Why We Do the Things We Do

A Peek Under Our Neurobiological Hood

Part One: Why do we do what we do? How many of our actions are the result of choices we consciously, deliberately, and intentionally make, reflective of our free will to choose and act on our choices? It turns out that there are numerous influences that operate outside of our awareness and with surprising regulatory control over what we ultimately do. But wait! I am not arguing that we have no control, no influence, and that we are merely automatons carrying out the bidding of our genetics, hormones, and brains. The picture of what ultimately shapes our predilections and impacts our actions is a complex one.

My goal in this article is to provide you with an accessible and useful entry into the immense complexity of what shapes our social-behaviors, especially what encourages our more positive or “pro-social” actions. I am refraining from describing our actions as “our choices” because a central question in this piece involves the extent to which free will and deliberate choices are involved in determining our actions. Moreover, what motivates me to compose this piece now is that we are living at a time when I fear that what Abraham Lincoln said in his First Inaugural address in March 1861; that we will, almost certainly, once again be touched “by the better angels of our nature,” seems to be in awfully short supply. Instead, I observe that polarization, alienation, stark divisions, and primal tribalistic urges are generating fields of open conflict around the globe. Their abundance appears to be increasing.

Spoiler alert: My therapy practice is filled with people who, having been impacted by the harmful actions undertaken by others, choose to invest tremendous energy and heart-rending effort overcoming the limitations, hurts, and traumas rooted in their personal past histories. Frustratingly, I have not gathered fully satisfying answers to offer as to why good people behave badly. Most of us wrestle with the gap between our honest and compassionate intentions and our actual behavioral follow-through. I remain fully aware that given opportunities to choose less hurtful paths, all too often people choose more damaging options. I wish it were otherwise. This observation has fascinated me for decades. At its core, I find that a question we must ask ourselves: who and what is truly in charge of us?

With this conundrum in mind, I challenge you, dear reader, to ask yourself, “Am I really as in control of my choices as I perceive myself to be? Who or what is piloting my ship, which is the creature we commonly call me, myself, and I”? The more that I explore our shared neurobiological foundations, the more in awe I am of how we too often overlook and under-appreciate the relative limitations of what we experience as our conscious self-aware self.

The brain is filled with 80-billion neurons, each of which is electrically connected to thousands of other neurons. This densely interconnected inner world is called our connectome. Estimates place the number of intersections (synapses) operating within the brain’s massively interconnected electrical traffic system at more than 100 trillion. That makes the number of possible options that lead to variable outcomes we might pursue absolutely staggering. To complicate matters further, the brain contains another network that influences our internal neural conversations called the glial system. Glial cells communicate with each other chemically, not electrically, but have a huge influence on how information flows through the brain, from the brain to the body and back to the brain, and from the outside world into the brain’s internal network.

The reason I am spelling this process out, in however grossly simplified a form as I am, is that the vast majority of this processing power operates outside our moment-to-moment conscious awareness. Our sense of self arises from a mass of overlearned, habitual, and instinctual automaticity. Our self-aware brain is able to process approximately 7-9 bits of information per second and utilizes the capacity of our working memory system. This memory system places a severe limit on what we can “hold in mind” at any given instant. The non-conscious brain, on the other hand, is busily processing 11 million bits of information per second.

This huge disparity in the processing speed of our self-aware compared to our “deeper” brain is largely a blessing, but as we’ll see, when it comes to more consistently acting in alignment with our better angels, we encounter a significant challenge. Nobel Prize winning behavioral economist and author, Daniel Kahneman’s 2011 book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, highlighted the operations of the “fast brain” that operates largely out of our awareness. If it were otherwise, we would be so flooded with bits of information that we could stare forever into our refrigerator in a futile attempt to “choose” what we want to eat or drink. In other words, to function effectively in the world on a day-to-day basis largely requires us to carry out thoughts and actions driven by our automatic, deeper and faster brain systems. The truth is we are on autopilot most of the time. But if we’re running on autopilot most of the time, what happens when that autopilot encounters someone who doesn’t look, think, or pray like us?

In Part Two, we’ll dive into the advantages and disadvantages of our brain’s fast and slow processing systems. Stay tuned…