1. a) Status and systems 1 & 2
Most of what System 1 does happens subconsciously and one of its most obvious and immediate functions is to keep us safe. You have very likely had the experience of walking into a room and knowing immediately that there was tension in the air. Perhaps you felt threatened? Perhaps you sensed that people were having an argument that they have temporarily suspended? Or perhaps you just felt unwelcome? You can't quite put your finger on how you knew but you just knew.
In fact your System 1 was processing, at high speed, lots of subliminal data about people’s physical positioning, body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, timing and subtext of speech, etc.
In the above example System 2 doesn’t usually register the details, it simply registers the tension. We can purposefully train our System 2 attention on people and things around us and weigh up what they mean and how we should respond in order to get what we want. But in contrast to the speed and immediacy of System 1, System 2 is deliberate, effortful and slow.
The idea that the brain operates on a subconscious, as well as a conscious, level has been around for a long time. But many Western schools of thought are still resistant to the idea that the subconscious mind significantly influences behaviour. Consider how economists long assumed that people act logically when taking financial decisions, despite money being one of the most emotionally charged parts of our lives.
Others recognise, but fear, the involvement of the subconscious. Mike Peters, author of The Chimp Paradox, characterises it as some sort of reckless, hedonistic, disruptive force that needs to be tamed if one is to live and work intelligently.
In fact over the past thirty years the research of Nobel prize-winner Daniel Kahneman and others has demonstrated that consciousness is made up of the interplay between Systems 1 & 2. Broadly speaking, System 1 evaluates what’s going on and offers up suggested action for ratification by System 2, which has a sort of executive overview. But System 2, which Kahneman describes as ‘the lazy controller’ generally just accepts System 1's recommendations.
So while we like to think System 2 is in charge, the overwhelming majority of our decisions are actually made by System 1. When you meet someone, System 1 gathers all sorts of detailed information about how they look, sound, move, shake hands, the tone of their voice, the expression in their eyes, etc. and passes its conclusion to System 2, which simply registers something broad like “he seems nice / intimidating / friendly / arrogant / sympathetic / smarmy etc".
This is why, when meeting someone for the first time, most of us realize after a few seconds that we don't remember their name, despite having just heard it. System 1 was using up all our attention, even though we didn't know it.
Similarly with people we know, System 1 picks up all sorts of detail about mood and intention and interprets it for System 2 which registers something like “she got out of bed on the wrong side this morning”. The better we know the person, the more subtle and detailed the cues we assess.
And System 1 then shapes most of our behaviour – how we position ourselves physically and whether we smile, look others in the eye, ask questions, disclose information and so on. And in certain circumstances System 1 simply takes charge without reference to System 2. This explains why you might find yourself saying you didn’t intend to or promising something without really knowing why. System 1 is especially vigilant where safety is involved and its response to threat is particularly relevant to meetings. I shall return to this subject in later blogs.
System 1 also incorporates learned expertise and behaviour as well as instinct and self-preservation. When you do something a lot, it can pass from System 2 to System 1 and you acquire the ability to do it without conscious thought. For example it’s impossible for you to read ‘2 + 2’ without the number 4 coming instantly to mind. Whereas to multiply 17 x 24 in your head would require the slow, effortful involvement of System 2.
Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink describes the impressive ability people acquire to make expert decisions instantly on the basis of ‘feel’, what he calls thin-slicing. He describes the fire chief who walked into a burning building to see his men dousing the flames and instantly ordered them out. Thirty seconds later the floor on which they were standing collapsed because the fire was actually on the floor below and they were simply hosing the tip of the flames rather than the base of the fire. The fire chief didn't consciously know why he made his decision, but he did know that something wasn't right. This was not guesswork. It was the product of a highly-developed System 1 understanding of the pattern of fire.
Or consider the racing driver who slammed on his brakes just before a corner. Doing so would almost certainly have lost him the race except that … around the corner was a crash. Afterwards he had no idea why he braked – and consider how fast these guys are making decisions – but had he taken the corner at race speed he would have ploughed straight into the site of the crash. In the middle of the night the same driver woke up suddenly realising that all the faces in the crowd were looking in the wrong direction. They should have been looking towards him as he approached the corner. Instead, they were all looking around the corner at the crash. This subconscious processing – System 1 – may have saved his life.
This ability to thin-slice is something we all possess when it comes to reading status: people make continual, although subconscious, assessment of those around them. So if you project low status at meetings, others will treat you as peripheral to the discussion and you will find it hard to get your voice heard. If you try to leapfrog to the top of the pecking order however, you will probably get slapped down by the big beasts (that’s three animal metaphors in the same sentence). So subtle, almost imperceptible increments are the way to go.
If you’d like to discuss how I can help you sharpen your impact at meetings and get your voice heard, I’d love to hear from you on +44 7973 890578 or at bill@billbritten.co.uk