Wholeness
• Decision making involves the interplay
between feelings and thinking.
• Feelings provide the global evaluation
of the situation,
• which then colors how we interpret the
details of experience.
Is decision making only
a cognitive event?
Top
Left
High
Road
Stimulus
Low
Road
High
Road
Stimulus
Low
Road
Intergroup Competition
— seen in soccer and baseball —
Failure of a
person on
your team
Anterior
insula
activated
helping
behavior
and greater
empathy
Failure of a
person on
the other
team
Nucleus
accumbens
activated
part of
pleasure
circuit
— Hein et al, in press, Neuron
Attribution Error
Friend’s
behavior
• environmental
factors
Stranger’s
behavior
• dispositional
factors
Stress and Attribution Error
•  Attention
•  Planning
•  Organizing
•  Impulse
control
•  Moral
reasoning
Stress and Attribution Error
Stress shuts
down the
prefrontal
cortex
•  Attention
•  Planning
•  Organizing
•  Impulse
control
•  Moral
reasoning
Stress and Attribution Error
Stress shuts
down the
prefrontal
cortex
Stress and Attribution Error
Stress shuts
down the
prefrontal
cortex
Stress and Attribution Error
Stress shuts
down the
prefrontal
cortex
Stress and Attribution Error
Stress shuts
down the
prefrontal
cortex
Stress and Attribution Error
Stress shuts
down the
prefrontal
cortex
Autonomic
“reactive”
response
Stress and
Legal Judgments
When determining
whether a crime
was due to the
defendant's disposition
or the mitigating situation,
self-reported stress correlated with
increased dispositional judgments
of defendant's behavior.
Frontal Brain Blood Flow
Drops during Sleep
Frontal Brain Blood Flow
Drops during Sleep
1
Partial
Sleep
Deprivation
and Moral
Reasoning
in Military
Officers
Restricting Sleep =
Reduced Vigilance
Vigilance Level
0.5
Better
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
Worse
Baseline
1
2
3
4
5
6
Days on Experimental Schedule
7
Effect of Fatigue
on Medical Students
Heavy-call residents (every 3rd night)
vs.
low-call residents who drank three beers
(BAC level .08)
—JAMA 2005
Stress and fatigue lead to more
stereotypical, low-road responses in all
situations.
Emotional responses occur first and
color how we interpret our experience.
Pleasure Drives Choices
Pleasure Circuits:
Naturally Occurring Behaviors
Rats allowed to enter special chamber
to get extra feed.
when they entered the special chamber
dopamine in the nucleus accumbens was higher
Drives Motivation
Subjects were shown a series of pictures.
Before each picture, they were signaled whether they would
earn 10¢ or $5 if they could remember that picture.
Three weeks later, they were shown many scenes and had
to indicate which ones they had seen before.
They remembered more of the scenes that earned
them $5.
Reward Circuit:
Nucleus accumbens —
approach
Memory Circuit:
Hippocampus
The natural tendency of life is to grow.
We constantly adjust our behavior
based on environmental feedback, to be
more successful in life—to grow.
Transcending leads to a
new experience
silent, awake, pure
consciousness
which changes the character
of the low road responses.
The mind is like an ocean...
Distinct
Thoughts
Intuition
TM is a process of
transcending
TM is a process of
transcending
TM is a process of
transcending
TM is a process of
transcending
TM is a process of
transcending
Pure Consciousness
Transcending Reduces Content to
Experience Pure Consciousness
Content
Transcending Reduces Content to
Experience Pure Consciousness
Transcending Reduces Content to
Experience Pure Consciousness
Content
Brainwaves during TM Practice
Brainwaves during TM Practice
Brainwaves during TM Practice
EEG Coherence
during TM Practice
Increased Blood Flow to the CEO
during TM: Restful Alertness
During TM
compared to
rest:
Red
((activation
)
Blue
Ludwig et al,
2012
(deactivation)
o 42
TM and ADHD: Theta/Beta Ratio
Normal
Travis et al, 2012
Increased Graduation Rates
(Connecticut, USA)
p < .03
National
Average
Colbert and Nidich, (2013) Education. 133(4)
Effectiveness in Reducing Trait Anxiety
Meta-Analysis
TM
Placebo
Other Relaxation
Relaxation Response
Other Meditation
PMR
EMG-Biofeedback
Mantra Meditation
Concentration
0
45 .05
1
Journal of Clinical Psychology. 1989; 45:957-974
Action-Impression-Desire Cycle
— pause the video —
Class Reading:
Bhagavad Gita IV 19
“Experience results when the
senses come in contact with their
objects and an impression is left on
the mind...”
Transcending adds new impressions in the
storehouse of impressions
that “roast” the seeds of past experiences.
This frees us from the past and allows us to act in
a life-supporting way.