The Story of Deborah Sampson and The Science Behind Bravery

In July of 1782, Molly was forced to dig up a musket ball out of his own thigh. Then again, every man in Molly's light infantry was known for being tough. In the Revolutionary War, George Washington's light infantry wasn't called light because the men were small. It was actually the opposite. Men of the light infantry had to be 5’5 at least, and they had to be brave since they were sent into skirmishes with light packs and very few supplies. They were extra strong, so they could march fast and steady to be wherever they were needed in the Hudson Valley. In short, they were tough as nails, which is pretty damn tough considering old nails were basically tiny railroad spikes.

But even for the light infantry, Molly was exceptional. When he took two British musket Balls to the thigh and a sword gash to the Head, Molly simply excused himself to deal with it alone without the aid of a doctor. He rambled that shit out of his leg with a penknife, except for one lead ball that had to stay in and heal over because it was just too deep. The other infantry Men let Molly do this because he had something to prove. Molly had slightly effeminate features and couldn't grow a beard. But the real reason for Molly sewing up his wound was to avoid being found out. Because Molly, who had originally signed up for active duty under a man's name, was really Deborah Sampson.

At a time where it was illegal for women to be on the battlefield, it was Deborah who served as part of the Continental Army - Deborah who was given the dangerous task of scouting neutral territory to assess British buildup of men and material in Manhattan. It was secretly Deborah who influenced General George Washington in his Command Decision and Deborah who deserves credit for leading 30 infantrymen on an expedition that ended with a one-on-one confrontation with Tories and raided a Torie's home that resulted in the capture of 15 men. Lastly, it was Deborah who dug trenches, helped storm a British readout, and endured cannon fire under the siege of Yorktown.

So, what motivated Deborah Sampson to step outside of her 1,700 women's roles and march into a male-dominated, bullet-rich environment? What made this lionhearted woman crave action and battle to the point where she sold her own uniform and took up the rifle to defend her country? One simple yet mighty word – bravery.

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None of us are foreign to the concept of bravery. We see it on TV shows and movies all the time, where the courageous hero dives headlong into a burning building. You might have seen bravery firsthand when a friend volunteered without hesitation to check out a mysterious sound while you were camping. Or perhaps they showed you the pictures of their sky diving expedition. But where does bravery come from? Furthermore, why does bravery even exist in evolution, especially if that mysterious sound turns out to be a grizzly or something deadly that could prune you out of evolution for being too brave? So that’s our topic for today - the science of bravery. And to help along, we've got some hardcore myths to bust.

Myth 1: You're either born with a brave bone in your body, or you're not. Bravery is an inherent trait that some have, and trying to learn a natural attribute, like bravery, is just impossible.

Joe: So, Molly seems like the grittier version of Mulan. When I think of the Revolutionary War, I think of whiskey and sewing up a wound with a dirty thread. Everything I've ever seen about the Revolutionary War looks like one big infection, even the part that isn't infected. So, I assume what gave Molly away is like Mulan, and she probably had a luck dragon following her around and a talking cricket.

Todd: I will get to that, but for starters, isn't this just a crazy story? I consider myself an almost expert on American history, and I can't believe I've never heard of this. But to get started, on December 17th, 1760, Deborah Sampson was born, and out of 7 siblings, she had a thirst for action - the courageous kind of action, putting herself on the front lines and fighting for what she believed. However, she had one small problem that got in the way of her getting into that action; Deborah was a woman. Back in the mid-late 1700s, it was illegal for women to join the military and fight for their country. In fact, it wasn't until 1979 when the enlisted qualifications became equal for both men and women.

Joe: I was hoping that you would say that it was going to be like the 1800s or something when everyone could enlist. If anyone is sort of shaking their head and they think that we are wrong on this one, take a look at the history of US enlistment. It's actually fighter pilots and people in aviation. So, we were allowing women to enlist before that, and other countries kicked our ass as far as allowing women to fight earlier. We were not as progressive as we think, and most of that was because we wanted to put women in pilot seats and let them drop bombs on people.

Todd: Now remember, there are seven siblings here, and Deborah's family struggled badly financially. Her father abandoned the family when she was only five years old. She was then sent off to live with her aunt, who soon passed away. After her death, Deborah was sent to be an indentured servant to Benjamin Thomas. All the siblings were spread out to different homes.

Joe: Usually, indentured servitude was reserved for people who had committed crimes. So, it's interesting to start a kid out with the crime of being poor and being born. It looks like they taught her to read, right? So maybe that was part of it.

Todd: She was actually self-educated, and it looks like Benjamin treated her as if she was one of his own children. As a farmer, he worked, he did carpentry, and he taught that along with how to shoot a gun and how to survive. At the young age of 18, Deborah finished being an indentured servant and became a teacher. She was 5'7, educated, and questioned the British actions at the beginning of the Revolutionary War and as the war went on. Overall, she was politically outraged and wanted to show and prove her patriotism. Guess how she was discovered in her first attempt? Because she got caught holding her pen like a woman. She tried again in 1782 and succeeded that time. She was 21 years old, but she told them she was only 17. Deborah was one of the only women to serve in the army during the Revolutionary War. She disguised herself as a man and enlisted under the name Robert Shurtliff, serving a total of 18 months.

We want to dig into where bravery comes from in the human. If we are motivated to carry on our genes and have kids, why would anyone ever go to war or be brave if it can lead to death? How could it ever help you? How can it ever serve you? In our Hitler Youth episode, we talked about belonging and how teens are riskier than others. Bravery could be part of this as a way to impress the other tribe members.

There's a great article that you can find here phys.org, and it talks about how tribal war may have driven human evolution in pieces and in short periods. I have never heard somebody refer to this, but they talked about belligerents and the aggressiveness that comes with expanding your tribe - they refer to it as altruism. In this article, they make the case that in a tribal sense, if you are willing to go club a neighbor/another tribe, that's altruistic because you're opening up new lands to your own tribe.

There are also many theories about how much genetic material/connection a family member carries for this. In this article, a scientist was asked if they would dive into a river for a total stranger? And he said no but would for two brothers or eight cousins. So, if you are surrounded by cousins, and that's what your tribe is made up of, you're probably more willing to go to war for your tribe if you share genetic material with them. So, that's one theory of why bravery exists.

Myth 2: People performing seemingly brave acts isn't bravery at all. They're just reckless without any calculation for the risks.

Now, let’s talk about the four factors that contribute to bravery. One of them that was identified by Albert Bandura, he coined as self-efficacy - the idea that we are so good at confronting challenges that our bravery comes from our skills. You have the structure, and bravery can only exist when you have the right training and practice. Another type of bravery is the ability to overcome challenges and assess risky tasks even in the presence of anxiety. So, the idea isn't so much that you have the toolkit; you just can assess how likely you are to succeed.

The third type of bravery is openness to experience. So that's people who are more likely to act in a time of crisis simply because they're more open to new things. The last one that I tacked on, which comes from Radiolab, is the 'not thinking' type of courage. They quoted several studies where people who are exceptionally brave just on the spur of the moment. One of the stories was about a woman who jumped a fence to fight a bull to save somebody. Those people in functional MRIs are frequently found to have not considered the risks at all; it just wasn't in their thought process – they just acted.

In addition, there is an emotional factor to bravery. This is from a Men's Health article. It states why some people are braver than others according to science. They talk about people who have a combination of seeking generosity and empathy. Essentially, they want that adrenaline rush, but they also have generosity and empathy toward their fellow man. According to the article, you can be a risk-taker and do amazing things, but you may be missing the generosity and altruism factor. All in all, you can be brave and tough and still be a kind and compassionate person.

We often hear that courage is the cornerstone of leadership and encourages the willingness to act in the face of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Courage is the person who's willing to put oneself out there when you're meeting new groups of people. But you can train yourself to do all of that? The biggest takeaway from this episode is that you actually can. So, how can you become braver? One of the voluntary acts you can take to become braver is clearly picturing your actions and the positive results that will come from them. Visualization is a powerful tool to emotionally motivate yourself, and that counts toward courage too.

Another way to do it is to focus on the meaning of your actions. You can ask yourself why you're doing something and what value it means. If you are at work and are kicking yourself for not speaking up, remind yourself you're not there specifically for the paycheck - you're there to accomplish something bigger and improve yourself. Lastly, embrace the courage to fail sometimes. This isn't just about rejection, but you may want to set out with the idea that you can fail, and it's okay.

Myth 3: Men, by nature, are braver than women. Men have always been the hunters, the warriors, and the sex that puts themselves in harm's way, right?

Who is braver, men or women? This comes from researchers Selwyn Becker and Alice Eagly, and they looked at rates of heroism among men and women. Now, they didn't just look at guts and glory kind of heroism. They're actually looking at people who saved Jews during the Holocaust, people who are who joined the peace corps, numbers of people who donate kidneys overseas, and people who serve as doctors of the world. They wanted to cover as many places as possible where you could consider it brave because it wasn't purely gaining land, resources, and reproductive rights. They found out that of these things, women were more likely to donate kidneys. In fact, they donate 60% of all kidneys despite making up 51% of the population.

Women were also the majority of recipients for the Righteous Among Nations award for

lending a hand during the Holocaust, and they were disproportionately more likely to volunteer for organizations that put themselves at risk. So, across the board, from what we could see when it comes to volunteering, risking oneself to donate an organ, and getting into organizations that help others at risk, it seems like women come out pretty much on top. It’s not by a huge margin, but large enough to be pretty clear to rest this debate.

We always want to mention we ran into a study by the BBC where they talked about how women live longer and are thus better survivors during economic sense. They mention the Irish Potato Famine and eras where diseases were a problem. But there's something that I took out of the study and picked this up from reading The Red Queen by Matt Ridley, testosterone is an immunosuppressant. So, the reason we didn't use this study is because women have a higher rate of surviving during things like outbreaks or plagues. However, it's partly because men's testosterone means that they have a crappy immune system to fight off those diseases. The big muscle-bound dude walking through the room with high testosterone is more likely to keel over from a cold or infection than a woman is.

Lastly, there is a Gallup poll that lists the characteristics more associated with women than with men. This is just a pole that asks women which words associate with which gender's characteristics. For example, when somebody says the word, 'emotional' both men and women, put women down in that category. Even more, women were associated with being more talkative, patient, but less aggressive/courageous than men. Only 23% of people associate courageousness with women. The rest of that number is tilted toward men. So, bravery is overall seen as male-dominated for things like police work, war, hero work, etc. But there are all types of bravery and areas where women tend to interact with more courageous-rich engagements.

Final Thoughts

Being brave is something every single one of us has innately. This is because bravery is cultivated from the anterior cingulate cortex in the brain, and well, we all have a brain.

In biology terms, bravery emerges from the primal struggle we have. When we find ourselves in a dangerous situation, our amygdala sends a signal to our prefrontal cortex, which inadvertently interferes with our ability to reason clearly - sending us either face-first into battle or running for the hills.

If you're not a natural warrior, you don't have to succumb to fear. With a little bit of brain training and muscle memory, you can chase down those Tories or challenge your boss for a raise. Because when you train your brain to confront scary things repeatedly, you are reprogramming your amygdala to send the same signal to your basal ganglia instead, a region of the brain that doesn't give a shit about fear. This kind of reprogramming by repetition is basically what the army does for their soldiers.

Men and women can both be courageous. In the mainstream, bravery is represented as a masculine trait and stereotyped, demonstrating manliness, fearlessness, and masculine impulsivity. According to the lay theory, gender doesn't play a significant role in risk-taking or social courage. There's no denying some people have a higher threshold for risk-taking than others. We are not all Deborah Sampson, going undercover to be in the front lines. We are not all built to want to face death. Not all of us plan to go down with the ship, and that's fine. If that's what you're into, you don't need to wear a disguise to see combat, thanks to modern laws. For the rest of us who just want to feel a little more comfortable confronting our boss, neighbor, or mother-in-law, it's just a matter of repetition and practice.