Why Immediacy Matters

My first iteration of Two Minds Theory was called “Temporal Immediacy Theory,” emphasizing one key difference between the Narrative and the Intuitive minds. Immediacy is the idea that the Narrative mind is concerned with stories about the past or the future, while the Intuitive mind focuses on one's experience in the present moment. Other differences between the two mental systems sometimes seem more salient: For instance, the Intuitive mind’s connection to the limbic system often makes it the more “emotional” of the two minds, while the Narrative mind seems rational and detached. Alternately, the Narrative mind has a limited ability to pay attention to more than one thing at a time, while the Intuitive mind is a constant and successful multitasker. And the Intuitive mode takes less time and effort than the Narrative mode, leading to Kahneman’s characterization of the two minds as “Thinking, Fast and Slow.” However, it’s my contention that the temporal focus of someone's thoughts – past, present, or future – is a more reliable way to determine which of the two minds is speaking.

The concept of immediacy, introduced by psychologist Albert Mehrabian, refers to variations in the degree of psychological distance from the topic under discussion. This somewhat abstract dimension can be seen in the following examples: “I’m on my way” (now) is more immediate than “I’ll be there soon” (in the future). I promise (right now) is more immediate than “I said that I would” (previously) – even though both are technically about something that hasn’t happened yet. And “yes” (it’s true right now) is more immediate than “I think so” (based on my past contemplation of the issue). These subtle distinctions in language reflect varying degrees of psychological “distance” from the topic under discussion. For psychotherapists, these subtle linguistic distinctions can suggest areas where someone isn’t sure or committed to what they are saying. I once wrote a book chapter about this use of language with Dr. Jay Efran, titled “linguistic ambiguity as a diagnostic tool.” The more someone speaks in a way that reflects their experience right now, in this very moment, the stronger our prediction that their behavior will match their stated intent. Talking about things that happened in the past or are going to happen in the future, rather than those that are true right now, is one way in which people keep the things they are saying at arm’s length. Psychotherapists sometimes talk about that tendency as “intellectualizing” and see it as a barrier to progress. But what they really mean is that someone’s thinking has moved into their Narrative mind. Time isn’t the only way to create distance in language – for example, “I wish I wanted to” is far more abstract than “I will” — but temporal immediacy is a major distinction between thoughts that are intellectualized and viewed from a distance, compared to those that are true right now as statements of our own lived experience. The reason that it's less helpful to hear from the Narrative mind in psychotherapy doesn't really have to do with emotion or lack of emotion; it's simply that the usual goal of therapy is behavior change, and the Narrative mind does not control behavior. Kahneman and others suggest that being more future-focused and less present-focused should help us to make wise decisions. But Two Minds Theory suggests that future-focused speaking will usually instead lead to an intention-behavior gap.

In a recent study, my colleague Harriet Fridah has been using the idea of immediacy to examine the reasons why people say they do or do not exercise. She found that the temporal immediacy of the statements was a good method for differentiating between Narrative and Intuitive reasons, and indeed for distinguishing between people’s reasons for and against exercising. The arguments in favor of exercise were much more likely to be Narrative-mind abstractions such as “it will help me stay healthy” and “to prevent health problems.” Notice the strong future focus in both of these statements. Reasons not to exercise, on the other hand, tended to be more visceral, Intuitive-level responses like “I’m in too much pain” or “it makes me too tired.” These statements are about symptoms, and might be taken to have an emotional overtone. But it’s not necessary to read emotion into them -- even if delivered as perfectly flat statements of fact, they are about present experiences rather than desired future states, and therefore they suggest what is happening in the person’s Intuitive mind. Again, Intuitive experiences have much greater influence over behavior than more abstract Narrative rationales, so it’s no wonder that most of the participants in this study were having a lot of trouble with exercising! Their Intuitive minds told them what was true of their experience while exercising, and it was largely negative. Against that, the benefits suggested by their future-focused Narrative minds had little motivational force.

Another example comes from my recent research on the Regenerating Images in Memory (RIM) psychotherapeutic imagery technique, with Dr. Deb Sandella. We have been investigating the mental processes and imagery that occur while people are working through difficult experiences. Some people take to this naturally, and produce rich and detailed imagery. Others seem to stop themselves as soon as things start to feel more immediate, and retreat into a more distant Narrative mode of talking. It’s the difference between “my back feels tight” or “I see a blue light over my Dad” (both of which are Intuitive-level, present-focused, and very immediate) and “I think I've been feeling worried my Dad’s health problems” (a Narrative with more apparent “insight,” but one that is past-focused and much less immediate). Much of Dr. Deb’s clinical method is to bring people back into their current awareness, to help them articulate what is happening in their bodies right now. In one example, she encourages people to say the first thing that comes into their head, because faster thinking means less cognitive processing – i.e., the thought is more likely to come out of the speedy Intuitive mind rather than the deliberative Narrative mind. Although this study is also ongoing, I suspect that the more present-focused and immediate the participant’s language, the more benefit they obtain from the process. In that study, we’re also looking into whether certain types of mental processing correlate with certain types of brainwave activity – a potential direct test of whether the Narrative or the Intuitive mind is activated when there is less or more immediacy in language.

This post has suggested a number of equivalencies that seem to be true in clinical experience, but systematic research is the only way to know whether the suggested connections are consistently seen. Here are some of the things that seem to group together, based on the principle of temporal immediacy:

Way of Differentiating	Intuitive Mind	Narrative Mind
Temporal Focus	Present	Past or Future
Immediacy in Language (Mehrabian)	More immediacy	More distancing or abstraction
Speed at Which the Thought is Produced	Faster	Slower
Type of Mental Processing when Tired or Distracted (Kahneman)	More likely	Less likely
Emotional Content of the Thought	Stronger emotional content	Weaker emotional content
Relationship of What’s Being Said to Actual Behavior	Stronger predictive relationship	Weaker relationship
Motivational Force of the Thought	Stronger motivation, feels more “real”	Weaker motivation, feels more intellectual and distant
Brain Systems Involved	Lower-brain systems such as the thalamus or nucleus accumbens	Higher-brain systems, especially the prefrontal cortex

Any of these pairings should be empirically testable. For example, if we distract someone and ask them to free-associate, we ought to hear from their Intuitive mind. The table above predicts that those verbalizations are more likely to be in the present tense, to have a more emotional tone, and to be stronger motivators of behavior. (Indeed, this was the old psychoanalytic rationale for using free association in therapy). If we ask someone to reflect calmly and thoughtfully on their experiences, we would expect a higher level of abstraction in their thinking, more use of the past or future tense, and a greater discrepancy between the things they say and what they actually do. You can try this at home, to see if my predictions resonate with your own experience. Meanwhile, I will continue looking for associations with temporal immediacy in the lab, including the linkages between these two types of mental processes and the systems that are hypothesized to produce them in the brain.