On the 1st April the Dalai Lama tweeted “The distinction between violence and non-violence lies less in the nature of the action and more in the motivation with which it is done.” I’m not sure what the Dalai Lama’s motivation was in tweeting this message but it turns out that this statement is true for all behaviour and is backed up by rigorous science.
To understand what people are “doing” when we see them act in particular ways we have to get some sense of their motivations or goals. Paying attention only to people’s action will not get us very far at all and will often result in misunderstandings. To take a simple example, focussing on the way people grip the steering wheel of their car and the way they move their feet on the pedals will not provide very much information about their driving behaviour. We won’t find out about their abilities as a driver and we won’t discover where they’re driving to. In order to understand their driving behaviour we have to find out about their motivations for their driving. Are they driving to work or driving to the shops for a sick friend or driving away on the start of a holiday?
Perceptual Control Theory (PCT; www.iapt.org; www.pctweb.org) is the scientific theory which explains that it is the consequences of our behaviours as we experience them, not the behaviours themselves, that are important to us. PCT can help us get much better at appreciating that behaviour from an observer’s perspective can be an entirely different experience from behaviour as it is experienced by the behaver.
We don’t even know about our own behaviours except for the consequences they produce for us. As I type this article I’m definitely using my arms and fingers to pound the keys but the only information I have that the muscles in my arms and fingers are active is what I can see happening in front of me and also what I can feel happening as my fingers shimmy and shake across the keyboard. From this perspective, seeing and feeling are the consequences of what my muscles do.
So, when I want a certain thing to happen, I have an idea in my head of what that thing will be and then my actions bring that thing about so that I experience what I want to experience. If I want to stretch my calf muscle before going on a run, my arms and legs will create a certain posture that will produce a particular feeling that tells me my calf is stretching. If I want to experience an increased sense of connection between me and my wife I might clear my diary and plan some time together, or I might make her favourite meal, or I might ask some questions about how she’s travelling and talk about the things she’s interested in. In fact, I might do a range of different things because it’s not the things that matter. It’s the effect these things have that matters so I’ll keep doing whatever I need to do until my sense of connection between us is the way I want it to be.
Noticing that I’m preparing some food, therefore, won’t let you know what my motivation is in making this particular meal. Just watching my slicing and dicing in the kitchen won’t even reveal that the ingredients I’m combining will turn into a favourite meal for someone special. And even if you know I’m preparing my wife’s favourite meal, you still won’t know my motivation for arranging this culinary extravaganza. It could be that it’s her birthday or perhaps she’s received a promotion at work. Maybe I’ve dented the car and I want to prepare her for the shock. There is a bunch of different reasons as to why I might engage in “preparing-wife’s-favourite-meal” behaviour and the only way to make sense of what you’re observing is to learn about my motivation for putting the meal together.
We definitely need behaviour to create the experiences we intend but behaviour is a means to an end. It is not the end itself. The ends are the motivational states alluded to by the Dalai Lama and it is these states we must understand if we want to understand and influence another person.
If you’re even mildly intrigued by these ideas you’ll find them explained in a lot more detail in Controlling People: The paradoxical nature of being human (http://tinyurl.com/hxjmjfy).
