List #19: 30 Things I’ve Learnt About Human Behaviour That Show Up Everywhere

30 Lists of 30 to Celebrate my 30th Birthday

11 min readAug 19, 2021

The What & Why Behind This Project:

This year I turn 30. And my gosh, I have been thinking about it a lot. I don’t know if it’s the pandemic, or the fact that this milestone is loaded with many societal expectations, but my mind has inundated me with reflections and memories from the past, with questions arising about my life choices and lesson learnt, about my expectations of being a human and about my desires for the future. And this combined with pandemic reflections has meant there has been a lot on my mind….🤔

I started writing a series of questions and lists of all the elements I wanted to capture and articulate. There were a lot, unsurprisingly; 30 years is a long time really! So I gave up on the 1 list idea that I normally write (30 reflections/lessons turning 30) and decided to write 30 lists.

30 Lists of 30, for my 30th Birthday.

Who are these lists for, you might wonder? I started writing reflections many years ago to get to know myself better. And when I shared these raw and real accounts with friends I discovered that what I wrote about my individual journey, touched upon something universally human. Beyond the masks and labels we wear is a messy, beautifully complex life, with highs and lows. And more similar to others than we might think.

So I share them in the hope that you too might feel something — intrigue, joy, resonance or maybe even difference — as you reflect on what it means to be a human. I recognise that my experiences are my own, that some come from a place of privilege and that they may not all be relatable or interesting to you. I know I can’t please everyone, so take what you can…(and let me know what lands!).

So, Back to Lists…

The Why Behind List #19: 30 Things I’ve Learnt About Human Behaviour That Show Up Everywhere

Part of the reason I enjoy learning about frameworks for human behaviour is that is that they open up a new door to looking at any given moment. Suddenly you see how biased we are, how many things you never even noticed, and you can get a richer understanding of the factors involved in driving a decision. These principles show up everywhere so it is worth gaining the self-awareness to see them!

List #19: 30 Things I’ve Learnt About Human Behaviour That Show Up Everywhere

Confirmation Bias — we tend to notice and place more value on information that fits within our current beliefs. Therefore our reality is distorted because collect the evidence we want and disregard anything which challenges our beliefs. Beliefs are what build our narratives about the world and our narratives drive our decision making and therefore behaviour, so this bias is likely hidden in decisions we take — subconsciously and consciously. Knowing this bias exists, we can pause before making a decision and question what part of reality we have not seen or looked for that might also be useful to know. And then we don’t get have accurate feedback if we don’t test our beliefs.
Recency/ Availability Bias — we use the most recent or readily available information we have to make decisions. Essentially, this means that what is most memorable has more weighting. Often seen in a negative light it also has a positive angle. You can use this to your advantage with people by simply being more memorable and ensuring you stay front of their mind, so when people need help with something you’re often the first to go to.
Priming — We are influenced in our exposure to a stimulus by what stimulus has come before. This can have a huge effect on our behaviour — simply by reading text that includes deconstructive behaviour (e.g. aggression) we are more likely to be aggressive. This effect can also show up positively too so when you’re designing experiences or leading groups, it helps to prime people in the way you want them to behave by using the right language.
Cialdini’s 7 principles of influence: Consistency — people like to be consistent in their actions and words so asking for small commitments first will increase the likelihood of people fulfilling big ones. Likeability — people will do things for people they like. Authority — people give more weight to people who seem credible or experts. Scarcity — people want more of what they feel they can’t have. Social Validation — people look to others’ actions and behaviours to learn how to behave themselves. Reciprocity — feeling a duty to give back to someone who have given something. Unity — when we feel a shared identity (or feeling of belonging) with someone, we are more open to being persuaded. All 7 influencing methods are hugely impactful. When it comes to interactions and building relationships, being likeable, giving first (reciprocity), creating a sense of shared identity (unity) and modelling the rewarded behaviour (social validation) are super important.
Cause & Effect (NLP) — we make relationships all the time between our actions and this shows up in our language in words or phrases like ‘because’, ‘leads to’, ‘makes me feel’. These kinds of mental models limits our ability to have agency because it assumes we can’t influence the effect something has on us. It is important to realise that this relationship is not fixed — we can be empowered to respond differently.
Modal Operators (NLP) — Our language patterns (e.g. should, must, have to, cannot) highlight what we believe the rules of life are. They are usually what restrict us from taking a different action, because we believe there is some fixed rule that we can’t ignore. It is important to recognise that all beliefs are just beliefs and not the truth.
Non-Verbal Universal Signals of Emotions — According to Paul Ekman, there are 7 emotions which have universal facial expressions — sadness, anger , happiness, fear, disgust, contempt, surprise. Learning to read these expressions non-verbally, especially the reliable indicators (particular movements that are hard to consciously make) can give you an insight into how someone is feeling, even if they are choosing not to share this verbally. This is super powerful for building empathy, understanding deception and helping others build their self-awareness around their feelings.
Behavioural Indicators of Deception — there is so much rubbish available about how certain behaviours indicate deception when the actual research suggests that we hot spots for deception is more about identifying behavioural change from someone’s baseline, or a lack of congruence with other data channels (e.g. verbal content or the voice).
Relevance theory (linguistics) — when making utterances we take into account context and make assumptions about what our partner understands and what is relevant to them. What this means is that a lot is inferred, there is often a distance between what is implied and heard and that meaning is negotiated. Essentially this highlights the importance of understanding everything with its context, and also explains mis-communications.
Yes, And vs Yes But (improvisation acting)- This model is more than an improv game, as it highlights how we engage with other’s ideas — do we add to them, negate them or change the subject entirely? This is a big one when it comes to building flow in a conversation and creating the infrastructure for building emergent creative ideas collaboratively.
The Liking Gap — We think people like us more than we think they do, and this is often perceived most when we meet new people.
Affect Heuristic — Our decisions are highly influenced by our current mood. This one is super interesting, as it invites you to notice which times of the day/ month you make your best and worst decisions. Things like food, sleep and feeling stressed can have a massive influence so its important to identify which days/times you should not let yourself make important decisions.
Anchoring Bias — when reviewing information, we interpret it from the reference point of previous information and not objectively. This is a massive sales tactic as it makes medium-high prices look more reasonable against high ones. How we value anything is generally skewed by other related reference points which highlights how inter-subjective everything is.
Social Norms Are Just Shared Collective Stories — that we agree on and then reinforce as the truth our behaviours, but they have no objective standing. Which means, that they can and do change and aren’t the only way we can behave.
Group Conformity Influence — Our behaviour is strongly influenced by groups, and we are willing to ignore the truth of our reality in order to fit in.
Framing — Our decisions are influenced by how information is shared with us. For instance, if we frame information around it positive or negative effects, we’ll influence people in different ways (e.g 90% success rate vs 10% failure rate).
Loss Aversion — the pain of losing is worse than the pleasure of gaining. This can affect our ability to take risks even if they have a high reward.
Internal & External Motivation and the Overjustification Effect — we are driven by both our internal intrinsic desires and by external rewards, but too many external motivators can reduce internal motivation.
Intergroup Empathy Bias — Empathy is powerful for connecting us to other’s perspectives and experiences but it can have negative effects when others are not felt to be in your ‘tribe’.
Cognitive Dissonance— when what we believe and do are different, or conflicts between two opposing beliefs we have. When you become aware of this inconsistency it can create internal tension and shame.
Exposure Effect — we have a preference for familiar things. This is useful to know when we are designing new habits or meeting new people. Exposing ourselves to many people (even if incredibly brief), for instance, can be a powerful strategy for helping people choose you.
Variable Rewards — the uncertainty of not knowing what result you might gain is highly addictive and a large part of our obsessions with our smartphones, social media and gambling.
Negativity Bias — Negative events have more a adverse effect that positive ones, which can affect our ability take risks (linking to loss aversion).
Survivorship Bias — We mistakenly assume that the surviving data is complete/ the whole data, without recognising that it is only a subset of the data — the data that survived. This is prevalent when we look at entrepreneurial success stories (when most ventures don’t actually succeed) and also history.
Sunk Cost Fallacy — We tend to follow through with a behaviour, even if its not benefiting us, if we have invested a lot if resources in it. Such a classic bias that can affect how long we stay in careers we hate.
Pygmalion Affect — Our expectations of others performance becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: they perform better or worse than others dependent on how we expect them to perform. This shows how much we can influence others’ potential simply through our subconscious or conscious beliefs about them.
Suggestibility Bias— We understand or alter our behaviour based on other’s inputs, such as the way they describe something or their behaviour. Yawning is contagious.
Heuristics, Generally — In order to have the mental cognitive bandwidth to absorb all the information in life and make, we create mental shortcuts to aid us. However useful, these shortcuts often involve making generalizations, or missing out on important informations, which can be lead to inaccurate conclusions. Availability and anchoring are examples of heuristics.
Source Confusion —it is hard to remember where are memories come from, so we often confusion the source and therefore can’t understand the likelihood of each memory. It is worth highlighting how fallible memories are generally and how we are easily influenced in our capabilities by the language someone else uses to describe an episodic event. Additionally every time you revisit a memory you change it.
Dunning-Kruger Effect — we both overestimate our competence through a lack of skills and knowledge and also underestimate how much we excel in some area, thinking it is easy for everyone. This is a fascinating effect when it comes to building your own business because our confidence in everything we need to learn is perhaps unfounded, and yet the things we can offer the most in the world we may not share!

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