Why should we be talking to the elephant in the brain?

Humans are often considered as more complex than we realise, with everyone's brains working in a slightly different way than we often expect. A great reframing of this has previously been considered by Jonathan Haidt, who introduced an interesting metaphor which can be used when thinking about the brain - considering our brain as an elephant and it's rider.

This is an interesting consideration, because it aligns nicely with what humans think they'll do in a situation, versus what they actually do, which are often different. There is often the given reason for a behaviour, but then also the real reason, and these are different, without people consciously realising.

So to recap, how do our brains work?

Commonly, system 1 and system 2 are used to explain the differences between when we make conscious decisions and unconscious decisions.

Our system 1 brain accounts for 95% of our thinking. It says that this thinking is intuitive and instinct, with us making fast, unconscious, and associative decisions. We’re essentially on automatic pilot, so compare it to commuting or driving. How many times, when driving have you arrived at your destination but not really remembered the journey? That’s because you are engaging your system 1 brain, which makes these fast, autopilot decisions which are based on past experiences and associations.

Our system 2 brain accounts for the other 5% of our thinking. This is thinking which takes effort, it’s usually slow and logical and we are either likely to be lazy with the decisions we make or just indecisive with our decisions. We’re not on automatic pilot, so we’re actively making decisions here to keep moving forwards.

Where can we bring the elephant into it?

The elephant comes in when we look at these two systems but use a developed comparison to take this understanding one step further. This means, when looking at the human brain, we’re viewing this as being an?elephant, with a rider on top. When we compare this to the systems, the elephant is our system 1 brain, and the rider is our system 2 brain.

The conscious, system 2 part of our brain is the rider. Just as the rider can nudge, influence and direct the elephant, our conscious brain can influence our unconscious thoughts. Although it can play a role in the attention of the elephant, ultimately, it can’t get the elephant to do anything it doesn’t want to do. The elephant is huge, with a mind of its own and will behave based on instinct and although we can nudge, influence or shift, we can never override this completely.

What does this mean?

This means that largely, we’re working with a brain that will make the majority of its decisions unconsciously, quickly and associatively, which from a marketing perspective is tough. It’s like trying to get an animal to do something they don’t want to do – and that’s really tough.

This is where behavioural science can come in. If we can understand how the brain works, and that we need to be talking to the elephant, rather than the rider, it can allow us to work with this.

Let’s go through a simple example – when you are walking past a café, how do you know that it’s open and ready for you to go in? Usually, this is by the fact that there are tables and chairs outside. By having these, it speaks to the brain and the elephant automatically knows that the place is open, and they could go in to get food and drink. This stands true even when it’s raining, so if you bring these tables and chairs in when it’s raining, the brain will no longer make that assumption and instead, will assume the location is closed, so they’d have to keep walking to find coffee.

This is a simple, but effective example of where the understanding of the brain can help impact the business decisions that are made in order to generate the desired results – all by talking to the elephant and using a level of behavioural science to understand the decisions and behaviours we all make.