Читать книгу The New IQ: Use Your Working Memory to Think Stronger, Smarter, Faster - Tracy Alloway - Страница 39

Your will affords you the wherewithal to go after the things you want in life: choosing a university, selecting a subject, chasing after a romantic partner, and vigorously pursuing a career. Why is working memory central to our ability to exercise will? Because exercising will requires evaluating, planning, and executing plans; keeping long-term goals in mind; controlling impulses; and overcoming obstacles—all of which rely on working memory skills.

We had an intense experience of the relationship between the working memory and will when we taught in El Salvador, a country known for danger. During our time there, grocery stores had guards armed with shotguns positioned by the milk and an area for you to check your guns and coats before you shopped. We quickly learned to deal with everyone in an exceedingly polite manner.

On our very last day in the country, we were driving on a well-traveled road when a car swerved and cut us off. Ross, who was driving, saw that one of many men in the car had a shotgun. He zipped his lips. Because of her line of sight, Tracy, in the passenger seat, didn’t see the gun, and the red mist descended, and she used unmistakable, universal sign language to express her dissatisfaction. Fortunately, the men didn’t notice the gesture or didn’t care, and we continued on our way unharmed.

The way our two minds reacted so differently to the same incident is a prime example of how the will works. Joaquin Fuster, a professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at UCLA, once described the process by saying that the will must take into account a barrage of three kinds of information:

 Internal information—hormonal levels, mood, emotions, information from organs

 External information—the constant stream of information transmitted by the senses

 System of Principles—information—language, memory, values, culture, civics, and laws we are bound to

Our working memory Conductor takes all this information in, categorizes it, decides a course of action, and executes that plan. So let’s see how Fuster’s model may have played out in our driving mishap.

After slamming on the brakes to avoid the accident, Ross’s Conductor rapidly processed the three kinds of information:

 Internal information: His amygdala was pretty pissed off and sent that information to his working memory.

 External information: Before he could hurl an insult, his working memory also brought to bear the sight of the gun and the number of men in the car.

 System of principles information: Cultural awareness that an expletive may provoke violence (as well as the painful awareness that he would be showing up to a gunfight with halting Spanish as a weapon).

His working memory weighed all this information, decided that there was no advantage to responding, and, in an expression of will, took the action of zipping his lip.

Now let’s look at what happened in Tracy’s mind. Her Conductor was also busy handling information:

 Internal information: Like Ross’s, Tracy’s amygdala fired off a message of anger to her PFC.

 External Information: Crucially, she didn’t have the same external information—she saw only the car cut us off. Unlike Ross, she did not see the gun nor did she count the number of men in the car.

 System of principles information: Including an unmerited confidence in Ross’s limited bilingualism to deal with any consequences. Also, the ethical sense that we had been wronged and deserved justice.

After weighing all this information in a matter of nanoseconds, her will elected to unleash a dramatic reply demonstrating her anger.

The exercise of will is not just a matter of being deliberative. It’s more complicated than that and involves a complex juggling act of assessing information, modulating emotions, and thinking strategically. It’s your Conductor that helps you sift through all the data to come up with a plan, and in some instances, the best course of action may be a more aggressive go-for-it approach.

Let’s say you have come up with what you think is a promotion-worthy idea for a new marketing campaign, and you excitedly share it with your immediate supervisor, Kathy. The next day, you overhear Kathy telling the marketing director about your idea and taking credit for it. Do you say nothing or stand up for yourself? Keeping the peace ensures that you won’t irritate your supervisor, but it also means that you will probably be stuck in a cubicle for the foreseeable future. Telling the marketing director that it’s your idea may upset Kathy but it could be your ticket to a big office and a major payday. You decide it’s worth it, and it’s your working memory that allows you to think strategically to come up with a clever way to let the boss know it was your idea without making Kathy look bad.