When you are afraid, you start going into fight or flight mode. Your body starts prioritising what is needed for immediate survival - screw routine body functions, if you don't make it past the next few moments there won't be a routine to return to. You stop digesting food. Cell repair slows or stops. You stop producing saliva, which is why your mouth goes dry when you're nervous just before making a speech or going into a difficult conversation. Your heart rate and breathing increase to ensure better blood flow. A cocktail of hormones like epinephrine and oxytocin are cued up and produced, which amplifies your body's ability to act (and remarkably, in the case of oxytocin, reminds you to seek help).
Don't be mistaken about what happens when you feel fear. Your body is readying itself to help you face what you fear in the way it knows how.
What causes us to feel fear?
1) Fear occurs to us unconsciously. Do you pause to think, hey, very angry looking snake! Maybe I should be scared. Of course not, it would be too late! Fear becomes much clearer when we examine what happens inside your brain. When you are afraid, the fear/anger/aggression/anxiety centre of your brain - the amygdalas (get used to this name, it's gonna keep popping up) lights up. And we've covered all the changes that happen in your body: your blood pressure, your hormones, your heart-rate. But remember how amygdala is like a train interchange with direct routes to different parts of your brain? There is a direct neural link between our amygdala and your pre-frontal cortex, the rational thinking part of your brain. And if we look closely enough or we think things through, sometimes we realise, argh! it's not an angry snake, it's just a prank toy that your annoying friend had thrown at you. Or if you've handled angry snakes enough times, your amygdala does not light as much. Your blood pressure and your heart rate do not increase as much, you realise what you need to do is to stay calm and slowly back away.
Finally, notice how fear, anger, aggression, and anxiety are processed by the same part of the brain, the amygdala. This is no coincidence. These 4 emotions are closely tied to one another; aggression maybe triggered because one is nervous, angry, or fearful. Being fearful may cause one to react angrily, as a self-defense mechanism. Fear, like all our emotions, happens to us. Mostly, we can't control how it originates. But we can control how it develops by understanding what exactly is causing fear and by choosing the response that dispels it
2) We fear what we are unconfident or uncertain about. Think back on your ancestors doing something they weren't confident or certain off - hunting a massive animal without a weapon, or eating a berry they've never seen before. Doing so would mean a very high chance of seriously harming themselves. Today, after many cycles of evolution, we have been wired based on these experiences.
Think about it. Are you ever fearful of something you've done before, and are good? Brushing your teeth, putting on your clothes, indulging in your favourite hobby (whatever it is)? Of course not. You know you can perform these functions easily. You are confident.
But many of us would have felt fearful and anxious the first time we ventured into something new: using a pair of chopsticks, riding a bicycle, swimming, going on a first date. We were uncertain about these functions, and we were not confident about performing them. However, once we have demonstrated to ourselves that we are able to perform these tasks, we are no longer afraid. The same applies to more challenging tasks. Some of us struggle with: public speaking, starting a business, having a very difficult conversation with the CEO... You are uncertain and unconfident if you can succeed. But once you have proven to yourself you are able to do it, even for the more challenging tasks, you are no longer afraid. People might start off feeling scared about public speaking, but after speech 3797, you're pro The catch, of course, is that sometimes, we are too scared to start.
Even if we were certain of something OR confident about something, many of us will still feel some amount of fear. We might be theoretically certain how we should use a pair of chopsticks, but if we have never succeeded in using them properly, we remain unconfident and will still feel nervous if we had to use them, especially when others are observing. You might also be confident about
3) we fear what is painful. Boxer. climbing 100 flights of stairs or doing 100 burpees. But pain is not just physical but mental. Failure is painful. Being judged is painful.
This is why you procrastinate. You either fear what you have to do bevause you don't know how to do it (you don't fear brushing your teeth for example), or you fear doing something becaue you know it will be effortful
4) we fear what we cannot control
Learn more about your amygdala, the amygdala hijack, the thalamus, the pre-frontal cortex, and how your brain works here.
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Summary:
- Fear and anxiety (and anger + aggression) are always
Trust - how it's built, and when it falls apart
1. In general, we are quite trusting. And once we trust something, we no longer notice it much.
Are we generally trusting or suspicious of others? Well, think about your daily life, and how much of it is only possible because you trust someone to do something, even with they were strangers.
You eat at a restaurant with food cooked by a stranger. The restaurant trusts you not to run away before you pay your bill. We leave our cars with valets and the car wash. We leave our kids with caretakers. We trust the strangers who built escalators and lifts and who fly airplanes and drive trains that they did a good job. For almost 2 decades, we gave our credit card information, including the security code to businesses online. These days, we share homes and transportation on platforms like Airbnb, Uber, and Couchsurfing. We trust a lot of the news we read. Then there is The Trust Game, where people are shown to generally trust strangers, and the curious case of Bernie Madoff who duped some of the smartest in the world and was only exposed by accident.
In general, life would be pretty painful if we didn't trust most of the time. Obviously we don't trust all the time, but if there are no obvious alarm bells, we tend to trust others more than distrust them.
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And trust is very useful for society. It helps make everyone better off. Let's take a look at an example
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2. The value of trust - the Public Goods Game
The Public Goods Game is a very popular experiment. Let's run through this quickly.
There are 10 participants in the Public Goods Game. Each participant is given $10 at the start of the day and has 2 options with what to do with the money:
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Option 1: Keep it
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Option 2: Contribute to the common pool
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At the end of the day, all the money contributed to the common pool is multiplied by 5. The multiplied amount is then equally distributed back to each participant. If every participant contributes $10, the total amount in the pot is now 10 participants x $10 x 5 = $500. When equally distributed back, each participant receives $50.
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Sooner or later, one participant figures (or maybe innocently tries) out​ not contributing to the daily pot.
What happens?
The amount in the daily pot drops to 9 participants x $10 x 5 = $450. So each participant gets $45. Everyone receives a little less. Except, of course, the participant who didn't contribute. He/she has his original $10 + the $45 from the pool and ends up with $55 - the highest possible amount in the game.
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Then what happens?
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Every other participant realised that they have been cheated by that one participant, because they only received $45.
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This leads to a rapid drop in the number of people contributing to the pot. Inevitably, after a few days, no one contributes any more.
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If no one contributes, everyone ends up with only $10.
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Sometime after it falls to zero, a few participants will occasionally try to go back to contributing.
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Consider this. Even if just 3 people were to contribute to the pot ($30 x 5 = $150; $150/10 = $15), everyone will receive more than $10.
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But as soon as participants realise not everyone is contributing to the pot, they stop contributing even though it takes just 3 people contributing for everyone to get more than the original $10.
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3 important takeaways:
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The game starts with everyone trusting everyone else to contribute equally so that everyone receives a fair reward. When trust exists, everyone is better off.
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But when trust is broken even once, the fall in the level of trust is very rapid. From the initial steady-state where 10 people contribute to the common pot, one breach of trust causes a fall to the new steady-state of 0. Broken trust leaves everyone worse off. Instead of receiving $50 a day, everyone receives just $10.
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Broken trust is very difficult to repair. Participants become more concerned with relative contribution rather than absolute returns. By contributing, participants are very likely to receive a bigger sum of money. But they would choose not to do so because they didn't want to be the one contributing while others simply reaped the rewards*.
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* Those familiar with economics will recognise the elements of prisoners' dilemma, tragedy of the commons, and free-ridership in the Public Goods Game.
Think about how these takeaways are also applicable in real life.
When trust exists, everyone is better off, and when it is broken, everyone is worse off. For example, in a community where there is zero theft, everyone can save money locks, and we can freely leave our stuff around without worry. Shops can reduce the number of employees, and cost-savings can be translated to lower prices for everyone.
At a personal level, imagine working with people you trust completely. You never need to waste any effort or time to check on others or suffer the emotional weariness of putting on a guard. You can truly cooperate, and feel better doing so.
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So how can we build trust once it is broken?
Building Trust - I am obviously thinking for your interests
Imagine one day you are at the restaurant with a few friends. And you call the waiter over to order.
And the waiter gives you information that you didn't have previously - the duck isn't very good today. Instead, he recommends you something "better and cheaper". Now imagine a second scenario.
Again, the waiter gives you information that you didn't have previously - the duck isn't very good today. But this time, he recommends something more expensive, the wagyu beef.
Would you trust the waiter more in the first scenario or the second scenario? Arguably, in both scenarios, the waiter is doing exactly the same thing. He informs you (when he did not need to) why your current choice is not very good. Then, he recommends something better.
But almost every one of us would trust the waiter in the first scenario more. Why?
In the first scenario, it is obvious that the waiter is thinking for you. He recommends you something better and cheaper when it is in his interest not to do so.
In the second scenario, it is not obvious that the waiter is thinking completely for you. He might very well be right. The beef could be the best recommendation he could give; it might even be the best beef you ever had! But even when you're eating the beef, you can't help but wonder - was he recommending the beef only because it was better, or also because it was more expensive (and since the tip = 20% of the bill, he gets a larger tip)
To earn someone's trust, it's useful to make it obvious that you are thinking for them, rather than for yourself. It's why we particularly trust people who take their time or money to do something for us, even when they can't get anything in return. Take the Public Goods Game above for example. Imagine if everyone is no longer contributing to the pool. And then suddenly, one participant contributes continuously, no matter what. He ends up with only $5, while everyone else gets $15. Would you trust this participant if you knew who he/she is?
A similar case could be made when I buy someone a gift I clearly dislike. For example, I still cannot why anyone would one a bouquet of flowers. To me, flowers have no aesthetic value. In fact, I think flowers have negative value - you have to carry the bouquet around, and then spend time keeping it alive for just a few more days until it inevitably wilts. What a waste of time.
But if I bought flowers for a girlfriend, and she knows how much I dislike flowers, she is more likely to appreciate it. If I had pissed her off a lot, the flowers help in mending the relationship and rebuilding trust. In fact, some behavioural scientists argue that the diamond ring, which if you think about it has no practical purpose, is an example of earning trust. Males tend not to find diamonds attractive, which might be one of the reasons why females want males to buy them diamonds - it proves that the males really care.
Creating a trusting system
In the example above, we discussed one way to rebuild trust at a personal level. But is it possible to create a system of trust at a larger level?
Think of a normal insurance process. When making a claim, we tend to exaggerate at least a little bit. Why? Because we know that the insurance company is trying to pay out as little as possible, and will be extra stringent. But the insurance company also knows this. They know that policyholders would want to claim as much as possible. So insurance companies introduce friction, making the claims process more painful to counteract the probable exaggeration.
Each side doesn't trust the other and tries to guard against the other. This causes both parties to be worse off. The insurance company needs to hire (and pay) more employees to guard against policyholders, which in turn causes premium prices to rise.
Lemonade Insurance Company developed a new model which aims to eliminate this distrust.
First, they turned the process from a 2 party contract to a 3 party contract. Policyholders picked charities that they really support. If there is money remaining after paying out insurance claims, this remainder goes to the charities. So if the policy-owners cheat, they are in effect cheating the charity they support.
Second, Lemonade introduced transparency. They specified the exact amount - 20% of premiums - that they would pocket as a fee to run the insurance policy. So Lemonade removed themselves from a conflict of interest; they are indifferent to how claims are paid out as it doesn't affect them.
So what did Leomande Insurance observe after they introduced this new process of insurance claims? Amazingly, they received something which normal insurance companies never receive: a confession of erroneous insurance claims. For example, policyholders wrote in to explain that they had reported a loss of laptop in their insurance claims after their house was burgled. They then explained that they had merely just misplaced the laptop, and now having found it, wanted to return the extra claimed amount.
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In this piece, we've covered how the presence of trust creates benefits for everyone involved. Conversely, the absence of trust creates costs that makes everyone worse off. As the behavioural scientist Dan Ariely shares, "If you create a system that encourages trust, reduces conflicts of interest, and trust that people will be kind, there's a good chance that trust will be the response."
Imagine you had to design a system for your organisation that encourages trust. How would you do it?