How - Dov Seidman [42]
These findings bolster previous research indicating that expectations play an important role in placebo effects. Expectations typically involve affective thoughts about current and future experience. In other words, our expectations can affect our experiences; beliefs can alter how we perceive information, and sometimes these beliefs manifest themselves unconsciously, separate from our conscious thought processes. Children confronted with the image of their parents wrapping presents in the living room on Christmas eve will create extraordinary fictions to explain why this sight does not refute their belief in Old St. Nick and not see themselves as doing anything illogical or out of the ordinary. Likewise, cynics who believe that everyone is motivated by self-interest will create narratives of self-serving interest in almost everything they see—even altruistic helping—often unaware of the influence that belief exerts on the mind. The first instance affects little but the fairy dreams of a child; the second affects your ability to succeed. You can absorb new information and let it alter your beliefs, and you can alter your beliefs and thereby apprehend new information.
Let’s think back to Paul Zak’s trust experiment for a moment. It had one more interesting result: People who extended trust to others made more money than those who did not. On average, DM1s who sent money made $14, and DM2s who returned some made $17 (those who sent nothing walked away with their original $10). The only way to make more money was to take a risk and give it away. In Zak’s game, money functioned as a metaphor for trust. In the end, the message of the game is that if you hold the right model of human nature—that people are basically good and can be trusted—you can extend more trust and make more money. Here is where belief enters the picture. If you believe that people are generally good and trustworthy, people sense that about you (because, as Kirsch and Esslinger showed us, humans are very good at that); they make quick judgments about your trustworthiness; and they return the trust more easily. Belief in trust created the conditions for trust, and the profit that results.
PLAYING TO YOUR STRENGTHS
Belief is a powerful force of inspiration and energy, but it can also get in the way of seeing clearly. Belief and perception are integrally connected. To make the journey up the Hill of A to a new understanding, you have to be willing to bring your beliefs into play and acknowledge their tremendous influence—both positive and negative—on HOW you think.
Evolution has provided us with a complex brain and a collection of peptides and hormones that act in symphony to ensure the survival of our species. That survival is not facilitated now, as it was thousands and thousands of years ago, solely by fear-based responses that cause our hearts to race, our stomachs to churn, and our faces to flush, but rather by our feeling good about each other and ourselves. Altruistic helping. Trust. Reciprocity. Values-based thinking. Belief. These behaviors, which have the power to fill the interpersonal synapses between us, seem to be hardwired to some degree into our DNA. To focus your attention in these areas seems to mean playing on your biological strengths, which is actually the path of least resistance. One theorist called it “doing what comes naturally.” Like the prelinguistic children helping a stranger, we naturally, instinctively, unconsciously seek to better our fellows. Understanding this natural proclivity leads naturally to exploring the world of HOW.
This, in the end, is why Cast Away moved me so deeply. Despite his solitary journey, Tom Hanks’s character was a promise keeper, invested in his connections with others. We feel in our guts that keeping promises and connecting with others are what gives our lives meaning, and most of us seek meaning in our lives. These connections give our lives significance. That is why, both biologically and culturally, mastering ways of