By Andrew LeCompte
Scientists used to assume that people made most of their choices consciously. They couldn’t prove it, but it was comforting to think that people were consciously controlling their mind’s decisions. Then, in the 1995, researching psychologists discovered a more accurate explanation for how our mind perceives and decides. Let’s take a closer look at the real causes of our behavior.
The Problem: Your Mind is Out of Control
In the last six years scientists have discovered startling facts about unconscious, automatic processes in the human mind. These discoveries have profoundly changed our understanding of what goes on when we communicate with others. Here are some of the scientists’ conclusions:
you don’t understand what you see
you don’t know what causes your feelings
you don’t know what motivates your actions
When I first heard these ideas I felt insulted because I like to think that I’m fairly intelligent. But gaining an additional thirty IQ points wouldn’t help me to understand what I see. Nor would they help you. They could even get us further off track because intelligence is not the problem.
The problem is that your mind, regardless of IQ, is rarely under your conscious control. Your mind is running almost entirely on automatic systems for perceiving, feeling and deciding what to do. Your mind unconsciously and automatically judges everything it sees or hears, decides whether to like or dislike it and then decides what you will do in relation to it.
Unfortunately, your mind’s perceptions and evaluations are often very mistaken. Your mind sees attack where there is none. Your mind makes up negative cases against people and then induces you to react defensively. As a result your life seems to run normally until, wham, you get into a conflict with someone and your peace, happiness and potential contribution get derailed, often seriously.
Automatic Mental Systems (your "judge")
Social psychologists, led by Dr. John Bargh1 at New York University, have demonstrated that the vast majority of our choices are made by unconscious, automatic processes in our mind. Here is how an automatic process develops:
The mind has a tremendous amount of data streaming into it from the senses every second. The eyes alone scan two billion bits of data per second. Our consciousness makes sense of this data relatively slowly. A young child, for example, over time learns that a certain pattern of visual data means a chair. The child then looks for similar patterns and quickly discovers other chairs. Eventually this task is delegated to the unconscious and recognition is automatic. This is very helpful because the ability to do routine operations unconsciously frees our conscious mind up for other things.
Unconscious information processing and decision making is much more powerful and pervasive than had previously been thought. The principle social function of the unconscious mind is to quickly judge whether other people and their actions are good or bad. For this reason I will refer to the automated, unconscious systems in the mind simply as "the judge." Bargh’s research has identified three parallel systems of preconscious analysis, the judge’s three functions:
The judge perceives and decides what people and things are. He does not do this on the basis of an objective reality. He does this on the basis of what he has been trained to see. Therefore it is subjective. We assume that our beliefs about what things are are the objective truth only because most of our beliefs are commonly held.
The subjective nature of the perception process is easier to see in the case of someone who has a high IQ but a different set of beliefs about the world. For example2, when a man, raised in a deep forest with only 100 yards visibility, traveled for the first time in his life out on the plain, he was convinced he was seeing "beetles and ants" turn into buffaloes as he was driven closer to them. His false perception of distant buffalo as insects was the result of his mental judge’s attempts to arrange visual data to suit his world view. Human perception depends on what the judge has been primed to see.
Once the judge has made his determination of what something is, he proceeds to select data that confirm his position. The judge chooses what he is trained to look for, the "facts" that confirm his belief system. Hence, what you see is only what you unconsciously expect to see, or your projection. The judge creates your psychological situation. He creates your world.
The judge evaluates and decides whether he likes or dislikes every person or thing and hence whether to approach or to avoid it. Bargh’s research proves that everything is evaluated pre-consciously. That means that even before we consciously know what something is, our mind has made the "like" or "dislike" decision. Nothing is neutral and our emotions are directly wired into this decision. Thus, if your judge decides that someone is "wrong" you will feel angry toward that person.
The judge also gives us a motive, his own goal, or course of action for dealing with the situation. He may choose to accept someone or to attack them. Unfortunately, the judges of the world are a fearful lot and quick to defend themselves.
Here is a closer look at how unconscious, automatic judgments influence us socially. Your judge first evaluates others on the basis of his own stereotypes and prejudices. When a person against whom your judge is prejudiced is upset and calls for help, their call is usually interpreted by your judge as an attack. So your judge provides his best defense: attacking the other person. When the other person reacts in self defense, their defensive action confirms your judgment about their original intention--to attack you. In this way, when your judge’s initial judgment of the person as hostile is validated, it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Because your automatic mental systems run unconsciously; you are not aware that any of this has happened. Your explanations for your own behavior are really after-the-fact rationalizations. Bargh cites a study in which a participant, while hypnotized, was directed to crawl on her hands and knees after awakening from hypnosis. When she woke from hypnosis she got down on her hands and knees and said, "I think I lost an earring down here." In a similar way, your judge comes forth with plausible explanations for your behavior.
Your judge’s analyses and decisions occur in less than a quarter of a second and are completely unconscious. According to Bargh, automaticity determines 99% of your behavior. When you examine one of your decisions you experience it as objective. However, the entire information base you used to make your decision was selected by your judge to prove a point he had previously established. Because you didn’t know that the data the judge passed on to you was biased, you trusted it. This means that you cannot be objective.
Bargh writes:
Anyone who has ever attempted to explain to a lay friend or relative that mental events can occur and affect their judgments and behavior without their knowing about it can attest that it is a difficult task indeed. What even the best-intentioned and open-minded individual will do when confronted with such an idea is to examine their autobiographical memory, find no cases in which they were influenced without knowing it (of course!), and reply, "Uh-uh, not me, Jack."3
This helps explain our resistance to the psychological truths mentioned at the beginning. We like to think that we are conscious. We hate to admit we are wrong. But, according to Bargh, we are conscious less than one percent of the time.
Who Trained Your Judge?
Psychologists refer to your beliefs and expectations as your "chronic framework." Your judge makes his choices on the basis of this chronic framework, or more simply, his training. Your judge got his training from the culture in which you grew up, your family, and your experience of traumatic events. Your judge was raised in your family, in your culture. He watches TV and reads the newspaper with you.
The training of judges naturally varies somewhat from place to place. The following experiment4 demonstrates how judges behave differently depending on the belief systems in which they are trained. Psychologists secretly provoked students at the University of Michigan to determine whether Southern students, brought up under a code of honor favoring strong responses to insults, would respond differently to the provocation than would Northern students, who were not raised under this code.
As they walked down the hall individual students were bumped and insulted by an undercover experimenter. Observers reported that the Southerners got angry and the Northerners tended to be amused. Blood tests after the incident showed significant increases of testosterone (a hormone associated with aggression) in the Southerners and not in the Northerners. The students had the same provocation but completely different reactions, depending on where their judges were trained.
My judge, as a result of his conditioning, views the world as a fearful, hostile environment. If you share my culture, your judge also chooses to see a world of lack, threat, attack, and guilt. He triggers your anger. He tells you to attack. You are unconscious of all of this, but you are drawn into conflicts, making up reasons for your actions as your inner judge whirls you blindly along.
The Way Out
Although he predated the recent scientific proofs of automaticity, Albert Einstein saw our situation clearly:
A Human Being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.
Einstein also said that a problem cannot be solved with the same consciousness that created it. One must reach to truth which is outside the system in order to change it. It is the function of consciousness, that part of the mind that we seldom use, to reach for the truth. Bargh states that consciousness has power to override automaticity.
Because we are talking about being trapped in the mind’s psychological situation, we must look to different belief systems if we want to change. Systems for raising our consciousness, for widening our circle of compassion, are presented in various ethical and spiritual teachings. They suggest a world in which there is no lack, in which no one and no thing can attack or harm our essential self, and in which people only express love or calls for help. Whatever genuinely positive belief system you adopt will work.
In my experience, help is there for me when I reach beyond my judge’s fear-based thought system. I realize that my judge has invented the world I see, that I can escape it by giving up attack thoughts, that I can see peace instead of devastation. I do this by stopping myself when I become irritated, realizing I'm subject to mistaken perception, and genuinely desiring to see the other person as having a positive intention .
You can choose to see beyond your projections and to see a reality of positively motivated people. I know because I learned to do it and have taught hundreds of other to do it through the Let’s Talk program. Here, in two broad steps, is how to find this positive reality:
1. Set the goal
The judge himself is neutral and programmable. He has no conscious mind, you do. He has no opinion of his own, only what he is told. You can decide that your goal is to have positive connection and peaceful understanding in your interactions with others.
When you do this you have given your mind new orders and it will obey. It will see the situation as a means to bring about the result you want. You then are able to consciously overlook what interferes with accomplishing your goal and focus on what will help to meet it.
When you establish the goal to find positive intention in others, you will find it. Your mind has incredible power to search out and find the positive truth.
2. Override your judge to find the good
Psychologists point out that automatic processes can be overridden with conscious attention on a case by case basis.
First you have to catch the judge at work. This requires willingness and vigilance. As soon as you become aware of anger, resentment or guilt--which are sure signs of the judge’s activity--choose to find the good. To find the good is to overlook or deny the perception of fault in another person. Then look and listen for the truth, which is either positive intention or a call for help.
What you see in another person is merely what you wish to see. When you overlook the illusion of attack and see the good, an awakening occurs, a dawning of consciousness.
Congratulations, your mind is now back in control. Now let’s see how to use it to resolve a conflict situation.
The Solution: Find the Good Using the Let’s Talk Model
Here are three simple steps of the Let’s Talk listening model you can use to override your judge and connect with what is really going on in another person. At first sign of conflict, which you might notice as anger, guilt, or tensed muscles:
Center yourself: stop, breathe, and become aware of yourself. Realize that you are okay and your perception is faulty.
Choose to see other person differently, to hear their call for help.
Listen to hear their feelings and their positive intention. The least threatening way to do this is to guess at their feelings and their "hopes."
By validating the other person’s feelings you begin to restore their emotional balance. This is empathic healing. Also, once their emotional balance has been restored, they will be able to hear what you have to say.
Their "hope" is the abstract, general, positive experience which the other person wants. Hopes include such things as respect, appreciation, and to be understood.
Here is an example of how this model might work in practice:
In a busy medical unit, a crisis had occurred at shift change in which a patient’s life was put in serious jeopardy. Everyone in the unit was shaken by the incident and the Director of Nursing, Sylvia, called a staff meeting.
Sylvia asked the group "What do you think we can do to prevent a crisis like this from occurring again?"
Tom spoke up loudly: "What can we do? Let me tell you something. If you ever got off your office chair and came out on the floor to do your job, crises like this wouldn’t happen."
Everyone braced for the confrontation. Would Sylvia let him have it? He’d challenged her before and now she had a good opportunity to put him in his place. Would she defend herself? Would she reprimand him for his rudeness toward her?
Here is how she handled it:
Sylvia: "Tom, it sounds like you’re really angry about what happened yesterday."
Tom: "You bet I am! And I’m not alone."
Sylvia: "Are you upset because you want greater clarity about who’s supposed to do what?"
Tom: "No. You don’t even know how desperate the situation is out there. I have eighty thousand things to do at the change over and patients lives are at stake."
Sylvia: "So you’re really stressed at those times and afraid for the patients’ safety?"
Tom: "Yes, but this place is totally unfair. We’re understaffed and asked to do the impossible."
Sylvia: "That sounds really frustrating. So would you like to find a way you could get the support you need to provide a safe transition at shift change?"
Tom: "I sure would."
Sylvia: "I want you to have the support you need, Tom. Let’s talk about it."
Once Tom had been heard about his hope for support, Sylvia proceeded to work with him and the rest of the staff to form a plan for better coverage during shift change. They ended up feeling pleased with the solution and better about their relationship with each other.
Sylvia was consciously listening to Tom in a way that denied what her judge told her and focused instead on finding the good. She had been trained to listen with true empathy and heard only a call for help. Here is what she was thinking.
Sylvia’s thoughts
I hear Tom’s loud words about me and see his angry face. (judge’s perception)
He’s blaming me, attacking me; he’s wrong; he’s rude. (judge’s interpretation)
I’m angry, embarrassed. (feeling)
So far her experience has been automatic and fast as lightening.
Wait a minute. I can choose how I respond. (stopping and recognizing choice)
This space between stimulus and response gave Sylvia her freedom. She chose to override her judge’s automatic judge-and-attack reaction and found good.
There has got to be more to the story here. (choosing to see differently)
What could he be feeling and hoping? (finding the good, making connection)
Let’s take a closer look at how Sylvia’s thinking might have been if she had instant recall of the Let’s Talk program.
My perception is faulty. The judge’s illusion always comes first. If I feel angry, I have perceived myself as being unfairly treated, which means I’m looking through the judge’s eyes for evil intention.
People are essentially good. Tom's communication is really a call for help. Tom has a loving intention, or "hope." Finding and accepting his hope will restore his inner peace and mine. So I speak to bring out the good in him. I let Tom know I am eager to hear him charitably and only want to see and know his positive intentions.
I listen actively to connect with him. I make two kinds of guesses:
I guess at his feelings. His peace and emotional balance have been thrown off by some form of fear. I want to hear and accept his experience by helping him find a feeling word to describe it. I make feeling guesses ("angry, upset, stressed, afraid and frustrated") using clues from what he says and my intuition.
I guess at his hopes. Although Tom is essentially good and motivated by love, I don’t ask him if he wants love. His defensive judge would instantly deny it. So I slip by his judge by guessing at a lower level differentiation of love, his "hope." Hopes include such qualities as respect, support, and appreciation. I expect to be a little off target in my guess and to be corrected by Tom. In this way we both discover his hope.
Sylvia guessed, from what Tom had said, that his hopes might be for "clarity," "patient safety" and "support." When guessing at his hopes, she kept her guesses general and didn’t include herself in his hope by saying "my support." She wouldn’t want to imply she was the cause of his feeling or to bind herself into the solution. Connecting with his first hope may reveal other hopes, and Sylvia was prepared to continue actively listening until Tom was fully heard.
Tom wanted to share his hopes, even though he wasn't conscious of them at first. Sylvia’s questions helped Tom identify and speak them. This was an enlightening moment. In the communication process both parties realized that they could have their hopes met.
Why does finding the good seem difficult?
Because you habitually listen the judge, who sees the other person’s action as an attack. Then you attempt to overlook it. That is impossible. You can learn, however, to not see the other person's action as an attack. You may need to step aside from the confrontation and breathe before you remember this.
Because your judge sees the other person as "wrong," you want to change the person or the situation. Instead, change your thinking.
Because you fear that communicating in this way is "unnatural." The fear-based language of the judge is habitual. When you first try finding the good it seems awkward. With practice you will come to discover that it is easy and natural.
Because your judge will attack. Your judge sees its existence as threatened by a different, positive interpretation and screams "You can’t do this!" It will try and tell you that finding the good won’t work in this case, that this particular person will not respond positively to it. Yet you can learn to stop, breathe, and choose for the truth.
Because you fear that understanding the other person means agreeing with them. It doesn’t. Once you understand them, they will be able to understand you.
What do you need in order to see the good?
Only willingness on your part is required. The other person is like you, with the judge’s cloudy layer of fear temporarily covering the bright love light at the center. You can disperse the cloud of misperception if you choose to. Choose to trust the good and to initiate communication.
The way to learn to find the good is to practice. As many people who attend Let’s Talk groups have experienced, support groups and training can be useful to strengthen your personal willingness. This better way to communicate leads to effective conflict resolution and to improved personal relationships.
Copyright 2000 by Andrew LeCompte, President, Let’s Talk
1079 Montalona Road
Dunbarton, NH 03046
Tel. (603) 774-7838
References
John Bargh's lead article in The Automaticity of Everyday Life, Advances in Social Cognition, Volume X, Robert S. Wyer, Jr., editor, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1997
Ibid. page 122. Professor Dov Cohen references a study by Turnbull
Ibid. Bargh, page 243
Ibid. Cohen, page 123
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