The scariest part about subconscious thought is that it's completely automatic.
We tell ourselves that we would never fall for cheap psychological tricks
We see other people fall for those tricks and think to ourselves:
"That would never happen to me"
So I asked myself the question:
"How would I know if it was happening to me?"
If I stop and think about it - for the most part - I'm letting my mind do its own thing.
When I have a goal in mind, that goal takes the majority of my attention.
The subconscious has everything else under control.
There are a lot of positives to this.
Let's take motor-skills for example:
Imagine if we were forced to pay attention to every single movement made by each body part.
In reality, we could if we wanted to...
But its often distracting and requires way too much focused concentration.
Our subconscious knows how to interact with our body way better than we do.
The result is amazing:
I picture where I want my hand to be...
...what shape I need from it...
...and boom...
Every single muscle works in tandem...
Our subconscious conducts a symphony of movement and turns our vision into reality.
Impressive stuff
And where would we be without our basic metabolic processes.
The magnificent partnership between our subconscious and autonomic nervous system
We breath in, our body distributes oxygen
We eat, and our body distributes the nutrients
We're hot or cold, our body cools us down or warms us up.
There are so many positives, and I'm grateful beyond words
All because our subconscious mind has evolved over time.
It makes survival as seamless an experience as possible.
However...
In the modern world, technology and science seem to be outpacing evolution.
We've found ways to understand how the subconscious works
And now we can reliably trick the subconscious into believing things that may not be true.
This is where it can get dangerous.
"We question all our beliefs, except for the ones that we really believe in, and those we never think to question." - Orson Scott Card
So how can we tell when our subconscious is being tricked into believing something...?
It begins with recognising that even our subconscious takes shortcuts.
It makes assumptions, educated guesses.
There is so much information available, its hard for our mind to digest everything in front of us.
One of the ways our mind takes shortcuts, is through the use of cognitive biases.
(Side note: there are over 100 cognitive biases)
When I realised the impact of cognitive biases...
...Particularly how defenceless I felt against them...
It made me think about how the body we’re given seems to have its own set of standard operating procedures.
There are times we would be better off if our conscious mind re-took the wheel.
Sometimes we should reconsider some of the automated decisions.
For example:
Many of us love the feeling that comes with getting an answer “right”...
...Answering our favourite quiz show on TV...
...successfully completing a puzzle...
...passing an important test...
We feel affirmed, competent, successful, able.
And we get that wonderful hit of dopamine.
That very same hit of dopamine comes when we experience confirmation bias.
Confirmation Bias is where we have an idea of what is "right". Then our mind looks for information to confirm that idea.
e.g. I get a dopamine hit when a piece of evidence lines up with my initial idea.
The greater my emotional attachment to the idea, the greater the hit of dopamine.
The greater the hit of dopamine, the greater the believability of this new evidence...
…
Wait...
My opinion of my idea affects the believability of the new evidence?
Exactly.
Scary stuff...
On one hand, its convenient that we can connect ideas in this way.
Its an effective way of organising information fast. Dopamine is such a powerful signal.
For this same reason, it blinds us.
It gives us a tendency to ignore any new information which does not match our pre-existing ideas.
It blinds us to where we could be wrong or ignorant.
It can lead us down a deceptive path and can make things very difficult for us in the future.
Or even worse, bad actors who understand it better than we do can exploit it, and us.
The trick is, we feel good when we get that dopamine hit, it is natural for us not to want to question it.
So how can we be sure if our subconscious is misleading us?
By understanding where our blind spots are, we can challenge them.
Here's what I do:
Remember that these biases are working 24x7 - just like how we breath while we're sleeping. They are always on.
Listen/Watch for the dopamine hit. I enjoy the feeling, don't get me wrong, but I remember: there is a reason it happened.
So, I question my current thought by asking: "How can I be so sure the opposite idea could not be true?"
If the answer is "I don't know": I figure out if it's important enough to continue investigating.
If it isn't worth investigating, I label that thought as "May or may not be true" and leave it there.
Simple as that.
The new "evidence" doesn't form part of my beliefs.
This doesn't mean I will disregard the evidence entirely.
But most importantly:
My subconscious is safe from unwanted or untrue beliefs (for now).
Confirmation bias is 1 of over 100 cognitive biases affecting us.
Again, these are working in the background all day every day.
My goal with this newsletter series it to maximise awareness of the self
If we all make better decisions, we can all live in a better world.
So let's recap:
Our cognitive biases allow us to process tons of information very fast.
Awareness of these biases allow marketers and manipulators to directly influence our subconscious.
We can protect ourselves by increasing our own awareness.
Confirmation bias makes it easier to find evidence for our existing beliefs
It makes it more difficult to find evidence for our non-existent beliefs.
When we see a piece of evidence that affirms our existing belief, we get a dopamine hit.
That dopamine hit makes us want to believe in the accuracy of the evidence.
We can stop and challenge the evidence when we recognise this.
How do we challenge?
We ask ourselves "How can I be sure the opposite cannot be true?"
More on cognitive biases in future newsletters in this series: Mastering the Machinery
Join me for the next episode