133-06-25-2009

The Danger of Unconscious Thoughts:
We need to self censor our intake in
order for human kindness to thrive
By W. Owen Thornton

It is more difficult to practice human kindness towards one another when we receive regular messages that counter kindness.  The proof is in.  Unconscious thoughts do guide us.  Or, expressed in the opposite way: we are not always in perfect control of our actions despite our beliefs and our own moral code.

In one experiment people were given a series of mixed up sentences to fix.  What I mean is, they were given a series of words that could form a sentence and from those words the participants were to make a sentence from them.  In this test one half of the group was given trigger words that have been known to make people think of senior citizens, such as grey, wrinkled, bingo and Florida.  The other half of the group made up sentences without these trigger words in them.  After completing the test by building dozens of sentences, the real experiment began.  The people were timed on their walk to the elevator as they left the building.  Those who had worked with the key words that trigger thoughts about seniors took longer to walk to the elevator than those who did not work with those words.  When asked if they knew why they took so long to walk to the elevator, they had no clue that they had been working with words that would make them think of senior citizens. 

So my theory that if you watch television programming where people slag other people on a regular basis … what do you think you’ll do more of in the moments following that program?  How can you practice human kindness in that sort of environment?  And most people are bombarded by four hours of television viewing per day: much of it of the reality television variety.  So much of this kind of television programming is about rudeness and lack of respect for one another.  I find that most reality television demonstrates that people would sell their mother for a chance to win the grand prize.  These programs are about deceit, cheating, lying, and winning at any cost.  It may make for interesting vicarious viewing (sort of like watching a train wreck) but it may be unwise for us to watch this kind of television.  If we find the world comes with a distinctly lower amount of respect for one another, is there any place where we might point the fickle finger of blame?

In another study one half of a group was asked to think about a professor.  Another half of the group was asked to think about a thug.  Then they played trivial pursuit.  Those who had been thinking about a professor did better than those who had been thinking about a thug.  So, a tip: if you want to do well at Trivial Pursuit, think about the characteristics of a University Professor before you play.

But the big pay-off in regards to this kind of testing is still to follow.  This time there were three groups.  One group was given words that could comprise sentences with words around the subject of rudeness.  Another third were given neutral words.  The last third were given words around the subject of politeness.  After working on a host of sentences, the real part of the experiment began.  Once people were done creating their unscrambled sentences they were to ask the experimenter a question.  However, the experimenter was supposed to then be engaged in a conversation for 10 minutes.  Of those who worked with the rude words 63 per cent interrupted the conversation.  Those working with the neutral words? Thirty-four percent interrupted.  And those working with the polite words interrupted only 17 per cent of the time.  This test proved that thoughts on the unconscious mind helped people to make a decision based on those unconscious thoughts.  We actively go out and live our lives reflecting what happened and what kinds of things we were actively engaged in moments earlier.

When these folk were later asked if they were cognizant of the words they had worked with and whether or not they thought those words influenced their decision to interrupt or wait patiently, not one person identified that they thought the words they worked with influenced their decision.  The point the experimenters are attempting to prove here is that we are not consciously aware of the things that form our decision-making processes.  Have a bad day and we’re much more likely to make a bad decision.

It turns out that the human mind works in the same manner as a computer: garbage in … garbage out.  So we WANT to censor what we view, listen to, or otherwise experience because what we experience is immediately reflected in how we act.  Watch a bunch of people being nasty to one another and … we’ll take that nastiness with us wherever we go.  Watch a bunch of people pull together and help one another … and we’re more likely to go out into the world and do the right thing.

So to practice human kindness go out and find opportunities where people are doing the kind and gracious things … because you’ll more than likely reflect that in your own life … at least for a little while at any rate.  I didn’t learn how long the effect lasts, but it would seem that after a short while our minds would ‘normalize’.  I would think, however, that repeated negative experiences would tend to make our minds gravitate to that kind of behaviour on a regular basis.  So if you want to practice human kindness more regularly, cease experiences that counter human kindness.  Seek out positive human experiences so that you will go out and ‘be’ a positive experience.  Then, after the goodness of the experience wears off, you’ll have to go back and recharge your human kindness battery by observing another sequence of kind acts.

God Bless

Owen