“Throughout the progression of evolution, mutations in the human brain have been heavily driven by two dominant forces: self-preservation and perpetuation of one’s progeny,” says Dr. Loehr. This drive for survival has led to the rise of prejudice. “When resources were scarce, distinguishing between ‘us” and ‘them’ was not just a sociocultural practice but a pivotal survival mechanism,” he writes. Unfortunately, these evolutionary survival instincts have evolved into something much darker: the dehumanization of those seen as “the other.” It is this dehumanization that allows normal, average humans to commit acts of violence and aggression.
The solution, says Dr. Loehr, is to cultivate a heightened awareness of these influences, which will pave the way for more informed and holistic moral judgments. Based on his decades of experience and research at the Human Performance Institute, he has developed a twenty-week training program designed to override the survive-at-all-cost mandate, replacing it with kindness, compassion, empathy, and cooperation.
Because childhood is the most fertile period for social and emotional learning, Dr. Loehr developed his program to be administered by parents, teachers, and coaches. It is built around the three-step process required for lasting change:
•Creating a clear picture of the desired endgame
•Creating a clear picture of what the truth is now
•Creating a clear call to action to close the gap
Because changing the brain requires sensory input along all five senses, his approach includes seeing and watching; listening and hearing; public and private speaking; reading and writing; and using imagery and visualization.
I had a chance to learn more in this interview.
1. You’ve built your career around helping people achieve high performance. Your new book, SAPIENS REINVENTED, seems to take a different direction. Why did you write it?
My research at the Human Performance Institute led me into looking at the role moral character plays in sustained high performance. Nothing in my training as a psychologist pointed me in that direction. The connection between our treatment of others – our integrity, honesty, kindness, moral courage, caring for others, etc. – and sustained high performance came as a complete surprise.
After reading the works of many scholars and countless horrifying documents, three questions dominated my thinking:
1. Where does our species' propensity for violence and aggression originate?
2. Where is this evolutionary flaw taking us with nine countries possessing nuclear weapons?
3. What can be done to save our species from destroying itself?
The authorities that I studied brilliantly captured the problems, but none offered a science-based solution to altering the trajectory of our species before it’s too late.
In SAPIENS REINVENTED, I attempt to answer all three questions, I felt compelled to write the book out of my deep concern for the future of our species. And the clock is ticking!
2. What’s the fundamental message of SAPIENS REINVENTED? What does the title signify?
In spite of Sapien’s long history of violence on this planet, our brains remain very plastic and capable of enduring change. I’ve spent my entire career studying the science and practice of behavior change. It’s encouraging that our species has learned how to tame violent aggression through domestication in many non-human species such as canines, but there has never been a concerted, science-based effort to domesticate Sapiens’ propensity for using violence.
My book presents a twenty-week training program for parents, teachers and coaches to use in their interactions with young children to alter the genetic predisposition to use aggression and violence to resolve conflicts. In a real sense, we are reinventing what it means to be human.
3. You say that human’s fundamental drive for self-preservation is responsible for a tendency toward violence, aggression and prejudice. Can you tell us what you mean?
Mutations in the human brain have been driven primarily by two dominant forces. The first is survival (self-preservation) and the second is the perpetuation of one’s progeny. Early humans learned that by banding together in tribes or clans their own survival and that of their offspring were significantly enhanced. Particularly when resources were scarce, outsiders those who were not part of their tribe or clan, were often perceived as threats.
The genetically coded mandate to survive at all costs meant that “others” could be treated very differently than “us”. Moral reasoning was first and foremost vetted through the lens of survival. Should aggression and violence be necessary to perpetuate the survival of one’s own, so be it. Dehumanizing those that are not “us” opens the door to unthinkable acts of cruelty and inhumanity. “They are not human like us”.
4. What’s the risk if we fail to recognize this tendency? Why is it so important for people to be able to overcome aggressive tendencies and work toward empathy?
Without the awareness of Sapiens’ coded propensity to use aggression and violence to enhance the survival of its own, humanity has virtually no chance to override it and replace it with a new set of species-enhancing competencies.
With conflicts erupting everywhere in the world, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Iran, Sudan, North Korea, China to mention just a few, committing violence and aggression toward those who are not “us’ could well be the end of Sapiens existence on this planet.
As I explain in SAPIENS REINVENTED, replacing the language of “us” and “them” with the following messages to children is a great place to start:
“We are all part of the family of mankind. Our differences should be celebrated”
“When we share what we have with others, all others, our hearts open up to goodness”
“Treat others the way we wish to be treated”.
“Walk in the shoes of others”.
5. The bulk of SAPIENS REINVENTED is a twenty-week training program aimed at helping parents, teachers and coaches to cultivate empathy in young people. Why do you focus on young people in particular?
The brains of children are multisensory sponges. Research confirms the child’s brain demonstrates extraordinary neural malleability. Each time a thought or behavior is repeated, the young child’s brain coats the neural pathway with a fatty substance called myelin at an accelerated rate compared to adults.
Forming new habits of thinking and responding is simply myelinating the desired response through repetition and constant reinforcement. Targeted responses such as respect, caring, compassion, empathy, etc. can become much more dominant with training than the genetic predisposition to distrust and even do harm to those who are different.
6. Your training program emphasizes engaging all five senses. Why is that important?
At the Human Performance Institute, our best results for getting the desired long-term change to occur for our clients was when we employed a seven-step training process. That process included writing by longhand in a journal about the desired change, reading about it, talking about it, thinking about the desired change, coaching themselves with their private inner voice about it, acting out the change in the real world and visualizing the change as clearly as possible in their imagination.
When our clients visualized with all five senses, the training results we obtaine were significantly better.
An important insight is that the brain can’t distinguish between something vividly imagined and something that actually happened in the real world.
7. When we see so many examples of violence all around us, it can be hard to be optimistic about the future. Do you have hope?
Any significant global change begins with one person and spreads from there. Nearly everywhere we look in the world, Sapiens’ propensity for violence and aggression is manifest.
For thousands of years this coded imperative has enhanced humankind’s survival. Replacing this antiquated disposition, however, with one based on a sense of collective belonging, one rooted in the value of unity, mutual respect, caring and empathy will take time and great effort.
It will, no doubt, take a worldwide movement to save our species from itself. Yes, I do have hope or I would never have written SAPIENS REINVENTED. I am hoping we can recruit as many people as possible to this critical cause. I call it the World Against Aggression movement (WAA).
DR. JIM LOEHR, co-author of THE POWER OF FULL ENGAGEMENT and author of SAPIENS REINVENTED, is a world-renowned performance psychologist and researcher whose ground-breaking, science-based energy management training system has achieved worldwide recognition. The author or co-author of eighteen other books, including the national bestseller The Power of Full Engagement, Dr. Loehr is the retired chairman, CEO, and co-founder of the Human Performance Institute (HPI), prior to its acquisition by Johnson & Johnson. HPI is the pioneer in training programs designed to successfully leverage the science of energy management to improve the productivity and engagement levels of elite performers from the world of business, sport, medicine, and law enforcement, for sustained high performance. He holds a master’s degree and a doctorate in psychology, and is a full member of the American Psychological Association.
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