Computer-generated artificial objects, known as greebles, used as stimuli in the maze experiment. Images courtesy of Michael J. Tarr, Carnegie Mellon University, www.tarrlab.org.
As we have noted, you are not frozen in one mode of thinking at all times. Just as you may have a favorite beverage but still occasionally reach for another, so do you sometimes shift your mode of thought. But we also have discussed reasons why most of the time you probably will have a single dominant mode. According to the theory, our temperaments and our personal experiences both contribute to this tendency. Moreover, as we have seen, a good chunk of our temperaments is strongly influenced by our genes—and consequently is difficult to change. We also noted that you would need about ten thousand hours of practice to acquire enough knowledge in an area to be able to operate in Mover Mode effectively in that area—and even then, this expertise usually would apply only to that particular area. Becoming an expert coach at baseball won’t help much in becoming an expert coach at hockey.
So what are we to do when we realize that our dominant mode is not appropriate for a particular situation? It often may not be easy simply to switch modes, no matter how much we would like to do so.
One strategy has proved to be an effective way to cope with what we call rigid mode syndrome, which we define as occurring when one has great difficulty switching out of one’s dominant cognitive mode and into another mode that is more appropriate for a specific situation. The following parable illustrates the strategy:
Some adult animals living in the forest were worried about the younger generation. The youngsters were hanging around the clearings and loitering on the trail corners and generally failing to develop their potential.
So the adults decided to start a school.
Their first job was designing a curriculum. The bears pointed out that digging was absolutely essential—it definitely needed to be on the “must-be-taught” list. The birds chirped in that flying could not be overlooked. The rabbits naturally emphasized running very fast, and so forth. In the end, all agreed that all of these skills were important, and thus every species should learn every one.
The adults gathered the young animals together and began their education. Before long, there were young birds with broken wingtips from trying to dig, baby bears with sprained ankles from trying to run very fast, and baby rabbits with bruises from trying to fly. Needless to say, once they recovered, none of the youngsters was happy or better-educated. The curriculum was a failure.
The moral of the story is not that some people are like birds, some like bears, and some like rabbits, and that each of us is best suited for certain tasks but not for others. Rather, the moral is that once you learn what kind of animal you are, you can more effectively approach a task. If you’re a bird and want to dig, you use your beak and claws and realize that you would be very effective on an archeological site but less effective if you wanted to dig a den. If you’re a bear, you should know that heavy digging is your thing—so if you want to dig, digging large holes is what you do best. And if you’re a rabbit, you should know that running fast is what you do well—but if you want to fly, best to get on an airplane.
In other words, do what you can do well, and if you don’t have an affinity to do what you need for a certain situation, seek someone who can collaborate with you.
The value of this strategy has been demonstrated in the lab.
In 2005, the so-called Group Brain Project began in earnest at Harvard. This group included many researchers but was led by the late J. Richard Hackman and Stephen.1 By means of SurveyMonkey, the team screened over two thousand people online, using the Object and Spatial Imagery Questionnaire, described in chapter 4. The researchers invited two hundred of the people who responded to this questionnaire to come into the laboratory for further testing; these people had scored high in bottom-brain, object-based mental imagery (which allows one to visualize shapes and colors well) but low in top-brain, spatial-based mental imagery (which allows one to visualize locations in space)—or they had scored low in bottom-brain, object-based mental imagery but high in top-brain, spatial-based mental imagery.
Pairs of the selected people came to the lab at the same time and participated in a task that required navigating through a virtual maze that was shown on a computer screen. The maze was shown as if one were actually in it, and a joystick allowed the user to move forward down a corridor or turn to the left or right when reaching a branch point. At various locations in the maze, made-up objects called greebles sat, rooted to the floor. In some cases, the same greeble appeared a second time, later in the maze.2
The researchers defined two roles for each team and assigned one member of the team to each role. One person was asked to use the joystick to navigate the maze, and the other person was asked to use a button to tag duplicated greebles (that is, to indicate when a greeble encountered in the maze had exactly the same shape as one seen earlier). The teams were sent into a particular maze only once and had three minutes to navigate it and tag duplicate greebles; they were paid in proportion to how many greebles they correctly tagged.
Computer-generated artificial objects, known as greebles, used as stimuli in the maze experiment. Images courtesy of Michael J. Tarr, Carnegie Mellon University, www.tarrlab.org.
Crucially, some pairs of participants included one member who had scored high on top-brain, spatial-based mental imagery but low on bottom-brain, object-based mental imagery. In these teams, the second member had the opposite sets of scores, high on object-based mental imagery but low on spatial-based mental imagery.3
Here is the trick of the experiment: The participants were either given roles that fit their strengths or given the opposite, incompatible, roles. That is, in the compatible condition the high-spatial-imagery person was asked to navigate and the high-object-imagery person (who is adept at classifying objects, as well as other sorts of stimuli) was asked to tag; in the incompatible condition, the role assignments were reversed. Finally, a third group contained either two high-object-imagery or two high-spatial-imagery people.
Here’s what happened: The teams in which the assigned roles were compatible with the participants’ abilities performed much better than the other two types of teams. However, these were the findings when team members were not allowed to talk to each other. When team members were allowed to talk to each other while navigating through a second maze, a different picture emerged:
First, the compatible teams performed comparably to how they performed when they were not allowed to talk, which is not surprising—each member functioned well on his or her own and didn’t need any input from the other team member.
Second, when allowed to talk to each other during the task, the incompatible teams did far better than they did when they were not allowed to talk. Why? Videotapes of the sessions revealed that the high-spatial-imagery person soon took over navigation, telling the high-object-imagery (but low-spatial-imagery) team member where to turn, and the high-object-imagery person soon took over tagging, telling the low-object-imagery (but high-spatial-imagery) person when he or she had encountered a duplicate greeble.
The results were fascinating; without being told about their scores on the screening tests, and not having known each other before they came into the lab, the team members spontaneously discovered their relative strengths and weaknesses. And, when appropriate, they essentially switched roles to play to their strengths and avoid relying on their weaknesses.
But perhaps even more informative were the findings for the teams with either two high-object-imagery people or two high-spatial-imagery people: The more that the members of the team communicated with each other, the worse they did (that is, the fewer duplicate greebles were tagged during the allotted time). The blind were leading the blind. They lacked a key skill needed to get the job done but didn’t realize it.
To return to the parable about the animals, it was as if a bear turned to another bear for guidance on how to fly.
Clearly, if you don’t have the ability or skill to do something you need to do, you should turn to someone (or something) else for help. That much is obvious—or is it? How to explain why so many of us have trouble asking other people to help us? (The classic example, from the pre-GPS age, is how many men won’t stop at a gas station to ask for directions.)
Our recommendation: First, overcome reluctance to ask for help. The question then becomes: Who, exactly, should you reach out to?
Answers can be found in the principles of what we call social prosthetic systems, a name coined by drawing an analogy to physical prosthetic systems.4 Imagine that you had lost a leg. To help you walk, you would rely on a prosthesis—the modern-day steel-and-plastic equivalent of a wooden leg. This prosthesis makes up for a lack, allowing you to accomplish a task (in this case, walking). Not only do people rely on physical prostheses, but they also can rely on mental ones. If you are asked to multiply two large numbers (say, 7,481,222 × 1,532,596), you will want paper and pencil—or, better yet, a calculator. If you are a parent and have to keep track of your busy family’s many activities, you will want a wall calendar or day book—or an event app for your phone. These devices serve as cognitive prostheses—they make up for a cognitive lack that must be filled in order for you to accomplish a specific task.
The Internet, of course, has evolved into what we might call the mother of all cognitive prostheses—the place many of us now turn, typically via Google and other search engines, to find facts, directions, images, translations, and more. We store personal data and cherished memories (in the form of photographs and videos) on the cloud, from which they can be easily (and precisely) retrieved. James Gleick, author of The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood, calls the billions of Web pages that constitute the Internet “the global prosthetic brain.”5
Despite its informational power, the Internet is of limited use when we need wise advice to help us navigate through a thorny situation. The main cognitive prosthesis we rely on for such help is not software or machines but other people: others who can help us extend our intelligence and discover and regulate our emotions. These are the people who constitute our social prosthetic systems. As Stephen defined it in the initial paper on the idea, social prosthetic systems are “human relationships that extend one’s emotional or cognitive capacities. In such systems, other people serve as prosthetic devices, filling in for lacks in an individual’s cognitive or emotional abilities.”6 And every person, with the possible exception of a committed hermit, belongs to one or more of these systems.
A crucial lesson from the animals-in-the-forest parable and the greebles-in-the-maze experiment is that you should select your social prostheses depending on the particular task you want to accomplish. By analogy, someone who is missing her feet can select from a host of different prostheses, which are more or less useful for different kinds of ambulation. Very springy metal feet can help a person run faster, but conventional plastic ones can be more appropriate when walking long distances. Similarly, depending on what you need to do cognitively or emotionally, and your own dominant cognitive mode, you may wish to be in the company of a person who is knowledgeable in the relevant area and tends to operate in a particular mode.
Let’s say you were in an emotionally fraught situation—on the verge of breaking up with a spouse or partner. You would probably not want to seek the counsel of someone who typically operates in Stimulator or Adaptor mode. A person operating in Stimulator Mode might simply give a knee-jerk reaction, and a person operating in Adaptor Mode might try to minimize the issue. So that would leave you with the choice of counsel from someone who typically operates in Mover Mode or Perceiver Mode. And that choice would depend in part on your goals for the outcome. If you wanted strategic help in how to handle the situation, the theory suggests that the person in Mover Mode would be most appropriate. But if you wanted reflections on how you were actually feeling, and on what you wanted and needed, the person who typically operates in Perceiver Mode might be best. Putting this together, you might want to seek counsel from two separate people to garner the benefits of both kinds of input. Thus informed, you could more wisely make decisions.
Social prosthetic systems can be set up and maintained over many years. Over time, you may come to realize that certain people you know are ideal partners to help you in specific contexts. The political world gives us great examples, which nevertheless can be applied by the rest of us to everyday life—or business and work.
Take the mayor, governor, representative, or other official who has an efficient staff. His or her policy experts probably are people who habitually operate in Perceiver Mode; the person answering the constituent phone perhaps habitually uses Adaptor Mode; the chief of staff might be someone who often operates in Mover Mode or Stimulator Mode (if the latter, to be effective the chief of staff probably has assistants who operate in Perceiver Mode, to keep him or her from veering off course). All the while, the official could be operating in Mover Mode. She or he is at the center, drawing on help as needed—and preserving this rich system for the future as well as using it in the present.
We can also find this same sort of structure in highly functional families, with the matriarch or patriarch typically behaving in Mover Mode, a rambunctious child showing Stimulator Mode tendencies as she regales her relatives with tales of her adventures, and the kindly aunt or uncle who offers Perceiver Mode perspective to nieces and nephews seeking counsel.
Contemporary TV brings us another example. The creators of the Emmy Award–winning show Modern Family seem to have intuited the essentials of social prosthetic systems when they scripted the Dunphy family dynamic. Father Phil acts as if he operates in Stimulator Mode much of the time, always making plans that invariably fall apart when he does not properly react to changing circumstances—but he tries. Mother Claire often (though not always) acts as if she functions in Mover Mode, attempting to rein in her husband and children while keeping everyone on the same page. With her tendency to be drawn into one situation after another, older daughter Haley would seem frequently to behave in Adaptor Mode—but she adds value with her entertaining and playful spirit. Alex, Haley’s younger sister, clearly acts as if she prefers to operate in Perceiver Mode, serving as the wiser-than-her-years commentator on her family’s unfolding life—dispensing advice that, not surprisingly, is sometimes ignored. Although still young, son Luke seems to be headed toward a preference for operating in Stimulator Mode, like his father. Together, the Dunphys make it work. By the end of each episode, they have resolved issues and moved ahead, the family still functioning as a unit.
The crucial idea is that when you are interacting with another person in this way, he or she has the capacity to make you more effective, in the role of a “social prosthetic.” He or she fills in for your lack. And in the process, at that moment you become a different person, transformed by your interactions with the other, just as the amputee who wears the springy artificial feet becomes a better runner than when she wears the conventional artificial feet.
Humor us by considering one more analogy. When you put a chopping blade into a Cuisinart it becomes a different machine from what it is when you put a blending blade into it—with the first being good for dicing apples for a pie, the second for making smoothies. When you are relying on another person to function as your social prosthesis, the two of you together function as something different from what either of you is alone or with companions who have different skills and abilities. It’s not as if you are merely seeking a consultant or an aide: If you interact closely with someone who knows you well, he or she can fill in what you are missing. In this case, the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts. It’s still you who are setting the agenda and driving the train (we are not talking about a conventional team), but you are now augmented by a companion’s knowledge and skill set—which allows you to do more than you could on your own. It’s as if you have borrowed part of your companion’s brain, thereby extending your own reach and capacities.
Ideally, you would have time to reflect on the perspectives presented in this book before beginning a new job or entering a new social or personal relationship. According to the theory (and we again remind you that it is a theory), someone who was prone to being in Stimulator Mode might want to pause to think carefully about marrying someone who also was prone to being in Stimulator Mode—such a union could easily produce a marriage rife with conflict. Two people who typically operate in Adaptor Mode might want to reflect on what a marriage would be like if much of the time “nothing is happening” or the situation is constantly careening or being buffeted by events. Imagine how things might be different for Nick and Erica, the characters we created for chapter 12, if Erica, like her husband, habitually thought and behaved in Adaptor Mode and not in her dominant Mover Mode; with the demands of running the household and managing the couple’s three young children, it might be chaotic.
Although two people who habitually operate in Perceiver Mode might have a low-stress relationship, achieving goals that require detailed or complex planning could prove challenging. Picture Hannah and Rick, the characters from chapter 10. If Rick habitually thought and behaved in Perceiver Mode, as Hannah does, the two of them would enjoy a comfortable life—but as they neared their sixties, would either of them have made the financial decisions necessary to ensure a comfortable retirement? The point is not that Hannah (or any librarian) is incapable of long-term financial decision making, only that this is not likely to be her natural inclination—but it is where Rick’s dominant cognitive mode advances the couple’s shared interests.
Similarly, the theory leads us to expect that if a person habitually operates in Perceiver Mode in the professional world, it might be most comfortable for him or her to work with people who often are in Perceiver or Adaptor modes. But, comfort aside, this often would probably be less than ideal. Arguably, most teams would benefit by having some members who are comfortable and adept in Mover Mode, others who are comfortable and adept in Adaptor Mode, and so on. For example, people who prefer to operate in Perceiver Mode would get a lot out of working with those who prefer Mover or Stimulator modes, and vice versa.
In order to change your dominant mode, you need to be highly motivated, have a lot of time, and stick to the effort—and even then, this change will probably affect your functioning only in a particular domain. Not everybody is so patient. In most cases, we suspect that you probably would be better off identifying your dominant cognitive mode and finding people who have dominant modes that complement your own. And remember that a person’s mode may be different in different circumstances (which draw on different sets of knowledge)—a person comfortable with Mover Mode at work may be most comfortable in Adaptor Mode at home, and a person who usually operates in Stimulator Mode with friends may slide into Perceiver Mode with a mate. Thus, if our theory is on the right track, be sure to spend time with a person in the appropriate circumstances if you are seeking compatibility.
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Some readers of this book will find themselves already in problematic situations. What then? The Theory of Cognitive Modes cannot provide definitive guidance, but knowing about the four modes can make you sensitive to certain potential problems before you become involved with someone. Moreover, the theory implies that you can become an expert on someone close to you. And learning to predict his or her likely reactions can help you operate in Perceiver and Mover modes, which can make a difficult situation manageable. If you don’t have the motivation or time to learn how to cope, seek a friend (or counselor) who can complement your strengths, filling in for what you cannot do easily. Here, again, would be the value of relying on an appropriate social prosthetic system.
Working well with others is arguably the most important thing most of us do. There are two clear keys to success: The first is to grow, by learning new strategies (ways to plan and behave, using the top-brain system) and learning new ways to “frame” a situation (ways to classify and interpret, using the bottom-brain system). The second is to change your circumstances, whether work, home, or social setting. In any given situation, you can use one of these two keys to open a new door.
The great French Renaissance thinker Michel de Montaigne observed: “The greatest thing in the world is to know how to be one’s own self.” In this echo of Lao Tzu’s ancient observation, with which we opened this book, Montaigne implores us each to look within, into our own unique character. Our character arises fundamentally from our brains, steeped in experience. And each of us should look within not just fleetingly, we would argue, but with a committed and lifelong purpose that can be its own reward.
We hope that Top Brain, Bottom Brain will be helpful to you in your own journey of discovery. We hope that the ideas presented in these pages will stimulate you to find new perspectives about yourself and the people you meet on your way.
“The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them,” Montaigne wrote.