Anticipating Behavior vs. Predicting the Future

I knew my godson was going to do what I had just told him not to do. The then 3-year-old boy held his body differently, he walked faster and his little hand, which usually hung at his side or held a truck or plastic hammer, was clenched tightly. He raced by and did not even acknowledge me, something I had never seen before.

What did I think he was up to? I had just told him he could not have any cookies. It was less than thirty minutes before dinner and he had no business eating anything with a chocolate chip baked inside.

Sure enough, within 20 second I heard the “clink” of the cookie jar lid as he attempted to place it quietly back in place. But, I let him slide. He was, all things considered, a great kid who usually followed rules and worked hard to behave as well as a little boy could.

Why am I talking about a cookie swiped when Bill Clinton was still in the White House? I wanted an example of how we can use our experience with a person to note something is out of order. He walked differently; he held his hand in an atypical fashion. And he did not look me in the eye. Tada, I knew he was going to swipe a Chips-Ahoy!

That is not fortune telling. It was based on observations of past behaviors and compared to present action. When comparing all my prior observations to what I saw I knew something was afoot. And since we had just had a cookie talk, my best guest was a pretty solid one.

Many times we know someone well and if we pay attention, we can sense change is in the air. They may dress differently, sit on the couch with a different posture or smell better (or worse). That is how impressions are formed and suspicions are raised.

But anticipation will only take us so far. We cannot predict the future, which is a very different concept. With fortune telling, a person attempts to predict the outcome of investments, dates or job interviews. I have a client who frequently attempts to tell me if he was hired or not based on the interviewers behavior. But see the problem? He has an N of 0. The observations he is making in the interview are the only ones he has. So he sees someone sitting upright and smiling as a cue that he will be filling out W-2s next week.

We cannot tell the future but we can note changes in the folks who inhabit our world. Recognizing the difference will make your life infinitely easier and maybe give you an advantage over someone trying to mislead you or cause you harm.

(experience) x (statistics) + (a hungry little boy) = we can anticipate behavior

(Aaron Beck) + (statistics) = we can’t predict the future

Statistics and Real Life

The first time I bowled--I mean the very first time--I got a strike. I was desperate for a PE credit to graduate and every Tuesday morning at 8 (!) am I went to the local arcade de bowling to earn that final credit. And the first time I picked up a ball--WHAM--a strike.

What may one infer from that about my performance as a bowler based on that fact? Absolutely nothing. The reason is that the number of times I had bowled, what statisticians call the "N," the number of times I tried it, is far too low. And that makes sense. Beginner's luck could be the cause, or a high degree of natural skill or some other unforeseen factor.

Why am I talking about stats? Because statistics is the most scientific, systematic way to understand our lives. We need to try something more than once to see if whatever it is--dating someone new, public speaking, culottes--works for us. And most of the time that is not what I see when I speak to clients about change.

"I met her and within 15 minutes I had decided she was not into me"

"Once I started speaking they looked bored and I knew I was not doing a good job. I am never gonna go to Toastmasters again."

"I knew right away that I looked awful in culottes. People were staring at me!"

These are the sort of things I hear over and over. Making a life changing move--dating, trying something you are scared of, even wearing something you don't normally wear--is a change. And we humans don't do change well. So we jump to conclusions or we mind read or we predict the future based on a single moment. Not the greatest way to think about your life folks.

Try something, or someone, more than once. Be open to new ideas and concepts. And pay careful attention to the results. You might find that as your N increases you will gain more information that helps you get a more accurate picture of how your date, your speech, your new clothes, truly worked for you.

BTW, I never got another strike. And believe me, I had a large N by the time the semester had ended.

Have a great day!