Neuroscientist Tania Singer and her team recruited volunteers to play a game. Some were asked to play by the rules. Others were instructed to ignore them. To not play fair.

After all participants played the game together, they were then asked to observe each other in a second activity. Scientists measured some of the volunteers’ brain activity as they observed some of their former game opponents apparently being subjected to different levels of pain.

Result?

The brain areas that signal pain became active in all who thought they were observing pain in others. This provides neural evidence of their empathy.

Yet, when those who’d played “unfairly” in the earlier game appeared to be in pain, male volunteers who observed them showed significantly less empathetic brain activity than when they saw fair-players in apparent pain. In fact men felt more desire for revenge.

For women the response was different. They showed the brain responses of empathy regardless of how they felt about the participants’ moral behavior. Earlier research supports this finding.
Regrettably, I feel I’d respond more like a man in this experiment.

Learn more about how our brain affects our behavior in Donald Pfaff’s book, The Neuroscience of Fair Play. Relatedly read On Being Certain and Predictably Irrational.

Here’s the good news. Men and women can use meditation to change our instinctively negative reactions – even in the face of unfair or otherwise negative behavior. Monitoring the brains of Tibetan monks at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, neuroscience professor Richard Davidson found that the monk’ first instinct was compassion rather than anger.

Here’s the bad news, at least for many of us.

To become that compassionate, monks spent at least 10,000 hours in meditation. Learn more about the power of compassion in Emotional Awareness, a book by the foremost expert on reading faces and on lying, Paul Ekman.

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Consider your Circles of Connection.  On whom can you most depend and how?  What can you ask of each other?

Two key, interwoven questions to consider:

• How are you honing your main talent for a more fulfilling life?
• How are you using that talent to be helpful to those in your tribes, your circles of connection?

To practice your greatest talents more often and maximize your value for and with others, visualize a set of circles of relationships, with the strongest connections in your inner circle and the weaker ties further out.  Here are the rewards for picturing them, then the plan for identifying those circles.

First the rewards.  Circles create a context for your life that…

1. Enable you to make wiser choices with …
   • more grace towards yourself and others, and
   • less stress or regret.
2. Equip you to be …
   • less rushed and more focused, and
   • able to accomplish “first things first.”
3. Use your best talents more often to hone them sooner.
4. Provide help that is appreciated and often reciprocated.
5. Collaborate in ways to use best talents  – and benefit all participants.

Now, look at your circles:

In light of your …

• top two goals (one for work and one for life) for 2009.
• two kinds of resources – yours and those you can attract from others.

… what is your “first things first” plan for each month?  What tasks will you do “first thing” each week, each day … each hour?

To become higher-performing and happier – with others, see how you want to involve them in the next chapter of the adventure you want for your life story in 2009.

Picture your personal circles in a more concrete way using Christopher Allen’s helpful template. When done, consider people you’d like to move to a closer circle or further out or add to a circle. How will you make it more likely to happen?

(I add a first category to Allen’s four circles)

1. My Main Friend
   • To whom would you turn first for any kind of help, sympathy, celebration or other need to connect? (How many would not turn to a spouse, other kind of partner or family member first?)
2. The Support Circle
   • Any time, night or day, you can rely on these 3-5 people, some of whom may be kin.
3. The Emotional Circle
   • You can turn to these individuals for sympathy and whose death would be devastating to you. You may have a “non-mutual” emotional connection with them. Many have 10-15 people in this circle yet others have 7 or 20, according to Allen, yet other research shows those numbers are going down.  Increasingly individuals have just 2 to 3 people in this circle.
4. The Trust Circle
   • You have experience with each person in this circle, instances that made you feel you could trust them. You feel strong ties to the 40 to 200 people in your circle.
5. Familiar Strangers
   • People you recognize and they may have heard of you. Individuals here may be a two or three degrees away “friend” such as those who have befriended you at Facebook or LinkedIn because you share a mutual friend or friend-of-friend.  These are weaker ties than those in your Trust Circle yet are also valuable in job-hunting and other needs.

The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable.

- Martin Buber

When you finish writing your top two (actionable) goals and then crafting your Circles of Connections, tell me how you would improve this approach – or suggest a better approach to planning for a positive 2009.

What emotional shifts, if any, happened in you as a consequence of this process? Did it help you picture your opportunities? Did you discover a way to be more valuable for yourself – or someone else?

Concluding caveat from Tom Paine, “It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies…”

Check these other posts for some additional insights:

• Christopher Allen’s helpful template at www.lifewithalacrity.com.
• Thoughts on weaker ties.

Photo by Daniel.

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Instinctively he reacts in one of two ways:

1. Stepping Back (saying little, going blank-faced, silent or even walking away) or
2. Escalating Up (counter-attacking, speaking louder, standing closer).

It’s instinctual – beyond our conscious choice. These are rapid, thin slices of gut reactions and responses. The charged air change happens in milliseconds. We’ve already made each other wrong.

Worse, we know it is easier to escalate up into conflict rather than over into connection – and more likely to end badly. That happens because our primitive brain is wired for survival.

Put more bluntly, self-protection trumps happiness or helpfulness in the sequence of gut instinctual reactions. Yet we can reduce the fear response and increase our ability to make connection, even in times of potential conflict. With practice, these steps have helped me, with this caveat: One can be convincing without being right.

“There is no greater mistake than the hasty conclusion that opinions are worthless because they are badly argued.” ~ Thomas Huxley

Unless I fairly state his position first, he and bystanders will instinctively doubt mine.

The most likely way to change your mind or his is to:

1. Slow down your responses, especially when you feel like acting more rapidly.
2. Speak to his positive intent, especially when you feel like maligning his motives.
3. Re-state his view fairly, completely, without negative, emotion-laden descriptors As the author of Trust Me, Nick Morgan advises, “You have to argue the other side’s case on its own merits. To forestall criticism and avoid inflaming a debate further, understand and be ready to give the other side’s position. Fairly. First. And forthrightly.”
4. Ask for confirmation that you got it right, listen fully to his response and then confirm you hear any modifications he suggested.
5. Then and only then can you state your position and expect to be heard.
6. Brevity is better. It is less likely you’ll be interrupted and more likely you’ll be understood. (This is a point I struggle to practice.)
7. Ask others to comment. That’s when you see your stand through their eyes.  In so doing, you will know how to address what most matters to them. You may change how you feel about the issue.

“Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

There’s an added benefit in taking this approach.

You are strengthening the thread of conversation – so others are more inclined to keep talking about the issue rather than getting sidetracked.  I called this Triangling in a book I wrote long ago, Getting What You Want. When two people can focus on the issue in front of them (the third point in the triangle) rather than on each other’s reactions, then it becomes safer to talk about the issue. You may feel less instinctual need to attack the other person or defend yourself.

Bottom line benefits: Afterwards, you may like yourself and the other person better.

Plus with this approach:

1. It is easier to stay calm and in the conversation.
2. Everyone has a greater chance of being heard rather than feeling attacked.
3. You are more likely to sway others and to be open to change.
4. Rather than being destroyed, relationships may even be strengthened.

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In a study, Yale students were sent, one-by-one, down a hallway where they would pass a lab assistant.  The assistant’s hands were full, holding a clipboard, textbooks, papers and a cup of either hot or iced coffee. He asked each passing student for a hand with the cup.

Just minutes later the students read about a fictional person then ranked that individual on a range from warm, thoughtful and social to cold, selfish and less social. You guessed it.  Those who’d held the cup of hot coffee were more likely to rank that individual more positively than the students who’d held the iced java. They were “primed” to do so.  It reflects “the automaticity of everyday life.”  Priming can prompt “good” or “bad” behavior.

Those, for example, who briefly saw words on a screen like “support” or “dependable” acted more cooperatively. Those who saw a briefcase during an experiment became more competitive. From what we touch, smell or see it takes only small sensory cues to influence our behavior.

Priming is most powerful when done in the same sensory mode as the original experience. For example, along the back of the yard of my grandmother’s modest home ran an abandoned railway track. The wood that supported the iron tracks was soaked with creosote. Even today, when I get even a faint whiff of that acrid smell I smile with the memory of many happy times with Grandma Louise.

How are you being primed to feel, act or buy? I have a Las Vegas hotel client that increased per-guest spending and positive views of the hotel staff’s service – even their attractiveness – all evoked by one sensory change. From check-in to gaming areas and hallways, the hotelier wafts the scent of sunscreen lotion. (“Hey honey, we’re on vacation, the world looks good and we’re going to play.”) Why not can prime yourself and those around you for positive experiences?

• What messages and images are on your walls at home to prime your family to feel secure, happy and, well, at home? Or behind you as you sit at your office? What do others repeatedly touch, smell or hear when around you? Do you like to effect those sensory cues evoke?
• What do you share, give away or show others with whom you want to feel closer?
• How can you cultivate closeness and positive memories by special, repeated multi-sensory rituals, foods and celebrations?
• As friends or clients meet with you, what will they smell, see, hear or touch? How might those experiences affect how they feel about you and what you discuss?  It is all about context.

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We don’t listen to words. We don’t believe “controlled” facial expressions. Our primal knowing cuts through social masks to feel the fear. Within seconds, we communicate our feelings with each other – intensifying whatever feeling we have. “Some stress is healthy and necessary to keep us alert and occupied,” says researcher, Spencer Rathus. In fact, “Most people do their best under mild to moderate stress,” finds Janet DiPietro, a developmental psychologist at Johns Hopkins University.

Unfortunately, since our brain is wired to help us survive, we feel fear faster, more intensely and longer that any positive emotion. Plus we spread it faster.

Worse yet, research shows that we least like the person in the situation who looks or sounds most unhappy. That’s a downward spiral that isolates the most vulnerable person in the herd while making the rest increasingly upset and reactionary.

That’s why Emotional Freedom author, Judith Orloff believes that “Fear is the mother of all negative emotions.” It is often expressed as anger, blaming or frustration. “Fear renders intelligent people dumb. They are not clear-headed or intuitively in synch enough to make brave decisions,” found Orloff. Consequently, when you first begin to feel fearful or angry, change the channel in your mind. Rather than catastrophizing about the future, focus on your current situation. Your best bet is to immediately:

1. Breathe deeply and slowly, inhale and exhale – even for just a minute.
2. Think of what you can do – even a small thing – towards making the situation better.
3. Take that action, then plan the next one.

In effect, you are viewing the source of your fear as an obstacle not an insurmountable wall. As Nelson Mandela said, “Fear is contagious, so is fearlessness. The sooner you act to change your mood and behavior the less damage you’ll do to yourself or your relationships – and the more options you’ll have.

With practice this three-step Mood Channel Change Habit will become second nature. Inevitably that leads to a happier life with others.

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