Reflexive Responses

A number of years ago now, I was in Hong Kong consulting with a design group. It was mid-afternoon, and one guy walked over to share his snack. I recognized a potato chip bag, reached in, and put one in my mouth. All of a sudden, all the warning lights and buzzers in my brain went off. Just before my gastrointestinal system could reject the offering, I began to understand I was eating a dried fish skin, and managed not to lose my lunch.

One of the most profound realizations I've had in my career, about myself and you other humans, is how driven we are by reflex. In a setting that would have been at home in Silicon Valley, my mouth encountered something out of place. It wasn't that I'd never eaten crispy fish skin before: it arrived in a context where I was fully cognitively primed for something else. The cognitive dissonance initiated a reflexive response. Fortunately, the dissonance started to resolve itself with recognition just in time.

What's significant is that we have much smaller reflexive rejections of the unfamiliar and unaccustomed all the time. And by contrast, the art of the con is to make the dangerous look safe and familiar. What we call free will, kicks in often after our reflexes have chosen for us.?

I don't consider myself a bad person because my body had a strongly negative response to a tasty and nutritious snack when it was presented in an unfamiliar context. It's hardwired to protect itself. At the same time, it makes me wonder what other invisible biases may be keeping me away from good things. Most importantly, the negative bias I reflexively generated was neither inherited nor permanent. I'd be delighted now to find a bag of those crispy treats in my local market. I learned my way out of it. Of course, that takes both awareness and free will.?

I've quoted?Isaac Bashivis Singer?a number of times for something he said himself a number of times. It went mostly like this, "Of course, I believe in free will. What choice do I have?"

Warmly,

CEO of GTD Focus

Francis Sopper