Hidden Brain - Hidden Brain: A Sneak Peek

Episode Date: September 4, 2015

Check out a few minutes of the latest podcast from NPR: Hidden Brain. Shankar Vedantam explores what happens when two people think they are talking about the same thing, but in reality are speeding down separate tracks. It usually doesn't end well.

Welcome to the new Hidden Brain Podcasts from NPR, I'm Shankar Vedantam. The Hidden Brain team has been working tirelessly for weeks and weeks on our first few episodes, and you can hear the first one on September 22nd. By listening, I guarantee that you will learn something new about yourself, and you're going to learn something new about the people around you. Now there's been one area of disagreement. My preference would be to keep everything under wraps until September 22nd, but my producers Cara and Maggie didn't agree with me.

Hey, Shonfer. Yeah, hi Maggie. So remember what we talked about with maybe doing like a preview for the listeners. I think we should just wait till September 22nd, Maggie. That's when we're launching. Uh, hey, Shankar. Shankar. What are you doing here? This is the men's room. We need a little preview.

Just a little preview. Just a little preview. I want to be sad. A small amount. Just a couple of minutes. He looks mad. All right. Time to go home.

Time to have some nice NPR. You're here. Something that would be stronger. What? Why are you in the back seat of my car? We want to talk a little bit more about the pre-final. I'm going home. We'll go home with you. You can talk to us about it too. No, no. We'll be on our side. No.

Alright, Mackie, I give up. Woo! What do you want to play for them? I've been thinking about this a lot, and I think we should play Switch Tracking, because it's all about arguing, and we've been arguing here at Hidden Brain. I feel like it's perfect. Alright, I suppose so. One pattern in human behavior that we're going to discuss on this podcast is called Switch Tracking. And as soon as you hear about it, you'll notice it in so many conversations.

Here, let's have Sheila Hien explain. So switch tracking is a pattern in feedback conversations that is so common that it's instantly recognizable. That's Sheila Hien. Along with Douglas Stone, Sheila recently wrote a book called Thanks for the Feedback, the Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well. One of that chapter focuses on Switch Tracking, which she describes as when… Someone gives you feedback, and your reactions to that feedback changes the subject. She uses a scene from the 2006 TV series Lucky Louis to illustrate the concept. Louis and his wife Kim are getting ready for a child-free romantic weekend. And Louis has just bought Kim some red roses.

So a switch track is that place where the track is going along and then there is a switch. And depending on which way the switch is turned, the train will glide smoothly onto a second track or stay on the first track. So what's happening is a conversation starts. Listen, try not to take this the wrong way, okay? But if we're gonna be married for the next 30 years, I need you to know that red roses are not my thing. The first person stays on their own track,

the second person actually smoothly switches to a different topic, which is their own reaction to the feedback, and often the feedback that they have themselves for the first person. Okay, well, um, can I critique how you just told me that? And they just get further and further apart, right? And they don't even realize that they're going in different directions.

I've told you before that I don't like red roses. Remember? I just think that you should have thanked me for the flowers first, and then said the thing about the roses. There are really two topics on the table, right? Kim's topic is you don't listen to me, and Louis's topic is you don't appreciate me. Still, it's a gift.

So I guess I don't think it matters what it is. You should still thank me, right? Yeah, but you see, I don't necessarily think I should thank you for giving me something that I've specifically told you that I don't like. That's all. And each of them is hearing the whole conversation through the lens of their own topic. So in this case, they're not even really

realizing that there are two topics on the table, I think. What I find fascinating, Sheila, is that the person who is receiving the feedback initially doesn't realize that they're switching tracks, that they don't actually, it's not a conscious decision to say, I recognize this person is giving me feedback, I'm uncomfortable with this topic, I am strategically going to change the conversation to something else. It's not happening at that level, is it? It's not happening at that level at all, and what's interesting is, so for the person doing the switch tracking, you're just thinking, well, that's actually not the most important thing that we need to talk about.

What we need to talk about is your problem. The person who started the conversation sometimes actually does realize that the other person is changing the topic, and they view it as making excuses or distracting or trying to take us off on a tangent and to the second person it's not a tangent at all. It's the most important thing going on. So that's what the fight then becomes about. So we're both aware we're having an argument and the real argument is about what's the most important topic here between us. What happens when both people feel that topic is so much more important than the other person's topic that neither is willing to give way.

Um, your song. Hidden Brain. A conversation about life's unseen patterns. Subscribe now in iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcast. You can also find us on the NPR-1 app. The first episode, as I have said many times, is coming on September 22. Discover what's inside your hidden brain.