Primed by evolution

No matter how hard we try, we’re primed by evolution to get distracted by certain stimuli.

We might like to imagine that we’re in full control of our behavior, but that’s far from the case.

We can’t help the way environmental stimuli cause us to respond automatically. These external stimuli are called bottom-up influences. Typically, they’re characterized by saliency, which means they are immediately noticeable to us, like, for example, when you hear someone shouting your name. Additionally, these stimuli have novelty – a dramatic and unexpected quality such as a car backfiring.

There’s nothing we can do to stop our involuntary responses to bottom-up influences. And for good reason. They are the mark of the survival instinct we’ve inherited from our ancestors.

Thankfully, we are more than just passive creatures, primed only to respond to sudden stimuli for immediate survival.

In general, our actions are guided by the perception-action cycle: we perceive the world in a certain way and act accordingly. We have also evolved the ability to pause in the moment and evaluate our perception of a given situation. That means we can decide upon the best response at the time. These internal decision-making mechanisms are called top-down influences.

Let’s look at an example. Imagine a baby pinches your arm. You pull away quickly in pain, but you aren’t going to hit back blindly in response, as you’re aware you’re in no danger. No action is taken because of the “pause” in the cycle when you evaluate and act upon possible responses.

Now that we’ve glanced into the brain's workings, let’s try to understand why it’s so difficult for us to achieve self-imposed goals.