The Mentalization Gap, the hidden "off" switch

Why your brain is hardwired to "unplug" its empathy for political rivals—and the cognitive tools we need to flip the switch back on.

If you’ve spent any time tracking how polarization tears at the fabric of our communities, you’ve probably noticed a frustrating pattern. When we try to discuss contentious issues, we don’t just disagree on the facts. We seem completely incapable of understanding how the other side arrived at their conclusions.

We tend to assume our political or cultural rivals are motivated by pure malice, ignorance, or a total lack of human decency.

As it turns out, there is a very specific, well-documented cognitive mechanism driving this disconnect. It’s a psychological superpower called mentalization—and the most dangerous thing about it is how easily we turn it off.

In our latest episode, I sat down with social cognition researcher Lura Forcum to unpack the science of how our brains process the minds of others, and why a specific cognitive “glitch” makes modern tribalism so toxic.

What is Mentalization?

Mentalization—sometimes referred to in psychology as “Theory of Mind”—is the cognitive machinery that allows us to peek inside someone else’s head. It’s our ability to realize that other people have their own unique motivations, beliefs, histories, and emotions, and to use that data to predict their behavior.

We do this both consciously and automatically every single day:

• Automatically: You see a colleague slam a notebook down, and you instantly infer they are frustrated and need space.

• Consciously: You carefully draft an email, pausing to think, “How will my manager interpret this phrasing?”

Mentalization is the invisible glue of human civilization. It allows us to build trust, cooperate on massive scales, and navigate complex social hierarchies. Without it, human society simply couldn’t function.

The “Mentalization Gap” and Infrahumanization

The problem isn’t that humans lack the capacity to understand each other. The problem is that our brains are incredibly selective about who gets the benefit of this superpower.

When we deal with members of our “in-group”—our family, friends, or political allies—our mentalization engines run at full throttle. We naturally grant them complexity. If an ally makes a mistake, we infer nuance: “They are just stressed out because of X, Y, and Z.”

But when we encounter an “out-group” member—someone from the opposing political party, for example—our brains often experience a mentalization gap. We effectively flip the switch to “off.”

When you stop mentalizing about an opponent, you fall into a psychological trap known as infrahumanization.

Infrahumanization is a subtle, often unconscious form of dehumanization. It isn’t necessarily characterized by loud, overt hatred. Instead, it’s the quiet assumption that the “other side” lacks the depth of complex, uniquely human emotions that you and your allies possess. You might think they experience basic reactions like anger or fear, but you deny them the capacity for deep grief, existential anxiety, or genuine altruism.

Once a group is infrahumanized in our minds, the guardrails of civic decency erode. It becomes terrifyingly easy to remain indifferent to their suffering, or to justify systemic harm against them, because we simply stop wondering what it feels like to be them. (In the episode, Lura and I discuss how this exact cognitive failure manifested during real-world crises, including the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina).

Flipping the Switch Back On

If the root of our worst tribal instincts is a cognitive “off switch,” how do we turn it back on? Forcum emphasizes that we cannot simply “will” ourselves to be more empathetic. We have to intentionally construct environments that force our brains out of their lazy, tribal defaults.

Here are two science-backed strategies to help restore mentalization:

1. Focus on Shared, Non-Political Goals

Our brains are highly adaptive. If you put rivals in a room to debate politics, their mentalization engines stay firmly offline. But if you force them to cooperate on a superordinate goal—a task that requires mutual effort but has nothing to do with tribal identity—the brain is forced to reboot its theory of mind.

• The Practical Application: Organizing a neighborhood potluck, prepping a local park for summer, or coordinating a town block party. Working together on a tangible, physical project forces you to view the person next to you as a complex, capable partner rather than a flat political caricature.

2. Active Perspective-Taking (The “Steel-Man” Approach)

True perspective-taking is rigorous mental gymnastics. It requires you to accurately articulate someone else’s internal state without defending your own.

• The Practical Application: Next time you are stuck in a disagreement, try an old debate trick: pause and see if you can explain your opponent’s belief so accurately that they would say, “Yes, that is exactly what I mean.” It doesn’t mean you agree with them. It means you have forced your brain to grapple with their actual mental state instead of fighting a straw man.

The Strategic and Moral Imperative

It is easy to view mentalization as a soft, idealistic concept—a plea to just “be nice.” But as Lura argues beautifully in this episode, keeping this switch flipped on is actually a dual necessity:

1. A Strategic Necessity: If your goal is persuasion, you cannot move someone you do not understand. You cannot influence a mind if you refuse to acknowledge how it works.

2. A Moral Necessity: History shows us that when the mentalization gap widens too far, violence fills the void. Preventing conflict requires us to aggressively defend the humanity of our opponents.

In the Full Episode...

We only scratched the surface in this article. In the full podcast episode, Lura and I dive much deeper into the cognitive architecture of the brain, including:

• The exact boundary where healthy skepticism turns into dangerous infrahumanization.

• A third, highly effective intervention involving face-to-face interaction and why digital algorithms are explicitly designed to keep our mentalization switches turned off.

• The chilling real-world data behind disaster responses and how the mentalization gap costs lives during national emergencies.

What about you? Have you noticed moments where your own brain “unplugs” its empathy for people you deeply disagree with? How do you force yourself to stay cognitively engaged? Tell us about it in the comments below.

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Next Week: What happens when the state loses moral legitimacy?

What if the government is just a collective illusion sustained by trust?

When public suspicion reaches the point where citizens view major crises as state-sponsored fabrications, it marks a critical breakdown in governance. But what happens when the very foundation of the state—trust—evaporates? Next week in a new audio documentary episode of Outrage Overload, we pull back the curtain on the "invisible revolution" happening in our society. From the collapse of shared values to the rise of systemic non-compliance, we’re asking: is the social contract a myth of coercion, or the only thing keeping us safe? Join us as we explore why the state doesn't fall to foreign armies, but evaporates from the inside out, one neighbor at a time.

The episode drops next Wednesday, June 10. Stay tuned. Learn more.

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New This Week in Outrage Episode!

It’s everything the Outrage Overload podcast is not. It’s not edited. It’s not scripted. It’s lightly researched. It’s David and Lisa talking about this week in outrage, what was in the news, in the memes, and maybe finding some backstory with a humorous (at least to us) twist.