The toolkit for social anticipation (Part 2 of 2)

Where we left off..

Last Thursday, we looked into:

• the basics of anticipation, and its impact has on decision-making through Bayesian models: our experience (”top-down”) influences our sensory perception (”bottom-up”)

• the impact of “prediction error” on learning and our behavior (big ➕ surprise 🟰 do again; big ➖ surprise 🟰 avoid)

• the brain’s aim to be as energy efficient as possible, its preference for processes and pathways, that are “known” to result in less “unknowns”. This is the foundation for almost all basic or complex actions and decisions we make.

With that in mind, let us look into social interactions and decision-making: social anticipation. Drum roll please! 🥁

(Disclaimer: this has become a longer article. If you want to skip to some key takeaways and tasks, scroll down to “Social Toolkit”)

Suddenly we are social

Social capabilities are probably one of the most powerful tools human beings have developed, although social interaction is a fairly new model in the relation to live on earth.

With the onset of social group formations, humans have evolved rapidly. To live together in a large group, meant higher chance of survival. A group is stronger than an individual. To be effective in defending, but also hunting and gathering, communication had to be developed. To function as a group, social rules had to be developed. Knowledge had to be transmitted.

Social interaction involves social perception, understanding others’ actions, observational social learning, social decision-making, as well as empathy.

These are a lot of cues that impact our social engagements. All kinds of social inputs. Although our brain is lazy and fell back on “old” processes to deal with this “new” social thing, it became pretty good at it.

Observational Learning

One such new ability became knowledge sharing. Observational learning allowed us to retain procedures without putting us in danger. Two things happened as a result:

1. Knowledge about danger was transferred and extended life expectancy.

2. The brains’ capacity to retain and memorize knowledge had to increase over time.

Seeing others engaging in an activity evokes very similar processes in the brain as “doing” ourselves. By observing, we create mental maps of “actions” and “reactions” to form our base knowledge.

Whether in early childhood, in teens and as professionals, we learn by observing.

What to do and say to gain trust and credibility. What to avoid getting embarrassed.

The more we observe activities and internalize them, the stronger these pathways become and the more likely it is, that the brain will fall back on these for “high uncertainty” situations.

Pain or Gain

When we do any activity, our brain constantly evaluates the sensory input: all fine? Are we in danger or losing balance? If needed, we course-correct. Should we make a computational mistake and slip, we learn to “interpret” the set of incoming signals differently next time.

When we observe others, their actions are constantly evaluated via an identical process.

When we see other people fall, it engages areas in the brain, that would normally get activated when we fall ourselves.

When we see other people walk over hot coals, our heart rate goes up.

Others pains and gains quickly become “ours”, memorized and stored for future reference.

Fear is a powerful learning mechanism in animals and human beings, too.

Seeing fearful faces, hearing fearful stories from others can lead to “transmission” of fear, although we might have never experienced it ourselves.

Knowledge-sharing in social circles of like-minded is, by no surprise, a powerful way to learn and grow closer. (founder A to founder B: ”No, never say this to your investor! We had the worst experience”)

Socialism

The degree to which individuals relate to and “feel” the pain or gain of others is dependent on the relationship between performer and observer.

Does the observed individual belong to family or friends, is it “cooperation or competition”? The closer the relationship, the bigger the internalization and the relevance of the observed on our memory for our own anticipatory models.

But, not only does our own interpretation of other individuals activities impact our understanding of social engagements.

Also, our evaluations of objects depend on the opinion of our social circles. This has evolutionary reasons. The average knowledge of the group was stronger to guarantee survival.

Today it is often less life-threatening: what other people think of my favourite restaurant, can impact my own perception of that restaurant and it might lose my favour. Think of what this means for ratings or music, movies and products (B2B or B2C).

All these social norms, that we observe and learn from, are dependent on the values of our social circle.

Theory of Mind

Last but not least, we need to talk about “Theory of Mind”.

People use simulations of their own experiences (thoughts, beliefs, intentions, and emotions) to anticipate mental states of other’s people’s “minds” (feelings, state).

When we listen, we anticipate the other person’s feelings, movements, and even words, we hear and see a coloured interpretation based on our experiences.

When we communicate, our brain uses observational learnings from the past, to continuously predict the response of the other to our own communication.

That is how we typically “understand” and empathize with others. Taking into consideration current, situational nuances, we extrapolate what we would feel onto others.

When this goes well, the brain waves of the speaker and the listener become synchronized the more they both “understand” each other. Riding on the same wavelength, literally.

When it goes wrong, and the anticipatory model was off, this can result in misunderstanding and misinterpretation.

Now you have a good understanding of “you hear, what you want to hear” or “that’s not what I said” comes from.

Social Toolkit

Let’s summarize today’s points:

• In its quest to be as energy efficient as possible, our brain falls back to easily retractable knowledge to understand and interpret incoming sensory signals and social cues. This leads to faster reaction times, but also to misinterpretation of “new” signals (opinions, words, actions etc.)

• We learn social behaviour from early on through observing others and later by doing and peer feedback. This forms our own “social framework”, but is highly impacted by the social norms of our social circles.

• Our interpretation of incoming social signals is impacted by our social frameworks. What you see is not what you get all the time.

• We are wired to empathize with our peers, and our thoughts are impacted by what other people think pretty significantly.

• The closer the other person, the more we empathize and internalize their views as well as feedback.

• Individuals from contrasting environments, require much more “brain power” and attention to “ride the same wave”.

Write down your own social framework

Articulating your own behaviours and reactions you tend to fall into in intense positive or intense negative situations, can help to side step knee -jerk reactions. For example:

What are your social fears? What are your social strengths? What do you like and dislike in others? What are the top 3 biases you end up getting into easily? What have you observed in the past, that you disagree with, but see yourself doing regularly?

Intense decisions in life are more often than not the moments you do not want to be driven by hidden internal models.

You drive behaviour

Observational learning, at home or at work, is by far more important than we think. Role modelling is not just a word, but for parents or managers, extremely critical. Humans are good at observing, because thousands of years ago this saved lives. Be mindful of what you do, in both action and emotion, as it will be mirrored and utilized as a process for decision making by others. This is why it is so, so critical for fast-growing companies to have strong cultural values that are followed by everyone.

Experience creates tunnel view

Being an expert at something after thousands of hours of repetition is powerful. But it also creates a tunnel view, as our brain tends to fall back into interpreting similar cues alongside same “top-down” models. We lose sight of nuances, like slight changes in market conditions, customer feelings or our spouse. To quote Nokia’s CEO: “we didn't do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost”.

Sometimes we end up being too confident of an expert.

Be aware!

New is mission-critical

We know, we love comfort zone behaviour. This is where the brain feels safe. We want to make sure we do not get to comfortable as experts and in our social circles. Doing new things in a relaxed setting, really impacts our reactions to “unknowns” in stressful settings, as our brain has more “pathways” to use for “top-down” interpretations, when it’s really needed. This helps make better decisions and make better social connections.

You hear, but they say

Your emotions in a moment, might be totally different to your opposite. What you hear might not be what they say. Don’t jump to conclusions. Bring out your “social framework” and work through it.

Thank you for reading.

Alex

NB: On a slight side note, I won’t be posting anything for the next two weeks as I am traveling with my family through New Zealand. And I am sure the internet will break somewhere along the track. I am back in two weeks, and we will look into dopamine and its surrounding functions on motivation, depression and performance.