PDF Summary:The Master and His Emissary, by Iain McGilchrist

According to psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist, pop psychology has given us a wrong—and dangerous—impression of the brain’s two hemispheres. In The Master and His Emissary, McGilchrist rebuts the popular misconception that the brain’s left hemisphere is dominant because it’s responsible for logical thinking and problem-solving, while the right hemisphere is used only for creative endeavors. Against this myth, McGilchrist argues that the right hemisphere is more important than the left hemisphere, and failure to recognize this fact threatens to rob our lives of meaning and happiness.

In this guide, we’ll examine the differences between the brain’s hemispheres, the reasons McGilchrist thinks the right hemisphere belongs in control, and the historical eras that he says illustrate power imbalances between the hemispheres. We’ll also examine McGilchrist’s predictions about a world dominated by the left hemisphere and his reasons for thinking this world would diminish our happiness. Throughout the guide, we’ll consider counterarguments from other experts in fields like history, philosophy, and literary criticism, and we’ll discuss updates since the book’s publication.

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Area #2: Attention

In a similar vein, McGilchrist argues that the right hemisphere’s capacity for global attention takes precedence over the left hemisphere’s capacity for selective attention. After all, we first attend to our surroundings globally, before using that information to focus our attention more narrowly on particular stimuli. For instance, we would normally perceive a tree first before we move on to focus on the ants on the branches. McGilchrist suggests that without the right hemisphere’s ability to attend broadly to our surroundings, the left hemisphere’s ability to selectively attend to specific stimuli would be far less useful.

(Shortform note: Though McGilchrist may be correct that global attention is more important than selective attention, scientists Adam Gazzaley and Larry Rosen highlight the crucial role selective attention plays in reaching our cognitive goals in The Distracted Mind. They point out that selective attention allows us to filter out irrelevant stimuli that could distract us; for example, a tennis player might selectively attend to the tennis ball during a match and block out the shouts from the crowd.)

Area #3: Meaning

Finally, McGilchrist claims that the right hemisphere grounds our comprehension of meaning because the implicit meaning that only it grasps is the foundation of the explicit meaning grasped by the left hemisphere. In other words, McGilchrist suggests that to make something explicit requires some form of implicit understanding: We must comprehend the whole before we analyze and abstract it. For example, in order to explicitly define an object—like defining a triangle as a polygon with three straight sides and three vertices—we must already have an unspoken idea of what constitutes the object; otherwise, our explicit definition would be arbitrary.

(Shortform note: McGilchrist’s distinction between explicit and implicit meaning roughly corresponds to the distinction between semantic and pragmatic meaning. On the one hand, semantic meaning refers to the meaning of the words themselves that are in sentences; so, the semantic (or explicit) meaning of the sentence, “Can you pass me the salt?” is whether someone is literally able to hand the salt to you. By contrast, pragmatic meaning refers more generally to what is conveyed by a sentence—for example, the pragmatic (or implicit) meaning of the sentence, “Can you pass me the salt?” is roughly a request for someone to pass you the salt rather than a literal question about someone’s physical capabilities.)

Right Hemisphere Primacy Throughout History

Having discussed the proper relationship between the two hemispheres, in which the left hemisphere is subservient to the right, we’ll now examine three historical eras that, according to McGilchrist, embody the primacy of the right hemisphere: classical antiquity, the Renaissance, and Romanticism.

Yet, before beginning, it’s worth clarifying what McGilchrist means when he says that an era can embody hemispheric dominance (and that this embodiment can change over time from one hemisphere to the other). McGilchrist attributes such embodiment to mimesis, a process by which we empathetically imitate certain ways of thinking present in our surroundings, leading to functional shifts in our brain.

For example, though an infant’s brain has the structural hardware needed to process both implicit and explicit meaning, if that infant is surrounded by people who emphasize explicit over implicit meaning, the process of mimesis could sharpen the brain’s function for processing explicit meaning and weaken its function for processing implicit meaning. In this way, McGilchrist says, different functions associated with the left and right hemispheres can become entrenched in different historical eras.

(Shortform note: While McGilchrist applies the concept of mimesis to imitating brain functions in particular, mimesis was originally applied to art and poetry. Indeed, Aristotle argued that the primary goal of an artist was to reflect reality by imitating it—thus, through mimetic imitation, the artist captures the essence of reality in art.)

Era #1: The Classical World

The first period that McGilchrist analyzes is the classical period, which lasted from the 8th century B.C. in Greece until the 5th century A.D. in Rome. He argues that most of the classical period demonstrates the proper level of right hemisphere dominance, as shown by classical art, literature, and philosophy.

First, McGilchrist examines how classical portraits displayed the human face, arguing that their emphasis on individuality is evidence of the right hemisphere’s primacy. He writes that, before antiquity, Egyptian depictions of faces lacked expression and were often abstracted from any individual face—all hallmarks of the left hemisphere. Around the 4th century BC, however, faces grew more emotional and diverse, suggesting an emphasis on the individual that’s strongly associated with the right hemisphere.

(Shortform note: While Egyptian portraits regularly draw negative comparisons to later Greek portraits, experts point out that Egyptian portraiture had a markedly different function than Greek portraiture, which partially explains its different style. Egyptian portraits were typically meant to adorn deceased individuals’ tombs and accompany them to the afterlife, so they weren’t intended to be seen by the public. Hence, Egyptian portraits didn’t need the same degree of detail as Greek portraits, since they were largely functional rather than aesthetic.)

Next, McGilchrist discusses the Homeric epics—the Iliad and the Odyssey—and writes that they exemplify the right hemisphere’s capacity for empathy. These epics, he argues, demonstrated a keen insight into the thought processes of their characters, showing a new degree of psychological depth.

(Shortform note: With respect to Homer’s Odyssey in particular, psychiatrist Jonathan Shay has argued that Homer captures the nature of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) through Odysseus’s experience both in, and after, battle. In Odysseus in America, he details the lessons that the US military and public can learn from the Odyssey about PTSD among veterans.)

Finally, McGilchrist examines early Greek philosophy—especially that of Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher who lived around 500 B.C.—to show that it reflects the right hemisphere’s preference for unity and the implicit. Heraclitus held that the true structure of nature is hidden, and any attempt to explicitly define it using language and logic is bound to fail. He argued that to understand this structure, we must carefully monitor our perceptions, which allows us to see “the unity of opposites” that underlies nature. According to McGilchrist, Heraclitus’s preference for the implicit, for our perceptions, and for unity are all characteristic of the right hemisphere.

(Shortform note: Though McGilchrist presents Heraclitus as an exemplar of classical philosophy, among his peers, Heraclitus was known for his terse prose that was intentionally ambiguous and more akin to poetry than traditional philosophy. For this reason, later Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle would even deem Heraclitus’s work self-contradictory and incoherent since it didn’t embody the clarity that they expected.)

Era #2: The Renaissance

Although classical antiquity occurred some two millennia before the Renaissance—the period between about the 14th and 17th century AD in Europe–McGilchrist contends that the Renaissance represented a return to the hemisphere balance of the classical world. He argues that the Renaissance achieved the ideal right hemisphere primacy, as shown by its art and Shakespearean theater.

Regarding Renaissance art, McGilchrist notes that Renaissance artists rekindled perspective in paintings—that is, representing three-dimensional objects to generate the illusion of depth—after it had been absent for over a millennium. He argues that these perspective paintings suggest the ability to see the world in context, as the right hemisphere prefers, rather than the detached view that’s associated with the left hemisphere, as seen in certain medieval religious art that abstracts space and proportion.

(Shortform note: Renaissance art both influenced and was influenced by an intellectual movement known as humanism that harkened back to classical antiquity and exalted the human form. This close association with humanism shaped several aspects of Renaissance art. For example, it increased the social status of artists, who began to be viewed as intellectuals rather than mere craftsmen. Moreover, rather than treating the body as something to be hidden, humanism led to an unabashed emphasis on the human body in Renaissance art.)

With respect to Renaissance theater, McGilchrist argues that the Shakespearean plays that highlighted Renaissance-era drama displayed several strengths of the right hemisphere. For example, Shakespearean characters subvert the standard categories that the left hemisphere sorts individuals into. And at a broader level, Shakespeare’s tendency to mix different genres shows a similar distaste for the left hemisphere’s categorization.

(Shortform note: In particular, Shakespeare was responsible for popularizing the dramatic pastiche known as the tragicomedy, a genre of play that interspersed both tragic and comic elements. For example, tragicomedies might involve genuine danger to the protagonist, as well as farcical scenes designed to create a sense of levity. Of Shakespearean plays in particular, experts point out that The Merchant of Venice constitutes a tragicomedy since one of the primary plotlines is a comedy, while the other is a tragedy.)

Era #3: Romanticism

Although the Renaissance represented the optimal balance between the hemispheres, it wasn’t the most recent historical period to favor right-hemisphere tendencies—that achievement belongs to Romanticism, the European intellectual and artistic movement in the early to middle 19th century. Citing examples from Romantic art and literature, McGilchrist argues that Romanticism embodied the primacy of the right hemisphere.

First, McGilchrist asserts that landscape paintings formed the cornerstone of Romantic art, especially those of Claude Lorrain. Lorrain’s landscape paintings, he argues, were noteworthy for their unique depth, which couldn’t be grasped by the left hemisphere alone; after all, the left hemisphere focuses on minute details rather than the bigger picture. Moreover, McGilchrist writes that like Renaissance perspective paintings, Lorrain’s landscapes show a distinctly human perspective on the world—not the “objective” view that the left hemisphere prefers, but the embodied view that’s distinctive of the right hemisphere.

(Shortform note: More generally, one crucial commitment of romantic art was the primacy of the aesthetic—roughly put, the notion that art and aesthetic beauty are fundamental to the human condition. Although this commitment is often viewed in opposition to Enlightenment ideals such as the sovereignty of reason, other experts contend that Romantic artists desired a union of beauty and reason; in elevating the importance of the aesthetic, they claim, Romantic artists only sought to level the playing field.)

Apart from art, McGilchrist suggests that Romantic-era literature reveals the right hemisphere’s influence through its expression of melancholy and yearning. For example, English poet William Wordsworth’s poetry conveys a longing for the past coupled with sadness that it’s irretrievable—emotions felt most strongly in the right hemisphere. In a similar vein, McGilchrist argues that German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe captured this sense of longing through poems like “Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt” (“Only he who knows yearning”).

(Shortform note: In Germany, one influential literary movement in the 1770s and 80s foreshadowed many of the literary developments of Romanticism: Sturm und Drang (“Storm and Stress”). This movement, which is associated with Goethe, among others, elevated the importance of intense subjective emotions—especially tragic emotions like grief and loss—above the Enlightenment’s objective rationality, setting the stage for later Romantic literature.)

Left Hemisphere Primacy Throughout History

Having seen how the brain’s hemispheres worked together properly across several eras, we’ll now discuss the eras in which this relationship went awry and the left hemisphere exhibited too much power. According to McGilchrist, we can see this imbalance in the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the Modern and Postmodern world.

Era #1: The Reformation

The first of these periods—the Reformation—occurred as dissenters left the Roman Catholic Church in 16th-century Europe, spawning Protestantism and its many denominations. McGilchrist points to a rejection of metaphor and implicit meaning in religious art to argue that the left hemisphere exerted excessive power over the right hemisphere throughout the Reformation.

To begin, McGilchrist notes that participants in the Reformation often destroyed religious art, such as paintings of Jesus and even crucifix necklaces. They did so, McGilchrist relates, because they thought these art forms were idolatrous, meaning the art itself was an object of worship. For instance, Reformation theologians might tear down a statue of Jesus out of fear that the statue itself had become the object of adoration rather than Jesus.

(Shortform note: Although Reformed Protestant churches remain relatively common today, these churches rarely endorse the same prohibitions on religious imagery that their intellectual ancestors did. Indeed, one expert notes that most Reformed Protestants don’t view religious imagery as idolatrous, hastening the end of the unadorned Reformed churches of centuries past.)

According to McGilchrist, the rejection of religious imagery stems from an inability to grasp metaphor. He argues that, properly understood, religious art is neither divine nor mundane, but rather a metaphor that points to divinity. However, McGilchrist says, Reformers couldn’t understand this because they didn’t understand metaphor—one of the strengths of the right hemisphere. Moreover, he points out that religious art that wasn’t destroyed was often accompanied by a caption that explained it. For example, a picture of Jesus among the sick might read, “This is Jesus, the Son of God, healing the sick.” This practice, he argues, highlights the left hemisphere’s preference for explicit meaning and its discomfort with the implicit.

(Shortform note: The Reformers offered a different explanation for their disavowal of religious art than a mere inability to understand metaphor. For example, the French Reformer John Calvin argued that religious art necessarily presents a corrupted picture of God, for which reason it should be outlawed. This line of reasoning, along with the scriptural reason McGilchrist cites above (that religious art is idolatrous) suggests that the Reformation’s distaste for religious art was rooted in theological commitments. However, it’s possible that these commitments themselves arose from the left hemisphere’s inability to understand metaphor, so this theological explanation isn’t inconsistent with McGilchrist’s explanation.)

Era #2: The Enlightenment

After discussing the Reformation’s religious upheavals, McGilchrist examines the left hemisphere’s influence during the Enlightenment—an intellectual movement in 17th and 18th century Europe that some associate with a rejection of religious dogmas. On the basis of Enlightenment philosophy, he contends that the left hemisphere became too influential during the Enlightenment.

To show as much, McGilchrist focuses largely on the work of René Descartes, a 17th-century French philosopher dubbed the father of modern philosophy, arguing that it showcases several hallmarks of the left hemisphere. As McGilchrist points out, Descartes strove for absolute certainty in his reasoning. In turn, he refused to rely on the intuitive, unreflective thinking associated with the right hemisphere, instead attempting to independently confirm these intuitions.

Moreover, because Descartes wanted to independently verify his intuitions, he took a detached, “objective” stance toward the world that’s neatly aligned with the left hemisphere, as we’ve discussed above. However, this detached view of the world led Descartes to abandon even his own bodily experience, leading him to doubt whether he had a body in the first place. Given the right hemisphere’s preference for embodied existence, McGilchrist argues that Descartes shows a right-hemisphere deficit with this doubt.

Cartesian Epistemology and its Discontents

Two features of Descartes’ epistemology—that is, his theory of how we know things about the world—are clearly indicative of the left hemisphere’s influence. First, he argues that our knowledge is grounded on foundational beliefs from which we deduce later beliefs. For example, he might reason as follows: there appears to be a tree outside, and appearances are normally accurate, therefore there is in fact a tree outside. In this respect, Cartesian epistemology tends to disavow the implicit reasoning of the right hemisphere (which simply perceives a tree without reasoning about it) and prefer the explicit reasoning of the left hemisphere.

Descartes also argues that knowledge requires infallible evidence—that is, evidence that guarantees the truth of the belief in question. Returning to the above example, he might claim that we don’t know that there’s a tree outside even when we perceive one, because our perceptions are not perfectly accurate. In this respect, Cartesian epistemology shares the left hemisphere’s affinity for absolute certainty.

However, this combination of foundational beliefs and the need for certainty causes a problem, since it seems that none of our beliefs are grounded by infallible evidence. For instance, Descartes claims that it’s possible we’re being deceived by an evil demon, such that none of our beliefs are true, and no amount of evidence can rule out this evil-demon hypothesis. For this reason, some philosophers argue that Descartes’ epistemology sets the bar too high, since we can’t indisputably guarantee that our beliefs are true, with one exception—Descartes’ famous declaration that he himself exists (“I think, therefore I am”).

Seeing the skepticism this leads to, other philosophers endorse epistemological views that are less strict and reflect the right hemisphere’s influence. The Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid, for one, famously defended “common sense epistemology,” which maintains that there are common-sense first principles that we must reasonably accept. For example, even if we can’t prove that we’re not victims of an evil demon, it’s still reasonable to accept that we aren’t being deceived. In this respect, Reid’s common-sense philosophy exalts the right hemisphere’s preference for intuitive thinking over the left hemisphere’s demands for certainty.

In addition to Descartes, McGilchrist also briefly examines English philosopher Jeremy Bentham, arguing that he too reflects the dominance of the left hemisphere. Bentham, McGilchrist relates, was similarly critical of the intuitions favored by the right hemisphere; instead, he took a logic-driven approach to philosophy that led to utilitarianism, a moral system that evaluates actions solely by the pleasure and pain they created. According to McGilchrist, this unintuitive, mathematical approach to ethics is another clear sign of the left hemisphere.

(Shortform note: Utilitarianism remains a modestly popular view among philosophers, with eminent figures like Peter Singer embracing utilitarianism to defend animal rights, environmental rights, and the importance of charity. However, many utilitarians have shifted from Bentham’s act utilitarianism, which says that in each individual case, we should act in such a way to maximize pleasure and minimize pain, toward rule utilitarianism, which says that we should act in accordance with general rules that collectively maximize pleasure and minimize pain.)

Era #3: The Modern and Postmodern World

After outlining the left hemisphere’s role in the Enlightenment, McGilchrist concludes by discussing the progression from Modernity to Postmodernism around the mid-20th century. Pointing to modernist art, the postmodernist failure to grasp linguistic meaning, and recent rises in certain forms of mental illness, McGilchrist argues that the left hemisphere has again gained undue influence over the right hemisphere.

First, McGilchrist points out that modern art severed the connection between art and the external world, with critics praising the value of “art for art’s sake.” In turn, he says, art grew alienated from the world, leading to abstract artworks that lacked context—exactly what the left hemisphere prefers. According to McGilchrist, this trend yielded several artistic movements that further illustrated the left hemisphere’s influence. For example, pointillism reduced coherent wholes to the sum of individual parts, reflecting the left hemisphere’s inability to see wholes as greater than their parts.

(Shortform note: Around the 1970s, modernism in art gave way to the postmodernist art movement that took modernist ideas a step further. Experts note that postmodernist art reflected a commitment to poststructuralism, the view that traditional structures (within art, but also within literature) were inessential, meaning they could be abandoned. In turn, postmodernist art attempted to liberate itself from these structures, leaving little in the way of common standards that unite and define art.)

Next, McGilchrist argues that postmodernist views on language also demonstrate the left hemisphere’s primacy. He notes that, in postmodernism, the notion that words correspond to objects in the external world—for example, that the word “spoon” corresponds to spoons—is lost, along with the notion that language can express truths about the external world. As a result, postmodernist views on language fail to grasp the meaning it conveys, instead focusing on the formal structure of language itself—a formal system which, as discussed above, is in the left hemisphere’s wheelhouse.

(Shortform note: Though McGilchrist treats postmodernism as a unified movement, experts typically contend that postmodernism doesn’t admit a single, unequivocal definition. By contrast, they argue that it’s useful to instead view postmodernism as the denial of many modernist commitments. For example, postmodernists deny the possibility of certainty pursued by Enlightenment-era scientists, and likewise deny the notion of a coherent self that persists across time.)

Finally, McGilchrist cites a rise in mental illnesses associated with right hemisphere deficits as evidence for the left hemisphere’s primacy in the modern world. He points out that schizophrenia became much more common in Western countries during the early 1900s, with symptoms of schizophrenia suggesting severe right hemisphere deficits. For instance, schizophrenics struggle to understand implicit meaning, empathize with others, and grasp whole forms rather than their individual parts.

(Shortform note: As a brain disease, schizophrenia is unique in that it manifests differently depending on the culture that you live in. For example, experts point out that in the West, schizophrenia is associated more heavily with feelings of depression and a lack of control, whereas in Eastern cultures schizophrenics experience higher rates of auditory and visual hallucinations.)

The Cost of Continued Left Hemisphere Dominance

Because the left hemisphere has grown increasingly powerful in the modern world, it’s natural to ask the question: What would happen if the left hemisphere never relinquished its power? In other words, what’s the cost of continued left hemisphere dominance? In this section, we’ll examine McGilchrist’s answers to these questions, first addressing his speculation about the nature of a world dominated by the left hemisphere, then discussing his arguments about the possibility of happiness in such a world.

What Would a Left Hemisphere World Look Like?

McGilchrist paints a multifaceted picture of the losses suffered in a left hemisphere-dominated world, but we’ll focus on three key losses: the loss of wisdom, the loss of contact with the

“real world,” and the loss of meaning.

Loss #1: Losing Wisdom to Knowledge

According to McGilchrist, the left hemisphere’s world would prioritize “knowledge” to the detriment of wisdom, because the left hemisphere’s emphasis on narrower, minute details is incompatible with wisdom’s understanding of the bigger picture. McGilchrist reminds us that the left hemisphere is more detail-oriented, as evidenced by its capacity for selective attention compared to the right hemisphere’s capacity for global attention. The upshot, he contends, is that the left hemisphere’s world would exalt increasingly specialized forms of knowledge. By contrast, the more general wisdom that comes from broad experiences would be seen as less valuable—even illusory, since it can’t be broken down into the concrete details processed by the left hemisphere.

(Shortform note: McGilchrist doesn’t offer an explicit definition of “wisdom,” and traditional philosophical accounts of wisdom are varied. Plato, for example, arguably defined wisdom as a keen awareness of how little we actually know. By contrast, in Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argued that wisdom is ambiguous, leading him to distinguish between theoretical and practical wisdom. On one hand, he equated theoretical wisdom with a combination of scientific knowledge and intuitive reason—a form of wisdom that actually requires the left hemisphere’s propensity for details. On the other hand, he held that practical wisdom requires understanding how to live a flourishing life, one guided by moral virtue.)

Loss #2: Losing the Real World to the Virtual World

Further, McGilchrist argues that the left hemisphere would prefer the virtual world to the real world because it prefers abstract representations of objects rather than actual objects. He points out that virtual realities are essentially collections of abstract representations, making them attractive to the left hemisphere. By contrast, the actual, tangible objects in the real world are associated with the right hemisphere, making them less attractive to the left hemisphere.

(Shortform note: Since The Master and His Emissary’s publication in 2009, the virtualization of the Western world has been undeniable. Indeed, virtual reality (VR) headsets—devices that connect us to a simulated environment from a first-person perspective—have become increasingly mainstream, and Meta (formerly Facebook) has even attempted to create a Metaverse, an interactive virtual reality accessible via VR headset.)

Loss #3: Losing Meaning to a Mechanistic Worldview

Finally, McGilchrist contends that the left hemisphere’s world would see a loss of meaning because it understands the world as a machine devoid of higher value. He reasons that, because the left hemisphere can only process parts rather than wholes, it reduces complicated wholes to mechanistic sets of parts that lack meaning. In the case of human beings, for example, it views them as collections of atoms rather than irreducibly complex wholes. Such a worldview, he argues, is incompatible with deeper values—such as justice, beauty, and holiness. Consequently, McGilchrist concludes that the left hemisphere’s mechanistic worldview can only accommodate base values, like pleasure and pain.

(Shortform note: The mechanistic worldview that McGilchrist laments is also known as physicalism, according to which everything is physical and thus governed by mechanistic physical laws. However, many physicalists deny McGilchrist’s claim that, if physicalism were true, then the world would be devoid of higher value. Instead, these physicalists often embrace moral naturalism—the view that true moral judgments (as well as other value judgments, like those about justice and beauty) are identical to physical facts—for instance, they might equate goodness with pleasure, meaning that goodness depends on the physical brain states that generate pleasure.)

Happiness in the Left Hemisphere’s World

Though these losses are significant, McGilchrist notes that the left hemisphere might justify them as necessary sacrifices for a greater goal—happiness. In turn, he considers a key question: Would the left hemisphere’s world maximize our happiness? Ultimately, he argues that the left hemisphere’s world would leave us far less happy because it exalts goals such as power and material success that aren’t strongly correlated with happiness.

To begin, McGilchrist points out that the left hemisphere’s inclination toward maximizing utility leads it to focus on generating economic gain. In practice, this means that the left hemisphere seeks to manipulate its surroundings for its own benefit—especially natural resources, whose beauty the left hemisphere cannot understand because it views the natural world as a mere mechanism.

However, McGilchrist argues that this capitalist focus on economic gain isn’t likely to make us happier. To show as much, he points to studies showing that in the US, life satisfaction has actually decreased since the late 20th century, despite economic prosperity increasing sharply. Moreover, he notes that the same is true of Great Britain, whose residents reported higher levels of happiness in the 1950s than they do today, despite being vastly more wealthy. McGilchrist points out that, according to several research studies, happiness is only correlated with salary up to a certain point (about $20,000 USD), after which it plateaus.

(Shortform note: The extent to which happiness is dependent upon salary is highly contentious. One influential 2010 study by Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton found that emotional well-being—that is, the emotional quality of daily life—plateaus at around $75,000 per year, past which point no significant increase is detectable. However, in a 2022 article co-authored by Kahneman, researchers found contradictory evidence suggesting that for the large majority of Americans, emotional well-being tends to increase up to at least a $500,000 per year salary threshold.)

By contrast, McGilchrist asserts that our social connectedness is in fact most predictive of life satisfaction, according to researchers. However, forging social connections is a distinct strength of the right hemisphere, with its capacity for empathy and meaningful communication. So, it stands to reason that in a world dominated by the left hemisphere, we would be less happy, as we would struggle to form meaningful relationships.

(Shortform note: One key reason why social connectedness is predictive of happiness is that, within social networks, happiness is contagious. Researchers have found that being surrounded by happy people in your social network makes you far more likely to be happy yourself. However, the converse is also true, as participating in social networks full of unhappy people is likely to make you less happy.)