In her talk, Leor Zmigrod will explore why some people are particularly susceptible to extreme worldviews, and how features of the brain and everyday thought patterns can lead people to adopt rigid belief systems. Research in the new field of 'political neuroscience' has shown that there are psychological and even neurobiological differences between adherents of different ideologies, and that our brains reflect the ideologies we hold in real and striking ways. The stakes of embracing an extreme ideology are much higher than we typically assume - if our brains and bodies reflect our ideologies, then extremism is not just a political issue, it is a deeply personal and existential one. There is an increasingly urgent need to think deeply about the origins of ideological beliefs and the consequences of adopting binary worldviews - as well as what it means to think and exist flexibly in a world that is determined to place us in narrow boxes.