Making Decisions Dur Conflict

1 Credit · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

One of the most important skills that someone working in the field of conflict resolution needs is the ability to stay non-reactive, self-regulated, fair-minded, and unflustered, even during high-stress, challenging situations. However, when you find yourself in such situations, it can be nearly impossible to access those qualities! That’s because as humans, we are wired neuro-biologically to cooperate, since it was important for our survival. Thus, our species has evolved a strong physiological and emotional response to conflict. In other words, when we don’t cooperate, it can feel threatening to our “survival brain” (the limbic system and brain stem). Moreover, when you find yourself in a stressful, complex, or uncertain situation—like conflictual communication with other people—you likely look to your “thinking brain” (neocortex) for solutions. When you do this, however, you can override important information from your survival brain and body, and undermine your own resilience. With practice, however, you can teach your thinking brain and survival brain to work as allies—even in challenging circumstances. As you gain confidence in how to read, interpret, and trust your body’s cues, you can access one of our greatest evolutionary assets for making agile, adaptive, and wise decisions. In this course, you'll learn how to train your attention, align your thinking brain and survival brain, integrate your body's insights into your deliberate reasoning processes, and regulate your stress arousal level to stay within the optimal zone of performance. This course will alternate between intellectual learning about the neurobiology of stress and resilience, and experiential practice of mind-body tools. Understanding the science provides the context to motivate you to change your habits, so that you can apply these tools in the high-stress work environments of the international security, diplomatic, intelligence, and business communities where you will likely work after graduation. We will discuss how to apply these tools concretely to enhance your decision-making before, during, and after stressful events—as well as how to apply these tools during challenging interpersonal conversations and negotiations. This 1-credit course provides an introduction to the concepts and tools from Mindfulness-based Mind Fitness Training (MMFT), a resilience program that I developed and tested through four neuroscience and stress physiology research studies with the U.S. military. It covers similar ground, at less depth, to part of my 3-credit graduate course, SEST-640, "Decision-Making in Stressful and Uncertain Environments."