Single-minded?

We learnt in the last post that our behaviour is driven by brain structures that were built for simpler times.  These simpler brains are superbly designed to ensure our survival.  To do this they focus on two things only, is this thing a potential threat to or a potential opportunity for my survival. If so, act.

There are two major flaws with this system. Our homo sapiens brain, let’s call it our executive brain, developed language and self-awareness, so that we can spend our entire lives in internal dialogue about the complex issues of ourselves being in our world.  The problem is that our primitive brain has no language to communicate specifically what concerns it.  It can only send messages to the executive brain in the form of emotions.

This is a very simplistic way to orient the person towards or away from something. In fact, according to the work of Paul Eckman, there are only 6 emotions - fear, anger, surprise, disgust, sadness, happiness which make for a very rudimentary communication.

Our primitive brain is constantly on guard, scanning the environment for potential threats or opportunities for our survival.  It is our automatic pilot, taking care of us, while we ponder more lofty thoughts.  This is how we can arrive at work with little recollection of the journey, and yet still react in an instant if something untoward occurs, because the primitive brain has sent an urgent emotional message for us to pay attention.

If we want to gain attention then we need to understand how our message will draw the attention of the primitive brain, what implications does it have for the individual.  Could it evoke fear of threat and turn people away or attract by implying opportunities for survival?

In the next post I will look at how this system functions in today’s complex world where survival depends on social survival.