Читать книгу Figure It Out - Stephen P. Anderson - Страница 57

Exposing narratives has been the focus for many branches of psychology— helping patients recognize the beliefs and “scripts” that drive behaviors. Exercises to help people separate facts from feelings are used by counselors and coaches alike. Work in the field of behavioral economics has highlighted the differences between our natural inclination to make emotional decisions and our more recently evolved ability to think in rational terms. As much as we like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, our ability to reason is a relatively recent addition to the evolution of our brains. This ability to think rationally and project ourselves into the future or into the past sits atop a more powerful and primitive set of instincts and inclinations.

Biologically, this means we are an accumulation of stories, cognitive biases, and heuristics, which while helpful to make quick decisions, also makes it difficult to be objective and rational about things. To be clear, the completely rational person is a myth. Spock from Star Trek isn’t a reality. We need emotions to make decisions; otherwise, we become paralyzed by analysis. We need stories to navigate reality. These are the patterns and conceptual wrappers that give quick meaning to things as they unfold. But we also need to develop our ability to recognize these emotions, biases, heuristics, and beliefs, and see them for what they are—useful, albeit fictional, shortcuts for understanding. Someone might be out to get you fired; more likely, it’s all in your head. You might think you’ve failed at something, but a reality check with outside observers would prove otherwise. Simply recognizing that “story provides context for the facts,” and that you can spin many stories from the same set of facts, helps us to be more thoughtful about such things.