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Most of us believe that we are unique and coherent individuals, but are we?

The idea of a “Self” has existed ever since humans began to live in groups and become sociable. Those who embrace the self as an individual in the West, or a member of the group in the East, feel fulfilled and purposeful. This experience seems incredibly real, but a wealth of recent scientific evidence reveals that this notion of the independent, coherent self is an illusion – it is not what it seems.

In this talk, Professor Bruce Hood reveals how the self emerges during childhood and how the architecture of the developing brain enables us to become social animals dependent on each other. You’ll learn how the self is the product of our relationships and interactions with others, and it exists only in our brains. Prof Hood argues, however, that though the self is an illusion, it is one that humans cannot live without.

Professor Bruce Hood is the Professor of Developmental Psychology in Society in the School of Experimental Psychology at the University of Bristol. He has been a research fellow at Cambridge University and University College London, a visiting scientist at MIT and a faculty professor at Harvard.

He has been awarded an Alfred Sloan Fellowship in neuroscience, the Young Investigator Award from the International Society of Infancy Researchers, the Robert Fantz memorial award and voted to Fellowship status by the society of American Psychological Science.

He is the founder of the world’s largest expert speaker database Speakezee.org, and the bestselling author of ”Supersense”, ‘The Self Illusion”, and the ”Domesticated Brain.’ His new book, “Possessed” is published by Allen Lane in 2019.

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