It would probably never
occur to you that we could be persuaded to reach a
conclusion by something so arbitrary and seemingly
insignificant as a smile or a nod from a newscaster. But
little
things can,
apparently, make as much of a difference as big
things.
Subtle signals
by someone in favor of one politician or another usually
don't matter at all. But in the unguarded way that people
watch the news, a little bias can suddenly go a long way.
It's much more subtle, and for that reason much more
insidious, and that much harder to insulate ourselves
against.
Another
implication is that nonverbal cues are as or more
important than verbal ones. A television advertisement
would be most effective if the visual display (like a
bouncing ball) created repetitive movement of the
television viewers' heads. Simple physical movements and
observations can have a profound effect on how we feel
and think.
The third
implication is that persuasion often works in ways that
we do not appreciate. It's not that smiles and nods are
subliminal messages. They are straightforward and on the
surface. It's just that they are incredibly
subtle.
So subtle that
we would attribute our positive attitudes to some more
obvious, logical cause.
Our
Adaptive Unconscious
There is a growing
consensus that the unconscious is a pretty smart cookie,
with cognitive capacities that rival and sometimes
surpass that of conscious thought. The adaptive
unconscious also sizes up people's motives, character and
intent--judgments crucial to reach quickly. It even seems
to have its own personality. Although conscious
personality influences deliberative responses, the
adaptive unconscious guides responses made
unthinkingly.
Although this
sophisticated system operates efficiently under the radar
of consciousness to create our rapid default behavior, it
can be good for us to become aware of the hidden
assumptions and beliefs that drive such behavior---so we
can consciously make choices on how we wish to act in
certain situations. Because unconscious beliefs can be
based in fear, our unconscious default behavior may not
give us a sense of fulfillment and
satisfaction.
Each of us has
the ability to find patterns in situations and behavior
based on very narrow slices of experience (commonly
referred to as "thin-slicing") and this rapid cognition
allows the unconscious part of our brain to reach
decisions in dazzling speed. The power of knowing,
through our adaptive unconscious in the first two
seconds, is an ability that we all can cultivate for
ourselves. Our life is going to be shaped by something
and we have the ability to decide what when we become
more self-aware of our adaptive unconscious. Making sense
of ourselves and our behavior requires that we question
conventional wisdom that rational analysis beats the
value we detect in a glance.
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Survival
Through Very Quick Judgments
An ancient Greek
philosopher, Heraclitus, felt that consulting our own
experience
and intuition
is a wonderful way to gain insight. Unfortunately, many
of us have never learned this
lesson.
The only way
that human beings could have ever survived as a species
for as long as we have is that we've developed our human
brain's decision-making to be capable of making very
quick judgments based on very little information. The
combination of our reptilian brain, limbic (emotional)
brain and the newest brain, the neocortical (analytical)
brain, allow us to be very adaptive to changes in our
environment. As we human beings move through the day, we
are blissfully unaware of the prodigious feats of
coordination of mind, body and spirit that underlie the
simplest acts.
The first and oldest
brain, the reptilian brain, sits perched on the top of
the human spinal cord and controls vital bodily
functions, including the primordial seeds of emotional
responsiveness. The startle center is here, too, because
a swift reaction to abrupt movement or noise is the
principal reason animals have brains at all.
Humanity's second brain
or limbic brain drapes itself around the first brain. As
mammals split off from the reptilian line, a fresh neural
structure blossomed within their skulls. This brain
allowed mammals to bear their young live; they nurse,
defend and rear them while they are immature--a
revolution in social evolution. A mammal will risk and
sometimes lose its life to protect a child or mate from
attack. The limbic brain permits mammals to sing to their
children and play with one another. The limbic brain
specializes in detecting and analyzing just one part of
the physical world--the internal state of other mammals.
Emotionality
is the social sense organ
of limbic creatures.
The newest brain, the
neocortex, is the last and, in humans, the largest of the
three brains. Neocortical size has grown in mammals of
recent origin and has ballooned to massive proportions in
humans. Speaking, writing, planning and reasoning all
originate in the neocortex. So do the experience of our
senses, what we know as awareness and our conscious motor
control, what we know as will.
Test
your unconscious default behavior
Our
Brains Automatically Look for Patterns
Researchers from Duke
University have published findings about how our brains
automatically look for patterns. They suggest that our
brains evolved at a time when patterns were natural and
tended to be predictive, such as the sound of a twig
snapping and a growl signaling a predator's approach.
In today's
technological world, pattern perception is important to
Jeff Hawkins--one of the inventors of the PalmPilot while
at 3COM who went on to found the Handspring Personal
Digital Assistant ('PDA') venture. He believes that the
brain does not work in the 'input-process-output' mode
but anticipates and then verifies/discounts patterns to
decide what is or isn't relevant. Mr. Hawkins is using
some of his earned cash flow (from inventing and
commercializing these PDA's) to validate a new theory of
the human brain's processing function.
For more information
from Mr. Hawkins on the brain's processing
function,
click here.
Business Case: People don't sue doctors they
like.
Malcolm Gladwell in his
new book, "blink"
(Little,
Brown), tells us that analyses of malpractice lawsuits
show that there are highly skilled doctors who get sued a
lot and doctors who make lots of mistakes and never get
sued.
At the same time, the
overwhelming number of people who suffer an injury due to
the negligence of a doctor never file a malpractice suit
at all. In other words, patients don't file lawsuits
because they've been harmed by shoddy medical care.
Patients file lawsuits because they've been harmed by
shoddy medical care and something else happens to them.
That something else is how they were treated, on a
personal level, by their doctor.
What you need to manage
is the relationship between the doctor and his patients.
When a patient has a bad medical result, the doctor has
to take the time to explain what happened, and to answer
the patient's questions--to treat him like a human being.
The doctors who don't are the ones who get sued. People
don't sue doctors they like.
In the end, it comes
down to a matter of respect and the simplest way that
respect is communicated is through tone of voice, and the
most corrosive tone of voice that a doctor can assume is
a dominant tone. If you are a doctor or a medical service
provider wanting to reduce your risk of malpractice
suits, get your doctors and nurses some interpersonal
coaching.
For
self-help books click on: be
conscious of your default
behavior
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love
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what
should I do with my
life
and the
meaning of life
Transformation
Happens Through Awareness
Transformation is the
natural outcome when you bring
awareness to your
life.
Awareness is a nonjudgmental seeing. It is an objective,
non critical witnessing of the nature of any particular
circumstance or situation.
When we become aware of
something, it is a call to action to change or fix what
is discovered. Sometimes, awareness itself is enough to
facilitate resolution without doing anything about what
is seen. The problem fixes you rather than you fixing the
problem.
Coaching yourself to
look for pitfalls that stand in the way of where you want
to go can help you become aware of and thus avoid
unintended consequences.
Source:
Working
on Your Relationship Doesn't
Work by
Ariel Kane and Shya Kane (ASK Productions, 2004)
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