BOOK BRIEF: THE CHIMP PARADOX BY STEVE PETERS
B.L.U.F
- The Chimp Paradox uses a simple analogy to help you understand and take control of your emotions and act in your own best interest whether it is in making decisions, communicating with others or your health and happiness.
- This model can be a particularly useful framework for managing emotions and responding appropriately to high-stress situations and confrontations.
- There are three main parts to the brain in this model:
- The Chimp system – emotional, irrational, and survival based.
- The Human system – rational, logical, and factual based.
- The Computer system – our reference source.
- Managing the interactions between the Chimp (fast acting) and the Human (slower acting) by first, being aware of how they work and second, setting up ‘pre-programming’ via the computer (memory/reference) can stop the Chimp from hijacking your thinking.
- When the Chimp takes control we are overall emotional, reactive and impulsive, leading to an unhelpful internal environment such as:
- Negative self-talk.
- Internalising and personalising feedback.
- Being reactive to situations rather than being able to respond correctly.
- Having chronic anger, fear or anxiety.
- ‘Setting up your computer’ correctly and working on it consistently is the easiest way to handle your chimp.
Introduction
The human brain is a complex and fascinating organ that psychologists and neuroscientists have studied extensively. It is divided into regions, each with its own set of functions, and the interactions between these regions determine our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.
The Chimp Paradox, developed by Steve Peters, is an influential model of human behaviour that helps to provide a manageable understanding of the interactions between the emotional and rational parts of the brain by using the analogy of having a chimp and a human in your mind. The human represents your prefrontal cortex, a more evolved section of your brain, whereas the chimp represents the limbic system, a part of your brain that evolved early in our history.
In this article, we will look at how using this mind management system can benefit you in life and in work.
“Our brains are made up of distinct parts, each of which operates according to its own internal logic.” Some are highly emotional, impulsive, or simply automatic, whereas others are rational, thoughtful, and objective. These differences can easily lead to internal conflict, but they can be managed with training and simply by being aware of them.”
Overview of the Chimp Model
The model divides the brain into three main parts: the Human, the Chimp, and the Computer. Inside our Computer, we also have Goblins and Gremlins and our Autopilot.
The Human
Represents the rational part of the brain that is responsible for logical thinking, planning, decision-making, conscious thinking and reasoning. This is the part of the brain that makes you you. Due to it being based in logic and facts, it can take time to think and respond and is the slowest system.
The Chimp
Represents the emotional part of the brain that is responsible for our instincts, feelings, and reactions and can sometimes take over and cause us to act impulsively or irrationally when it feels threatened. It is a primitive system in the brain which you do not control. The Chimp can think for itself and works with drives and instincts for surviving in the jungle quickly, but not as quickly as the computer can work.
The Computer
The Computer is a reference source for both the Human and the Chimp. It stores your habits and beliefs about what is right and important in the world. The Computer also stores memories, providing advice from past experiences (Goblins and Gremlins).
Whilst it does not think for itself, the Computer can be programmed to take action in certain circumstances and runs about four times faster than the Chimp and so 20 times faster than the Human.
When we’re born, our computer is essentially an empty drive. We begin to write our programme on how to survive and thrive over time. Many of these become our core beliefs and values, influencing our personality, behaviour, and life. These are referred to as our Stone of Life. Unfortunately, some of the beliefs and strategies we learn at a young age (often before the age of eight) may turn out to be false or inappropriate later in life.
Furthermore, potentially isolated events become imprinted as universal truths that apply to all situations. Just because one person failed you, was abusive, or abandoned you does not imply that everyone else will.
Goblins
- An unhelpful or destructive belief or behaviour that is firmly fixed and extremely difficult to remove as it is usually hard-wired at a young age.
- Can be broad beliefs that touch many areas of your life:
- ’I never succeed’.
- ‘Everyone else has it so much easier’.
- ‘I’m not capable’.
- ‘I am unlikable’.
Gremlins
- Represent a limiting, unhelpful or destructive belief or behaviour that shows up when we have unrealistic expectations of ourselves or other people
- Often take the form of ‘shoulds’ and ‘musts’ or perfectionism.
- “I should never make a mistake”.
- “My partner should understand”.
- “I must never fail in front of other people”
- A gremlin is easier to remove than a Goblin but still requires work.
- Gremlins and Goblins operate on autopilot, so we are often unaware of how much they influence our daily behaviour.
Autopilot
- Represents our helpful or constructive beliefs and behaviours and good habits that we’ve installed.
- Gremlins can be replaced with more beneficial autopilots, once we have recognised them and identified a more helpful alternative.
Understanding the Chimp Brain
The first step in managing your Chimp is to understand its nature and how it operates. The Chimp is an emotional creature that responds instinctively to threats and challenges. It is not rational, and it does not respond to logical arguments, feedback or evidence. It’s motivated by fear, anger, and survival instincts.
But don’t demonise your Chimp completely. It is this way because it has helped us to avoid acute danger for the majority of our evolution as it was one of the first parts of our brain to develop.
The Chimp can take over in situations where you might feel threatened or under pressure such as receiving negative feedback and it’ll feel even more threatened when receiving that feedback in front of other people. Even if it is from someone you like, respect or love.
The Chimp is quick to react and can lead to impulsive behaviour, aggression, and other negative emotions such as resentment or negative self-talk especially when combined with Gremlins and Goblins that love to rile up the Chimp.
To help ward this off, it is important to recognise when your Chimp is in charge and preemptively understand when it is likely to take over.
In stressful situations, stop, breathe and ask yourself:
“Who is in charge here, me or my chimp?”
“Do I really want to feel and act this way?”
“What else could I do in this situation?”
Managing your Chimp
Firstly, you have to accept that the Chimp in you will not change. When a Chimp does decide to act it’s difficult to control.
‘Self-control’ simply will not work because the emotional Chimp is significantly stronger than the Human (a real chimp has 5x the strength of a real Human being). You have to learn to manage it like an emotional child.
“You must never forget that you always have a choice in how to behave and respond.”
The mind management tool provides several strategies for managing the chimp and preventing it from taking over but the three main ways to manage your chimp are:
1 – Exercise it:
You need to help your Chimp release the emotion it is struggling to deal with. Find a safe way for your Chimp to healthily channel its pent-up emotion rather than just letting loose and having it expressed through some inappropriate behaviour.
It can take as little as 10 minutes to release and can be achieved physically or emotionally (although managed emotional releases are always better as they are the route of the Chimp’s rage). Venting to a friend over a beer whilst knowing that after you have finished venting you can then both work to solve any issues that may have been clouded by the Chimp’s reaction.
Likewise, if someone is ranting at you realise it’s just their unchecked Chimp letting off steam (so don’t let your Chimp get hooked by his Chimp and start a Chimp fight).
2 – Box it:
Having vented and released the emotion, the Chimp will be tired and more open to accepting a more considered, calmer conversation. If the Chimp re-fires up it just means it has not fully vented all its emotion yet. It may need a few ‘takes’ before the Chimp can be put back into its box but being honest with your feelings and emotions will help this process.
3 – ‘Feed’ it:
The third way is to feed your Chimp. There are two types: rewards (both physical and emotional) and distractions. Be careful when using food as a reward mechanism as this can lead to more negative ‘gremlins’ working their way into your computer.
Sometimes distracting your Chimp for a while is enough for it to fully calm down so the Human can take back control and respond rationally to the situation. Playing video games, going for a walk, and watching a film are all ways to distract your Chimp (the more fun and engaging the better, Chimps love having fun).
Using the Computer
If the Chimp senses any danger, it quickly assesses the level of risk and either reacts immediately if a major threat (which is helpful in most life-threatening scenarios), or if it is a lower threat then the Chimp will look inside the Computer for advice (the speed of such reactions is less than 0.02 second).
The problem is that your Human side is too slow to respond before the Chimp has had its chance. So utilising the Computer is the quickest way to handle it because the Chimp will look there and react before the Human can.
So to get ahead of the negative Gremlins in the Computer, we need to identify them and replace them with more empowering and helpful autopilot to influence how the Chimp perceives an event and therefore how it chooses to react.
The trouble is you can’t just turn off a Gremlin, even when you’ve identified it. It needs to be replaced it with another belief and that process can take time and needs continual reinforcement.
Tracking down your Gremlins
A Gremlin normally leaves a trail of negative emotion. So when you feel a negative emotion or bad about something, try to track it back to the belief state of the Gremlin (often Gremlins splice together, so you may need to unpick them and this may even require assistance from a therapist).
When you have calmed your Chimp down by Exercising, Boxing or Feeding it, identified the feeling/area that unsettled your Chimp by asking yourself:
- What do you believe doing or thinking X will imply about you (Linked to your identity)?
- What are the consequences of not doing X (Cognitive reasoning)?
These questions will start to unsettle the current beliefs you have lodged in your Computer allowing you to work on inputting more useful truths.
Like building muscle memory, and grooving movement patterns and skills, you need to keep reinforcing these new beliefs. The more often you can implant and then act upon the newly installed beliefs, the greater chance they will become the new default setting that the Chimp gets fed back from the Computer.
Further strategies to work on your Chimp
Recognise the warning signs of your Chimp taking over.
The chimp often manifests as negative emotions such as anger, defensiveness, fear, or anxiety. By recognising these emotions and your own personal triggers, you can take steps to manage them before they escalate or manage your Chimp after it kicks off.
Use the computer to develop automatic positive responses.
The computer represents our learned responses, and we can use it to develop automatic positive responses to triggers that may cause the chimp to take over. Developing a routine for dealing with stress or anxiety that involves deep breathing, visualisation, or positive self-talk can help calm your Chimp and its reactions.
Understanding your Chimp’s needs.
Your Chimp is driven by emotional needs such as safety, security, and social connection. By understanding these needs and making sure you’re ticking the box of what you need, your Chimp will feel safer and more secure.
Have your Human reason with the Chimp.
The rational part of the brain can sometimes reason with the Chimp and provide a logical perspective. If you’re able to recognise your Chimp surfacing and apply some logical thinking to your situation you can challenge negative thoughts and emotions and replace them with positive ones in the moment.
Develop a support network for your Chimp.
Building a support network of family, friends, and colleagues who can provide emotional support and work with you on managing your Chimp when you need it or are there for you when you need to vent.
Self Reflection
- Write down the qualities of the person you would ideally like to be.
- Then write down the list of who you think you are.
- The gaps between the two help to highlight the areas the Gremlins and Chimp are affecting you so you can work on them.
Conclusion
The Chimp Paradox provides a valuable framework for understanding and managing the emotional and rational parts of the brain. By having this understanding and a simple analogy for how your brain operates, you can identify and work on areas of opportunity to improve your life. Remember not to demonise your Chimp. It keeps you alive and healthy for the most part and is a fundamental part of who you are.
For military personnel, the mind management system can provide numerous practical strategies for managing emotions and reactions as well as helping to promote mental resiliency and support a Growth Mindset.
