The Wiring of Natural Selection

orders by repeating the order back using the exact words of the customers. The other group of servers responded to the customers’ orders using phrases like “OK” or “Coming right up” to indicate they had heard the order. Mirroring increased the number of customers who chose to leave a tip by 26 percent compared to the nonmirroring servers, and the amount of the tips doubled. Mirroring speaks to the subconscious, an area that we have little awareness of and even less control over— but an aspect of our personalities that silently and most assuredly drives many of our feelings and behaviors.

TACTIC: SPEAK TO THE ELEPHANT, NOT THE RIDER

In The Happiness Hypothesis, social psychologist and professor of ethics Jonathan Haidt (2006) uses the image of a rider on an elephant to describe how little awareness and control we have over our subconscious:

The image that I came up with for myself, as I marveled at my weakness, was that I was a rider on the back of an elephant. I’m holding the reins in my hands, and by pulling one way or the other I can tell the elephant to turn, to stop, or to go. I can direct things, but only when the elephant doesn’t have desires of his own. When the elephant really wants to do something, I’m no match for him. (p. 4)

In Haidt’s (2006) analogy, the rider represents conscious reasoning, the things we are aware of as we analyze and size up the various options and the potential consequences of our choices. Everything else going on is the elephant—the automatic, unconscious processes, the things going on in your subconscious mind that you are totally unaware of. Haidt (2006) argues that most people spend their time and energy trying to persuade other people’s riders by using arguments based on logic, facts, and reasoning. Teachers do this often. It is an arena in which most teachers are quite comfortable. The notion of appealing to reason rather than emotion in order to persuade others has been around for centuries. The 17th century French philosopher René Descartes (1637) is well-known for this famous quote, “I think, therefore I am.” Over two centuries later, however, neuroscientist Antonio Damasio (2005) argues in Descartes’ Error:

Reason may not be as pure as most of us think it is or wish it were, that emotions and feelings may not be intruders in the bastion of reason at all: they may be enmeshed in its networks, for worse and for better. The strategies of human reason probably did not develop, in either evolution or any single individual, without the guiding force of the mechanisms of biological regulation, of which emotion and feeling are notable expressions. Moreover, even after reasoning strategies become established in the formative years, their effective deployment probably depends, to a considerable extent, on a continued ability to experience feelings. (p. xvi)

Damasio worked at the University of Iowa and studied people who had damage to the part of the brain where emotions are formed. He examined the famous case of Phineas Gage, who was a Vermont railway worker (Damasio, 2005). In 1848, Gage, who was twenty-five years old at the time, had a metal tamping rod thrust completely through his skull as the result of an explosion. Gage survived and even went back to work but lost virtually all ability to make judgments relating to socially appropriate behavior.

In examining the medical records of Gage and in working with his own patients, Damasio (2005) finds they all had one thing in common: when the part of the brain that generates emotions was damaged, the patients could no longer make decisions. They could describe in logical terms what they thought they should do, but they couldn’t actually do it. They could not make even the simplest choices.

This led Damasio (2005) to hypothesize that contrary to the common belief that people make most of their decisions based on reason and logic, in fact, what really occurs is that most of us may use reason to move us toward various options in our decision-making

processes, but the final decisions we make are governed primarily by emotions. In Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, Harari (2017) agrees with this view, arguing, “Sapiens don’t behave according to a cold mathematical logic, but rather according to a warm social logic. We are ruled by emotions” (p. 140).

The Undoing Project (Lewis, 2017) explores the work of Nobel Prize–winning psychologists Daniel Kahneman and his colleague Amos Tversky, who came to the same conclusion. In conducting experiments that investigated how doctors arrived at diagnoses, the researchers concluded: “Most physicians try to maintain this facade of being rational and scientific and logical and it’s a great lie . . . a partial lie. What leads us is hopes and dreams and emotion” (as cited in Lewis, 2017, p. 229).

In attempting to influence your students to do what is in their best interests for the long term, you can certainly appeal to reason and logic on occasion. However, Haidt (2006) argues that the more effective way to persuade people is to try to persuade their elephants. You will often be more effective if you appeal to your students’ emotions in your attempts to have an impact on the decisions they make than if you appeal to reason.

A teacher who attempts to get an underperforming fourteen-year-old to work harder at school through reason alone may say something along the lines of:

If you work harder, you can get into high school on the academic track. Then you can work hard in high school for three years and get into university. Then you can work hard at university for four years and get a degree and a good job. Then you can work hard at your job and advance and make more money. See, you need to work hard now, and it will pay off for you in the long run. What the teacher is telling this student is rational, logical, truthful—and most likely useless. Why?

Think about what the student hears. The student hears the phrase “work hard” over and over, as well as “in the long run,” which is a future years down the road—a future he or she can barely imagine, let alone feel motivated by.

What does the student feel? Perhaps exhaustion— something along the lines of, “This is insane. This teacher is talking about years into the future and me working hard for years and years into the future. I’m interested in my life now and my friends now and what we’re doing this Friday night.”

If you want to increase your impact on students, you need to appeal to their feeling and emotions much more often than making an appeal based only on reason. Getting your students to like you is a cornerstone of that kind of appeal. In The Righteous Mind, Haidt (2012) tells us that “if there is affection, admiration, or a desire to please the other person, then the elephant leans toward that person and the rider tries to find the truth in the other person’s arguments” (p. 68).

These are powerful strategies that you can use to great effect in your classroom. If your students like you, this increases the probability of the elephant going in the directions you want it to go and taking the rider (your students) along with it. However, if the elephant digs in its heels and doesn’t want to go where you want it to go, there isn’t much you can do, even if the rider agrees with you at a rational level. Why? Because we are mostly emotional-social creatures. Thus, speaking to the emotional elephant is likely going to be a far more effective persuasive strategy than speaking only to the rational rider.

TACTIC: SELL YOURSELF FIRST, THEN THE CURRICULUM

In the introduction to this book, I intimated that as teachers, we are all salespeople. While we don’t sell furniture, fridges, or financial planning, we do sell the idea that knowledge has value, we should treat other people respectfully, students should learn to read and write and speak effectively, and so on.

In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell (2002) takes a close look at a man who excels at sales, Tom Gau. Gau is a financial planner who makes millions of dollars a

year through sales. At the time of the writing, he was in his forties and wealthy, with no need to work. Yet, he went to work early each morning and stayed late. Why? In Gau’s words:

I love my clients, OK? I’ll bend over backward for them. . . . I call my clients my family. I tell my clients I’ve got two families. I’ve got my wife and my kids and I’ve got you. . . . I love my job. I love my job. . . . I manage a lot of money. I’m one of the top producers in the nation. But I don’t tell my clients that. I’m not here because of that. I’m here to help people. I love helping people. I don’t have to work anymore. I’m financially independent. So why am I here working these long hours? Because I love helping people. I love people. It’s called a relationship. (as cited in Gladwell, 2002, p. 71; emphasis added)

Gau once helped Donald Moine, a behavioral psychologist who studies persuasion, put together a kind of script book of the responses he uses when clients ask him questions about financial planning. Gladwell (2002) observes that while anyone could memorize these responses and use them verbatim, this in itself is not sufficient in order to be persuasive. There is something else in the mix besides giving great answers to clients’ questions.

Gladwell (2002) describes it this way:

[Gau] seems to have some kind of indefinable trait, something powerful and contagious and irresistible that goes beyond what comes out of his mouth, that makes people who meet him want to agree with him. It’s energy. It’s enthusiasm. It’s charm. It’s likability. It’s all those things. (p. 73)

Gladwell (2002) then goes on to describe how incredibly happy and positive Gau is in all aspects of his life. Think about the very best teachers you had as a student, the ones who persuaded you to work hard, to do your best, to reach your potential, the ones you didn’t want to disappoint. I suspect they had many of the same qualities as Tom Gau. I would bet that the great teachers you had as a student and the great teachers you work with could be described as being energetic, enthusiastic, charming, happy, positive, and likable—the qualities that Gladwell (2002) observes in Tom Gau. Most students want to be in that teacher’s class—the teacher who loves to help them and genuinely cares about them; the teacher who is energetic, enthusiastic, charming, happy, positive, and who is ever so likable.

You can be that teacher. What’s stopping you?

TACTIC: USE THE POSITIVEWORD STRATEGY WITH STUDENTS YOU DISLIKE

So far, this chapter has explored the importance of likability from the perspective of how much more effective you can be when your students like you. I now want to look at the flip side of this same coin.

No matter how much we like students in general, no matter how much we want to help our students be successful in school, there will come along—hopefully on rare occasions—a student that you just don’t like. For various reasons, no matter how much you try and connect with this student, their attitudes, behaviors, and values just rub you the wrong way. They are disrespectful, disengaged, devious, and no matter how much you try, you really don’t like them. In fact, on days when they are absent, you quietly smile to yourself and maybe even utter a quiet prayer of gratitude.

In some sense, this is completely understandable. We all have our preferences in terms of the qualities that we like and can relate to in other people, and we will come across students whom we just cannot seem to connect with and whom we simply do not like. When this happens, it will most certainly have negative consequences on how well this student performs in your classroom. What can you do in circumstances such as this?

One strategy that can work very effectively is the positive-word strategy. On the surface, this strategy is quick and simple. All you do is write one positive word or short phrase about that particular student each day. You write this in your plan book or a notebook,

somewhere that is private. That’s it—one word or short phrase each day. While it may sound simple, be assured that there will be days where you may find it challenging to find even one positive word to write about this particular student—and writing “Stacey was away today” doesn’t count.

Then, on an occasion of your choosing, give this student the list of words and phrases you have created. I know one teacher who does this on Valentine’s Day. She gives each student a valentine with a list of positive words and phrases that she created for each student in the preceding weeks and months. Each student’s list is unique, and the positive descriptors apply only to them.

Two things are likely to happen when you utilize this strategy. 1. It prompts you to find something positive among all the negative aspects of that student. The exercise forces you to shift your focus from the negative to the positive. When you build on this daily, somewhere along the journey, you are likely going to find yourself beginning to view this student in a more positive light. There is a commonly quoted proverb, ostensibly originating from China, that says,

Two-thirds of what we see is behind our eyes. By placing some positive thoughts behind your eyes, you are going to see them come alive in these kinds of students. 2. When the student (who in many instances will likely feel the same about you as you do about them) receives the list of positive attributes that you see in them, their attitude toward you will likely soften. They now have concrete evidence that you can and do see positive qualities in them. Watch their behavior—and your relationship with them—change, and change for the better.

SUMMARY

As you reflect on this chapter, make sure to remember the following. • For many students, the teacher-student relationship is fundamental to whether or not they will be successful in your classroom. Getting your students to like you is one of the most powerful ways you have to influence their behaviors. • Perceived similarity is one way to engender likability because we tend to like people who are like us. You can achieve this through simple actions such as liking the same sports teams, sharing the same hobbies, liking the same music or TV shows, and so on. • Mirroring is an effective tool to get students to cooperate with you and to make them feel understood.

Simply repeating the last few words they say is one way to mirror a student. • Teachers who only use logic and reason to motivate students are, in effect, speaking only to the rider and not to the elephant. The elephant represents how students feel, and it is often more effective and more essential to address how a student feels when attempting to change attitudes and behaviors. • If you have a student whom you don’t like and cannot seem to work with, use the positive-word strategy to change both your attitude and the student’s.