Read People: Understand behaviour. Expertly communicate by Rita Carter

Author:Rita Carter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MBI
Published: 2018-05-03T04:00:00+00:00

STEPPING INTO ANOTHER’S SHOES

Zippo was Elizabeth’s imaginary friend. He emerged when she was just three, and for about six months, any domestic mishap was Zippo’s fault. Zippo knocked the vase off the table, pulled the cat’s tail and ate the breakfast cereal that was later found under the table. Elizabeth’s mother was less dismayed by Zippo’s antics than by Elizabeth’s new-found ability to tell rather obvious fibs.

Children start to tell lies – albeit rather clumsy ones – around the age of three. Their parents may be dismayed by it, but in fact they should take comfort from the fact that it shows their child’s mind is developing the crucial ability to ‘read’ other minds.

ToM is closely associated (and possibly dependent on) another extraordinary brain function – the action of brain cells known as mirror neurons. Neurons generate the electrical currents that create our experiences and actions. For example, if a particular group of neurons fire, we will experience a pain in our right leg. Another group will produce a sensation of seeing red, another the thought of an apple, another the memory of an old friend, and so on.

Mirror neurons are special in that they fire both when we have a particular experience and when we see another person having that experience. Brain imaging studies have shown, for example, that a person watching another in pain will have activation in neurons that produce the pain in themselves.

The combination of ToM and mirror neurons go a long way towards bridging the gap between brains. They don’t actually give telepathic access to another person’s mind, but the effect is similar. The system is intuitive, but it can be enhanced. The first step is to acknowledge rather than to deny it.

The second step is to practise stepping (metaphorically) into the shoes of others and learning how it feels. Acting is exactly about this, but it tends to be something we think of as something that professionals do in order to entertain us, rather than a skill we should develop ourselves. However, acting, even badly, seems to enhance our ability to empathize and, by extension, to know what is happening in other people’s minds. Researchers who gave children and adolescents a year of either acting training or other arts training (such as painting or music) found that the acting groups showed significantly better gains in empathy and ToM scores than the other groups.

The other technique shown to enhance this kind of ‘mind-reading’ is ‘behavioural synchrony’, which in simple terms is doing something in time with others, such as communal singing and dancing.

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