After last week’s wave of tragic attacks in Germany, Boris Johnson was criticised for publicly speculating that Islamist extremism was behind the shooting in Munich.
While our new foreign secretary’s comments may have been inappropriate - and wrong - his brain, like most people’s, was subject to an overwhelming impulse to find a possible motivation for an action as soon as it occurs.
Our desire to understand the motivations of a killer involves a particular part of the brain called the ‘temporo-parietal junction’. Also known as the ‘mindreading’ area of the brain, it automatically ascribes possible incentives, beliefs and desires to others.
This reflex developed to help us socialise, but is so powerful that we also apply it to inanimate objects such as computers, shouting, ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ as they crash yet again. Even a pair of triangles can appear to exhibit personal motivations, as proved by a psychological test called the Heider-Simmel animation.
However, while Boris’s brain is partly to blame for his speculations, unfortunately it couldn’t help him keep them to himself.
Dr Daniel Glaser is director of Science Gallery at King’s College London
