Читать книгу Power Cues - Nick Morgan - Страница 22

Our minds are constructed to attribute intent to the gestures, attitudes, and postures of other people. We’ve evolved to be able to do that effortlessly, for the most part, by pushing the activity down to our unconscious minds, which are faster and more powerful than our conscious minds. So that’s a good thing.

Except when we want to understand what it is that we’re reading so effortlessly. What we’re actually doing is monitoring the thousands of minute adjustments in body language that the people around us are constantly making. They do so to express their unconscious attitudes, intents, and emotions. We do so in order to understand what they’re saying. The whole process probably preceded our ability to vocalize as a species.

To understand why this counterintuitive situation might exist, it helps to learn a little about how the brain works. It’s not what we think. Most of us have this idea that we can call the “Mr. Spock Theory of the Brain,” after the Star Trek character known for his logic and ability to keep his emotions under control. So, for example, we imagine that we get a thought, such as, “I’m thirsty,” and then we direct our bodies to act on that thirst, reaching for a glass of water. Neat, logical, and very Spockian.

But it turns out that our bodies don’t work that way. What actually happens is that we get an unconscious intent or desire—like thirst—and then our bodies start acting on that intent or desire. Only after that—entire nanoseconds later—do our conscious minds catch on to what’s happening. In effect, our conscious minds say, “I just noticed that I’m reaching for water. I must be thirsty. Yes, that’s it. I’m thirsty. Good thing I’ve got a drink of water heading my way.”⁹

That’s counterintuitive, and it probably makes you a little uncomfortable. But that’s the way it is. Our conscious minds are just along for the ride, like one of those birds that sits on a hippopotamus, picking off the bugs that swarm around the beast.