Controlling your inner chimp [bookshelf]
Getting a grip on your emotional override to react better
It wasn’t my greatest of moments. I had an argument with another driver in the station car park. Yes, it was cold, dark, rainy, and 5:30am in the morning. Yes, I’d given myself enough time and had parked slowly and cautiously. Yes, the other guy was intolerant and an ass. I expect he thought the same of me. We kept away from fisty-cuffs but had strong words and tempers.
The whole situation put me in a horrible mood for the rest of the day. It piqued my adrenaline. I think I was most of the way through my 50min journey before I got back to some kind of calm. It also rattled me the next day, and as I do, reflecting on it ate away a bit at how I behave as a human. Could I have reacted better. Sure could have.
I’m picking this scenario as I tend to jump to Fight when in a conflict situation. When faced with a trespass on my territory, virtual, personal or otherwise I jump to protect it. Yes, I also have my Flight/Flee, Freeze, and Fawn moments too. Generally though, I push-back. I’m also at my worst when I do.
I bet you’ve been in the same situation. Or, maybe not. Some of us have a much more highly developed sense of control. Some time or another though, I expect you’ve been triggered by an emotional response where you didn’t react quite as well as you would have liked.
I lived in Japan for a good while and outward displays of emotion are seen as childish. Something to have under control as an adult and to have a firm grip over how you behave, particularly is stressful situation. I know they seethe below the surface though in some cases, and I’m not sure really that it’s any better as a mechanism.
My mum was a counsellor in the final stage of her career and retrained in later life to do that. So is my sister-in-law. When my mum was training I remember hearing more than once that no one can affect you with their emotions, it’s your choice what you take on board. That’s true, it’s also a little more nuanced than that. Her skills developed and that pronouncement became much more balanced. She did have a point though, we need to all be responsible for our own emotions. Her thread was what we choose to accept. It’s also equally valid that in a harmonious environment we have an obligation to control how we express ourselves as well.
If you don’t care about that, then fine. It’s ok. Choosing to accept what comes our way is Stoic philosophy. It’s also Stoic that you can behave any which way you like. However, as long as you accept the consequences. And, you may not want the results of that when they are detrimental to you.
Treppenwitz
If it works for Mark Cavendish, Wiggo, and others, then there’s got to be something in it. I’d read David Millar’s excellent book, The Racer, on professional bike racing and he’d mentioned British Cycling’s Dave Brailsford’s involvement of Prof Steve Peters to work on the mental game of the team. Cycling may not be your thing, it is mine. After that, I kept seeing reference to his Chimp method cropping up in a bunch of other places too.
The Chimp Paradox: the mind management programme to help you achieve success, confidence and happiness
Prof Steve Peters
What Prof Peters does in the Chimp Paradox is give a simple, highly visual model for how our System-1 and System-2 behaviours work. Those are our ‘animal’ immediate response brains, and our ‘human’ considered thinking brain. The main problem is one is driven by basic emotions, and it always gets in first. It also has a pretty basic set of responses and if we haven’t got that in check it’ll ruin our day. Or at least it will not do the optimistic thing that our human brain would prefer.
I’m going to take a short digression to explain what Treppenwitz is now, it’s the German word for that amazingly witty snappy comeback that you see in the movies. Just, in reality, it comes to you about 2mins too late after the fact so you can’t deploy it to devastating effect. Love that word.
It’s like your Chimp (System-1 brain), gets triggered in the car-park. Your refined (System-2 brain) wouldn’t react in that way, all sophisticated they’d brush it off, see the bigger picture and get on with their morning. The problem is that the Chimp always gets the first go. Emotions trump reasoning.
What I liked about the model is the simplicity that gets to the root of how we behave. Take the ways of managing your Chimp. The metaphor says there are three ways: 1/ exercising, 2/ boxing, and 3/ banana. Pretty easy to see how that works, right.
You can’t change the nature of your Chimp BUT you are responsible for managing it.
- Prof Steve Peters
The concept then give a way to think through strategies for addressing situations where we want to handle them in a different way. Intellectually we know we want to do that, in the heat of the moment, emotion gets in the way and we jump around like a Chimp.
Indeed, it’s great to explain to kids too as they’re growing up. The trick is to recognise some of these triggers and pre-program yourself. Prof Peters calls that your Computer. It’s your programming that you’ve taken time to put into place, it’s discipline, learning to recognise what will trigger you, and pre-programmed responses how to react. It’s your system of beliefs and values. We need that because the Chimp is strong and can overwhelm any opportunity for our human brain to think rationally. We need to do that ahead and prepare, which means working on things.
I’m not going to go into further detail on the idea because that’s what the Chimp Paradox covers. Go give it a read and it’ll help you not have disagreements in the car-park early in the morning then feel rotten all day and the next. More importantly it’s help you in a broader range of situations as well when you get triggered by that email or provoked in a meeting.
Maybe it’s just me and I’m a little too hot blooded, but I guess not. We’re all weakened in certain situations. Tired in the morning. Stressed about a project. Too many demands on our time and get snappy. The model is really helpful for those situations where we’re depleted and life and situations get the better of us.
Read More
If you haven’t already it’s in a slightly different direction, but take a look at the article on Habit formation.
Some of the background more academic examples of how our Chimp (System-1/Emotional) and Human (System-2/Rational) brains work together are given in Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow.