraise appropriate emotion in public. Smith likely evaluated how he should feel at a major award ceremony during a joke about his visibly agitated spouse. Initially Smith laughed, then showed anger. When Smith felt angry, his amygdala was likely stimulated concurrently with his fusiform gyrus and STS (Table 1). This is specific to Smith feeling angered from watching Rock joke about a GI Jane movie role and seeing Pinkett-Smith displeased[i]. Smith’s brain conceivably assessed an inconsideration directed at him, possibly due to being publicly mocked by both Rock and Pinkett-Smith on several previous occasions.
Amygdala + Temporal = emotion, memory, facial recognition, speech
Acting Angry
Experience
In addition to circumstances, experiences also matter. The brain depends on memories to determine what to do when a situation arises again- chastise or restrain. Our life experiences also teach our amygdala which reaction will result in a personal gain or loss. Reacting to people and situations that repeatedly cause anger depends on how well-adjusted our DLPFC is and its coordination with the temporal gyrus, PCC and precuneus (Table 1). When the DLPFC is compromised, like in misanthropic individuals, people tend to be more aggressive, inconsiderate, selfish and intolerant. After previous disagreeable encounters with Chris Rock, Will Smith’s brain calculated that it was more rewarding to physically and verbally attack Rock instead of resolving to maintain composure.
Composure
To practice equanimity, the DLPFC needs to communicate with the ACC for (Table 1). DLPFC-ACC cooperation leads to controlled feelings and disentangled disagreements. Smith decided to assault a colleague during a high-profile industry event that was important to his career milestone. Furthermore, he escalated the situation by shouting profanities after Rock’s direct appeasement. Together, it can be suggested that the functioning of Smith’s DLPFC is defective or weak. Of note, people generally feel angry and unhappy when they are disrespected in public and in front of their colleagues. Smith boisterously exhibited smug and celebratory behavior after slapping Rock.
Retaliation
The prefrontal cortex discourages retaliatory behavior by communicating to other areas of the brain. Self-restraint under infuriating social conditions is regulated by the DLPFC and ACC, so the more active the DLPFC and ACC means less antagonistic behavior. Importantly, it has been known that the more empathy a person has, the less they are likely to hurt someone who hurt them. When Chris Rock- a person with a well-known social cognition disability- was trying to mitigate the situation instead of hitting his attacker back, his DLPFC and ACC were involved in the process of “conflict resolution” and “emotion regulation”. Contrarily, it is plausible that Smith’s DLPFC and ACC were not involved in trying to cooperate with someone with a disability, which may be a sign that there is a malfunction.
Table 1: List of brain regions and their functions pertaining to the Oscars incident.
Bottom Line:
Some say that aggression is the inability to adapt. Instead of having the intellect or insight to rationalize or empathize, the person acts inappropriately by hitting others in public. Most people are “prosocial” so they are not as vindictive; they would rather cooperate when given the option to punish another person in a social setting- basically, don’t cause a scene and deal with it later. Will Smith’s ability to rebound, rejoice and party after implementing physical and verbal aggression in a highly social and professional setting may be an indicator of underdeveloped brain communication.
Finally, the context of a violent reaction from an angered person is significant. Hitting someone in response to being physically attacked is usually justified as it serves the purpose of self-preservation. Like while being mugged or jumped. But, what is the motivation of physically attacking a (disabled) colleague who did their job of making jokes?