In Part 1 you learned to look past your eyes and in Part 2 of working around your Paleolithic mind, you found out your brain prefers efficiency, often at the expense of time-consuming logic. Today, in final post in this series, you’ll find out how to be wrong but still right; while at the same time turning your brain into a virtual casino of travel gains.

Dissing Cognitive Dissonance

You’re always right. At least, according to your own brain. Cognitive dissonance, a fancy term to describe that familiar state we find ourselves in when we hold two conflicting beliefs. Those conflicts can come about when we’re exposed to new information or challenges in life. Sitting around mulling why you made a mistake for days isn’t very useful when there are foods to scavenge and large animals that want to eat you.

For example, let’s say you really want to go to Morocco, but know it will take 3 months of saving to do so. Instead, you go out every weekend, blowing the money you were saving on one too many beers.

3 months later, you haven’t gone anywhere. To alleviate the guilt and perhaps embarrassment at the failure, your brain kicks into action.

Take a deep breath, you’ll be right at the end of this.

Cognitive dissonance is a complex state but shortly there are two major ways it’s resolved in the brain.

• Rationalizing: Well, I did have fun and not taking a trip this year isn’t so bad. I mean, I like that bar a lot and drinking is a good time so it was a decent trade off. Besides, Morocco is hot this time of year.
• Dismissing: Morocco is hot and it’s not like I wanted to go there that badly. It will always be there, besides I’ve heard it’s not that great.

Your brain is trying to alleviate all of the negative feelings you have about not accomplishing your goal. Yet, when you admit to yourself you’ve failed, that same mental defense can work in your favor by making you feel positive about a second attempt. The first time was a bust but you’ll get to Morocco, avoid the guilt by having a few quiet weekends, and save your party for Marrakesh. Being right all the time has it’s perks, you know.

Old Brain Over New Brain

The older systems in our brains tend to take priority over our (newer) higher functions located primarily in the frontal lobe right behind your forehead. That means your emotions can, literally, get the best of you despite all what the facts to tell you. The stronger you feel about something (positive or negative) the less emphasis your brain puts on raw data.

• Driving to the airport is far more dangerous than flying around the world – but who cares, falling 10,000 meters to a fiery death is much scarier. (At least in your head. Although you’re scared right now and probably won’t listen, 76.6% of people survive plane crashes.)

It goes along with your imagination, emotions heighten your ability to visualize leading to more vivid memories real or otherwise. Most of you probably don’t dream about numbers and spreadsheets at night or have an emotional response to them (aside from dread). Our brains don’t like risk – at least when there’s a perceived loss.

The Ultimate Cave-Brain Shortcut

That is perhaps our biggest Paleolithic shortcut, one that’s easy to manipulate, and the most fun to implement.

We don’t like risk but are willing to throw all the rules out the door for a potential gain. You won’t be able to trick, coerce, or coax yourself into traveling to all the places you want unless you see some value in it. People who try to convince you the world is scary, or traveling is frivolous, do so because they don’t see the gain of expense. Without the experiences themselves to visualize being in your traveling shoes.

Paleolithic brain isn’t all bad however, millions of years of evolution has made our species quite adept at recognizing patterns (like languages) quickly, honed our social instincts to avoid danger, and embedded nomadic tendencies in our DNA. Human beings are the only species to inhabit all 7 continents (except foxes) and can be found adapted to all of our planet’s land environments because someone – maybe your ancient cousin – decided to step out and see what was beyond the next hill.

Fortunately for you, their genes are still floating around in your cells. The rest, is up to you.

• Catch up with Part 1 and Part 2 of this series in case you missed them.

[photos by: Brent Danley (hominid skulls), hurleygurley (Jell-O brain)]

This is the first in a series of 3. Once you’ve gotten past your deceiving eyes, continue on hacking your Paleolithic brain in Part 2 and Part 3.

Stereotyping, overactive imaginations, and the comforts of familiar surroundings have have brought our ape-species a long way since we came to be millions of years ago. We’re all around now because our ancestors did some things right and for the most part played it safe to survive another generation. You can imagine the fear and anxiety that comes from not being atop the food chain for eons. Yet the adaptations that saved your great-great-great-(you-get-the-point) grandmother’s butt way back when, could today being convincing you the world is a scary place to travel today.

It takes work however to convince yourself otherwise – because, yes, your brain always comes to the conclusion you’re right. Don’t worry though, here’s how you can trick that spear-wielding hunter-gatherer inside your head to use the more recent additions to your cerebral cortex.

Why Unlikely Things Seem More Likely To Happen

We are a visually-biased species and what we see is much more likely than other forms of stimulus to be recorded in our memory. Consequently, the act of even just being able to visualize something in our minds makes us feel it’s more likely to happen. Combine disaster-obsessed media, televisions, and graphic online videos being processed by a prehistoric brain and the world can seem like a terrifying place.

Fortunately, the converse is also true. Although conjuring up images of violent demonstrations in Cairo are easier than imagining normal daily life in Africa’s largest city, for our brains, seeing is (generally) believing. Once you visit a place that perception will be paramount to all others – no matter what you see otherwise.

So far, easy enough, but you’ve still got to convince yourself to actually go to that seemingly scary place. Now it’s time to use the media against ol’ caveman (or woman) hanging out between your ears.

Refocusing Your Social Bias

While you might be a fellow introvert like myself, at the core we’re social animals. Other people are extensions of our own brains and we use them everyday to assess risk. The same reason why sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp are popular are also why interviews with people after travel disasters are so poignant. We are biased to follow the crowd, identify with our peers, and put ourselves in others’ shoes.

• These days the amount of social information we’re flooded with is difficult to discern, so our Paleolithic brains er on the side of caution. The news (or more precisely the newscaster you can visualize) says Bangkok is a scary place due to protests. Why bother digging deeper if “everyone else” is telling you not to go – surely you won’t be hurt in Thailand if you never go to Asia at all.

Rather than completely shutting out the media, simply switch the social groups you listen to. Previously mentioned TripAdvisor is a good start, but so are other travel blogs, Twitter, your Facebook friends, and language social networks loaded with people who’ve been where you want to go. What you’re after are people like you (i.e. age, personality, etc.) or those who have connections to the places on your travel wish list. They’re out there and you’ll find them; giving you the benefit of interactive eyes on the ground. (Not to mention making it easier to visualize yourself at the destination – remember the point above?)

This is just the beginning of unwinding your prehistoric brain – which by the way has a short (1 minute per web page) attention span. That’s why this post will continue in Part 2 next Tuesday by learning from people who refuse to escape burning buildings and those who drink too much on the weekends.

[photos by: Lord Jim (caveman), L1mey (girl with wide blue eyes), Augustography.com.au (crowd panorama)]