Words Can Change Your Brain (11 page)

We’re not born with a conscious ability to observe our own awareness, but we can develop this skill by using the exercises included throughout this book. A strong, observing self actually
predicts
enhanced well-being.
⁶⁰
It lowers emotional stress,
⁶¹
and it makes us more socially aware of other people’s needs.
⁶²
That’s why we consider deep self-reflection an essential component of Compassionate Communication.

In truth, we really don’t have to talk as much as we think we do. Mostly we just repeat the inner speech our brain is using to consolidate the overwhelming amount of information that is flowing into our consciousness. If we take a few moments to step back and observe this inner world, we’ll discover that most of the words we hear with our inner ear do not need to be shared with others. They have their own inner dialogues to engage in.

But if we want to have more productive and meaningful outer dialogues, both the speaker and listener need to slow down enough to allow the inner wisdom of the observing self—one’s intuition—to emerge in the brief periods of silence we create. In that improved state of consciousness, we’ll choose our words more wisely.

As a shrewd Hasidic rabbi once said, “Before you speak, ask yourself this question: will your words improve the silence?”

C
HAPTER 5

The Language of Cooperation

_I
f we were totally selfish, isolated creatures, there would be little need for communication. We’d simply do what we wanted to do, whenever we wanted to do it. But if every living organism were to engage in such behavior, competition over scarce resources—like food, water, or viable mates—would immediately escalate into violent conflict. Throughout the natural world, biologists have identified thousands of interrelational strategies that are designed to keep the peace. Those strategies can be boiled down to two words: “cooperative communication.”

In order to survive, there has to be a balance between how much we take, how much we share, and how much we give to others who cannot fend for themselves. But the question remains: are humans inclined to be more selfish or cooperative, more greedy or generous?

When we first began to develop this book, we were inclined to believe that humans were fundamentally selfish. In fact, one of the early working titles was
The Selfish Brain
,
a paraphrase of the classic work by Richard Dawkins,
The Selfish Gene.
There’s plenty of evidence to support the argument for selfishness, but years of research has convinced us that the opposite is true. Only as infants are we allowed the freedom to be utterly selfish. Our brains are so undeveloped at the time of birth that we must depend on caregivers to provide us with every need.

However, our selfishness doesn’t last long, for as soon as we can care for ourselves, our family members demand reciprocation. We have to learn to share our toys with siblings and friends, we have to do chores for our parents, and we have to limit our selfish impulses when we enter school. If we don’t, we’re punished. We’re sent to our room or to the corner of the classroom, deprived of social contact, and this painful message makes it clear that selfishness is rarely tolerated in the social arena of life.

Still, there remains an inner struggle. If we have to share something we value, a plethora of questions arises. For example, how much
do we need to share, and for how long?
This brings up other questions concerning degrees of fairness and generosity, but there are never clear answers to guide us. Since each situation is different, involving different people with different notions concerning these values, we have to turn to our words and negotiate agreements. If we fail to find a mutually satisfying solution, the other person will not cooperate with us. The same holds true for work. No one is going to hire us and give us money unless we can give them something of value in return.

There is no
language
of selfishness. When we’re selfish, there’s no exchange of property or words. We simply take what we want without asking. But fairness requires cooperation, and cooperation is entirely dependent on a combination of dialogue, bargaining, compromise, and behavioral change. These are the basic elements that have been considered by two new fields of research: neuroeconomics and social neuroscience.

By placing animals and people in brain-scan machines as they engage in a variety of monetary exchanges, we have discovered a fundamental fact about human nature: in social situations, we reward helpful people with kindness and generosity and punish the unhelpful ones, even when the punishment incurs some cost to ourselves.
¹
And the more we see people behaving in ways that are fair, cooperative, and kind, the more willing we are to form long-term friendships with them.
²

Do All Organisms Communicate and Cooperate?

Human beings aren’t the only organisms on this planet to cooperatively communicate with others. As biologist Joel Sachs, at the University of California, Riverside, reports, cooperation “pervades all levels of biological organization.”
³
Even the lowly bacterium exhibits astonishing social behavior that is governed by specific forms of chemical communication.
⁴
In fact, plants can communicate with each other in ways that are remarkably similar to humans. Poplar trees, tomatoes, and lima beans communicate among themselves—through the air and through their roots—and they can even communicate with different plant species, animals, and microorganisms.

Like humans, plants use their communication strategies to cooperate with each other and to protect themselves from enemies. For example, some plants can literally cry out for help when they’re being eaten, and the signals they emit can attract carnivorous enemies of the animal grazing on them.
⁵
Some plants even appear to have the capacity to listen, while others appear to be deaf.
⁶
They don’t use words, but they do have signaling receptors and pathways that are similar to the communication networks that occur in our brain.
⁷
And they even have their own form of inner speech. For example, some plants can use their vascular networks to send hormonal signals to other parts of the plant.
⁸

Biologists call this process “intraplant communication,” but for us, it’s a reminder that communication takes place on many nonverbal levels, not just in plants but in human beings as well. In his book
Gaia
, James Lovelock even suggested that the entire earth represents a living organism, with its own system of communication that works to create an integrative, cooperative organism. However, unlike plants and most other living creatures on earth, only we, as humans, can consciously choose to increase our levels of cooperation by changing the
way
we communicate to others.

Human Cooperation and Neural Resonance

Boiled down to its essentials, communication involves the accurate transference of information from one brain to another. We do this through the process called neural resonance, and the more we can mirror the neural activity in the other person’s brain, the better we are able to cooperate with them. If we closely observe a person’s face, their gestures, and their tone of voice, our brain will begin to align with theirs, and this allows us to know more fully what the other person is thinking, feeling, and believing.

Researchers at the Social Brain Laboratory in the Netherlands demonstrated this by having couples play the game charades. One partner was strapped into an fMRI scanner, and a word was shown on a screen. The person made hand gestures to describe the word, and a movie was made of the gesturing. Then the other partner went into the scanner, watched the movie, and tried to guess what the word was. The results? Similar areas were stimulated in both the sender’s and receiver’s brains when the latter guessed correctly, especially the areas involved in language recognition and speech.
⁹

This tells us several important things: that words can be conveyed through specific gestures, and that both the gesture and word stimulate similar areas of the brain—areas associated with language comprehension. In fact, as researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences report, “Hand signs with symbolic meaning can often be utilized more successfully than words to communicate an intention.”
¹⁰

Most important, these studies reconfirm what we’ve been saying about neural resonance: if you really want to understand what the other person is saying, you have to listen to and observe the other person as deeply and fully as possible. Otherwise your brains won’t mirror each other. If we can’t simulate in our own brains what another person is thinking and feeling, we won’t be able to cooperate with them.

To achieve optimal cooperation, it also helps to have belief systems in alignment. If they’re not aligned, the parties must first dialogue with each other to find common ground by agreeing on a mutually shared goal that will compensate both sides as fairly as possible. If common ground cannot be found, the communication process collapses, and any hope of cooperation will dissolve. As researchers at the University of Geneva have shown, when there is congruence of personal goals the brain systems relating to cooperation will be stimulated.
¹¹

The strategies of Compassionate Communication are designed to create neural resonance between two people as they converse, and if you enter a conversation with the
intention
of creating a fair exchange, you’ll stimulate the cooperative circuits of your brain. The newest research also shows that the more you imitate, or mirror, a person’s communication style, the more you’ll increase the neural resonance between you and them, and this will generate more empathy, cooperation, and trust.
¹²

Other research suggests that when you put yourself in a cooperative, empathetic state of mind, your emotional state may become socially contagious, spreading through your home, your work environment, and even your community like a virus.
¹³
In essence, we can bring people into alignment with our values and goals by spreading compassion nonverbally. Of course there are other ways to ensure cooperation, like using coercion, but the risks are higher because resentment quickly builds to the point where a person will be willing to make enormous sacrifices rather than submit to continuing abuse. We see this happening throughout the world today, as suppressed societies begin to demand equality, fairness, and justice from those who act with undue selfishness and greed. In these scenarios neural and cognitive
dissonance
has increased to the point where people can no longer remain passive.
¹⁴
Even small discrepancies between personal values and goals can undermine the communication process by creating chaos within the brain.
¹⁵

Effective communication depends upon neural resonance. As researchers at Princeton University demonstrated in an fMRI brain-scan experiment, neural coupling vanishes when participants communicate poorly. In fact, they could even predict the degree of communication success by observing how closely one person’s brain resonated to the other.
¹⁶
The researchers also discovered that good listeners—the ones who paid the closest attention to what was being said—could actually anticipate what the speaker was going to say a moment before they said it. Perhaps this is what a good psychic does: they pay attention to every nonverbal detail and use them to infer what the person is thinking and feeling. It’s not magic; they’re simply using some of the strategies of Compassionate Communication.

Mirroring Each Other’s Voice

If you match the language style of the person you are conversing with, and the intensity of their voice, they will perceive you as being more related and attuned.
¹⁷
According to researchers at the University of Hawaii, “When partners interact, if things are to go well, their speech cycles must become mutually entrained.” Not surprisingly, this verbal entrainment will improve your chances when you are searching for a suitable date. In an experiment involving speed dating—where you are only allowed four minutes to converse before you must switch to another person—the couple with matching language styles were three times more likely to pair up by the end of the event.
¹⁸

When two people like each other, they’ll mirror each other’s posture, facial gestures, and movements.
¹⁹
It’s a sign that they feel connected,
²⁰
it builds mutual rapport,
²¹
and it communicates a desire to affiliate and cooperate with each other. It may even earn you more money at work. When waitresses mirrored their customer’s comments, they increased their tips by 50 percent.
²²
Research has even shown that matching language style will improve the likelihood of a peaceful resolution, even in situations that involve serious conflicts and potential threats to one’s life.
²³

Training Your Brain to Connect