These three conversations—which correspond to practical
decision-making conversations, emotional conversations, and conversations about
identity—are best captured by three questions: What’s This Really About?,
How Do We Feel?, and Who Are We? Each of these conversations, as we will
see, draws on a different type of mindset and mental processing.
When we have a conversation about, say, a choice—a What’s
This Really About? conversation—we’re activating different parts of our brains
from when we discuss our feelings—the How Do We Feel? discussion—and if our
mind doesn’t align with the brains of our conversational partners, we’ll all
feel like we didn’t fully understand one another.
The first mindset—the decision-making mindset—is
associated with the What’s This Really About conversation, and it’s
active whenever we’re thinking about practical matters, such as making choices
or analyzing plans. When someone says, “What are we going to do about Sam’s
grades?,” our brains’ frontal control network, the command center for our
thoughts and actions, becomes active. We have to make a series of decisions,
often subconsciously, to evaluate the words we heard, but also to consider what
motives or desires might be lurking underneath……
The second mindset—the emotional mindset—emerges when we
discuss How Do We Feel and draws on neural structures—the nucleus
accumbens, the amygdala, and the hippocampus, among others—that help shape our
beliefs, emotions, and memories.
The third conversational mindset—the social
mindset—emerges when we discuss our relationships, how we are seen by others
and see ourselves, and our social identities. These are Who Are We
discussions.
--- Charles Duhigg, Supercommunicators:
How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection.
2024.
