Summary Of The Chip Paradox

When presented with uncertainty about a decision, or perceiving a threat to survival such as having to swing around a horizontally metal 1-inch pole’s axis completely with nothing to hold on to other than your hands, physiological changes in the body occur (known as the ‘fight-or-flight’ response) that are known to excite the sympathetic-division of the autonomic nervous-system into a ‘hyper-aroused’ state which is described to be “a non-specific response” to stress by Selye (1979) [reference to textbook case study on pg243]. Continuing on with Selye’s pioneered research on ‘stress’, he was able to distinguish between two different responses to ‘stress’ – a negative response would be labeled ‘distress’ and can be seen in worrying situations;

Dr. Steve Peters, one of the best sports-psychologists with an interest in the working of the human mind and how it can reach optimum performance as well as the author of his own book, ‘The Chimp Paradox’, explains the situation at hand in a very

simplistic analogy “of 6 different brains in conflict with one another”3 and continues to discuss what is going on by using his ‘Chimp Model’4.

Dr. Peters suggests that there are 2 major ways of thinking: Logical; and Emotional – and that when we think ‘emotionally’, we are often ‘reacting’ to what is happening at the moment irrationally without much effort needed as opposed to when thinking ‘logically’ (involving more decisions to be made at one’s own will) “in similar lines to the flight and fight response”. When looking at Leyva’s and Maroney’s mishaps, they had experienced the ego-dystonic behaviour of their ‘chimps’, and reacted in accordance to what their chimps had programmed them to do via the ‘computer’ – this is how, according to Prof. Peters, you