Selectivity, Distortion, and Generalization: NLP Meta-Model
August 15, 2007 – 10:05 pm | by Carl Zetterlund
This is a continuation of a series of posts about NLP. For proper understanding, please read Part 1 and Part 2.
I’m going to be giving you the theories behind NLP. Now don’t be alarmed! This isn’t quite like school. It’ll actually be quite interesting. I will offer insights to how our mind operates. If it does not make sense immediately, take a break, come back, and read it again later.
It is important that we understand how we respond to words as well as how we use words to express our thoughts. We experience through our senses. We feel, hear, touch and see the world around us. Then we try to use words to express what we have experienced.
So what does language do? It lets us convey experience to others and lets us reflect on it ourselves.
Selectivity
The interesting thing is that we do not give equal weight to what we sense in our world. We don’t just sit back and take all the experiences in without doing something to it. We actually ignore a lot.
We are quite selective in what we experience. We seek out what we want. We have goals, desires, and interests that shape what our brain deems important. This phenomenon is now commonly linked to the reticular activation system in the brain.
Experience does not come with labels already attached to them. We actually supply them (more on this under generalization). What is important to you and what interests you depends on your upbringing.
Just stop and listen carefully. I bet you there are slight noises that you were not consciously aware about when you were reading this post. This is selectivity in action. If we did pay attention to everything out there, we’d go crazy!
Of all the sights, smells, and noises, you only get what you care about. The rest we ignore.
Distortion
We do not reflect on our experiences like a camera or a camcorder. It would be a strange feeling if you could accurately playback any experience in your life. The only problem is you’d probably look like a zombie that is watching a movie inside their head all the time. It would be a problem because we would never get anything done. Therefore, we have to have a way of changing our experiences so we can use them effectively later.
We end up creatively blending bits and parts of every experience and distort them. For example, you are completely stressed out because you have a project due the next day. Your thoughts become filled with finishing the project, and you ignore many of the other things around you. At the moment, it’s a big deal, and it consumes your thoughts. When you reflect back on this experience later, you probably wondered why you thought the project was such a big deal. Even though the project did not suddenly change in importance just because you finished it, you still have a different feeling about it. It turns out that time had distorted your experiences. The looming deadline changed your thoughts and experiences.
Another situation we commonly distort is when someone talks to you in a tone that annoys you. You will find that your mind will pay more attention to that irritating sensation you get from the tone than what the person is actually saying. You end up misunderstanding what they said because you associated that irritating feeling with his words.
Generalization
We generalize from our experience. We respond to the present based on what we know from the past. We decide what works and what is good and bad based on our experiences.
The only problem lies in that we commonly don’t have enough experiences to make the right decisions. For example, we generalize about people. If you see a man with torn up jean shorts, you may think that he was either homeless or did not have much money. In fact, he could be a millionaire and just enjoyed living the way he did.
I actually knew a person that everyone would misjudge. His name was Dr. Patt. He was a professor at the University of Texas at Austin in Electrical Engineering. He had pit stains and holes on his t-shirt. He wore really short jeans with holes and stains all over. He also happened to be a big shot at Intel on the side and had a huge house he never used. Yet, he literally looked like a stereotypical homeless guy. My friends did not believe me when I pointed him out when we were at a fast food place.
We judge people all the time based on our limited experience. It’s not like it’s a bad thing. It could even mean life or death. If you see a guy holding a club with an angry face, you better act fast or else you are dead. You can’t sit there and debate in your head whether the guy could just be playing a prank and having fun.
There are even more reasons of why generalization is a good thing. We can learn math by just seeing some examples. We can then solve new math problems by our generalizations about the previous problems we have experienced.
To summarize the post, we make a map of the world based on our interests, beliefs, and our preoccupations. We live in a world of our own making. Reality really leaves a lot to our imagination.
Our experiences are limited to what we focus on but also far too great to be expressed in words. Finding words to express all we have heard, seen, touched, and tasted is like trying to drink out of a fire hydrant.
We have to be selective. We have to select, distort, and generalize in order to fit them into words. This can lead to many misunderstandings. Something crucial could have been missed out. People say one thing and the other person gets another meaning. Then we get upset because they didn’t understand because they filtered our words through their own experiences.
I hope this gives you some insight behind the theories that support NLP (meta-model). You may be asking how does will help you. It helps because it gives you an understanding of why people do the things they do. It gives you the power to understand situations rather than get angry at them. The potential benefits are limitless.
Keep in mind, I haven’t taught you any practical uses of NLP just yet. It is important to understand the theories backing up the techniques. Otherwise, you will negatively judge them or use them incorrectly. The next posts of NLP will be a blend of techniques and theory. You will find that most of the ideas and techniques are quite intuitive.
Until then, relax and take it easy.
Carl
P.S. If you like what you are hearing, I recommend buying a book that introduces you the basics and some advanced tools. A great book I recommend is NLP: The New Technology of Achievement
