The Chimp Paradox

As we approach the peak of the festive season, many of us may have reindeer and clementines on our minds. However, with today being World Monkey Day, we decided to shift the focus to chimps and bananas instead with our snapshot summary review of Dr. Steven Peters’ book, The Chimp Paradox. 

What if we considered our emotional minds as being made up of two domains – “The Human” and “The Chimp”? “The Human” part of our brain, housed in the frontal lobe, is where rational thought lies. It is driven by logic, the desire to seek out the truth, and makes valued judgements based on an objective assessment of reality. The “Human” mind tends to be reflective, carefully considered, and controlled. When our “Human” mind is at the helm of the controls, we can perform effectively and efficiently. However, the “Human” mind is not alone! 

“The Chimp”, by contrast, is driven by emotions, is more impulsive, and has a strong tendency to be reactive when faced with what it perceives as a threatening situation. Driven by our primeval drive to survive, our inner “Chimp”, may lead us to behave in a way we might regret. 

Imagine it’s Christmas Eve and you are, quite literally “driving home for Christmas”. Traffic is heavier than you expected and it’s snowing heavily. You reduce your speed significantly. In your rear-view mirror, you notice the car behind you approaching nearer and flashing their lights. They suddenly overtake you, sounding their horn furiously. Your “Human” mind tries to build a logical and rational narrative around the situation. Perhaps the other person is having a bad day? Perhaps they have left Christmas shopping until the last minute? It concludes there is nothing to be gained from reacting to the behaviour of the other driver. However, the “Chimp” has also been awakened and is furious at the behaviour of the other driver and is out for revenge! It wants you to react immediately to right the wrong that has been committed against you. 

How would you behave in this situation? 

Through his analogy of the “Divided Planet” of the “Human” and “Chimp” mind, Peters helps us to assess our own levels of Emotional Intelligence and provides strategies to successfully manage our impulsive “Chimps” and reach for our full potential. 

The Chimp Paradox is just one of many concepts from the realm of positive psychology and neuroscience that we adopt at Think People to bring learning to life as part of our bespoke People Development solutions for managers, teams, and individual contributors. 

Register

On Thursday 23rd February 2023, Think People will host an ‘Emotional Intelligence for Effective Communication’ workshop where you will learn to improve your professional communication with practical techniques and confidence-building exercises.

Interested? You can click here to register for the event, we would love to see you there!