Brain Hijacking
Our brains are exquisitely sensitive to threats or even what might be interpreted as a threat. At yesterday’s NeuroLeadership Summit in Sydney, Australia, David Rock cited study after study that showed limbic activation from something so seemingly innocuous as a neutral conversation with a supervisor at work. And when fear and related emotions are activated, the parts of our brain that conceives of possibilities–or even understand new information–start to shut down.
How do we dampen this threat reaction (Daniel Goleman calls it “amygdala hijack”)? One technique is to name it. Matt Lieberman, social neuroscience researcher from UCLA, reported that subjects who were asked to label a fearful face showed less fear reaction than when they just looked at it. There seems to be an inverse relationship between the verbal naming (left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex) part of the brain and the threat-sensitive amygdala. Being coached to name that negative emotion literally dampens the fear reaction. And activating threat dampens the naming/thinking/planning prefrontal cortex. David Rock likened this to a see-saw: threat goes up, thinking goes down; thinking (naming, in this case) goes up, threat (and its effects) goes down.
Not only can we help our clients name their negative emotion when we notice that “deer in the headlights effect”, we can help them learn to self-regulate and to be aware when they have triggered a threat reaction in others.
Knowing your brain is becoming a necessary coaching–and leadership–competency. I can’t imagine why every one of you wouldn’t take advantage of the opportunity to learn more from David on October. 23.
Linda Page
September 2008
