It’s an interesting question you might never have thought about.\u00a0 Let’s have some fun putting this into context.\u00a0 Suppose you were out trail riding on a pleasant evening and you’re abducted by aliens!\u00a0 The transport you to their home planet.\u00a0 While you’re there, you observe cultures and customs that are nothing like anything you’ve seen before.\u00a0 You have no idea what is going on or why anyone is doing what they do.\u00a0 How are you going to start making sense of that?<\/p>\n
This is a known phenomenon, and it’s called the False Consensus Effect.\u00a0 In essence it is the belief that everyone thinks the same way you do.\u00a0 This effect is exacerbated when you’re in a group of people that really do<\/em> share common values or beliefs.\u00a0 You’ll likely find that many of your friends are friends because of that – you agree on many things.<\/p>\n The reason we call this the false<\/em> consensus effect is that people don’t <\/em>all\u00a0<\/em>think the same way.\u00a0 Everyone has different thoughts, individual values and unique understandings.\u00a0 It’s what makes the world an interesting place to live in. Can you imagine what our social culture would be like if everyone agreed on everything?\u00a0 If everyone liked exactly the same things?\u00a0 It would sure make marketing easy, that’s for sure.\u00a0 Political debates would be a thing of the past.\u00a0 Facebook and Instagram wouldn’t need ‘likes’.<\/p>\n In our horse world, we can observe the False Consensus Effect in a few different scenarios.\u00a0 Let’s take a look at some of them.<\/p>\n Lacking an understanding of horse psychology, and let’s be honest – no one teaches it – the False Consensus Effect will cause us to project our own values, opinions and beliefs on the horse.\u00a0 Because they’re radically different and we don’t think like they do, the way we make sense of their actions is to use ourselves<\/em> as the comparison.\u00a0 You’ll know when this is occurring because you’ll hear phrases like, “My horse is misbehaving.”\u00a0 or “My horse doesn’t respect me.” or “My horse is acting fussy.”\u00a0 Because if it were a human doing those things, that’s what we’d<\/em> think about it .<\/p>\n Let’s use our alien planet scenario again.\u00a0 At some point during the day, all the aliens walk into a building.\u00a0 You follow.\u00a0 You watch as, in turn, each alien takes a cup of what appears to you to be acid and pours it on their head.\u00a0 Obviously they love this – but your belief is that acid will eat through your scalp.\u00a0 So you hesitate and don’t pick up a cup.\u00a0 The lead alien is outraged and whacks you with a stick.\u00a0 Clearly you are misbehaving<\/em>.\u00a0 Clearly you are being disrespectful<\/em>!<\/p>\n Compare that to asking a horse to walk through an obstacle they’re scared of.\u00a0 They might think they’re going to die.\u00a0 With this new understanding, how will you handle it?<\/p>\n Well, we certainly won’t get angry at the horse for not doing what we wanted.\u00a0 Instead, we’re going to put on our responsible leader hat and work through the issue in a positive way to create success for both our horse, and us.\u00a0 Here are a few thoughts:<\/p>\n I once worked with a client once that had this concern:\u00a0“My horse side-passes to the right fine, but when I pressure her to side-pass to the left, she crow-hops.\u00a0 What’s wrong with her?”<\/p>\n Honestly, great question.\u00a0 And kudos to my client for seeking help.\u00a0 It’s what I’m here for.\u00a0 First of all, a horse having more difficulty with pressure on one side is almost a given.\u00a0 Lets look at how the mental and physical pieces tie together here.\u00a0 If she’s having trouble with pressure on her right side (asking for a left side-pass) then when pressure is applied, her response will be to brace<\/em>.\u00a0 That means her mental tension has led to physical tension – muscles that need to be loose in order to move are now tight. With tension in her back, she will be physically unable to move legs as intended.\u00a0 Applying more pressure will cause her to brace more, making it even harder.\u00a0 Eventually if more pressure is added, she will<\/em> do something – and that ‘something’ could be buck.<\/p>\n So what was the solution?\u00a0 We showed her how to release to pressure, that is, to let go of muscular and mental tension as a response of our leadership.\u00a0 Then she was able to soften and yield to pressure, particularly on the right side. The owner and I discussed her mare’s body and what has to happen bio-mechanically in order to perform the maneuver. That is all about balance and where the horse transfers mass – again, something that’s unfortunately not part of conventional rider training.\u00a0 We broke the exercise down into specific progressions and worked on them individually: release in forward motion, adding pressure to release on the right side and moving the front and hind independently.\u00a0 Sound like a long term process? It wasn’t. That work was accomplished in one session.<\/p>\n Armed with knowledge and it’s practical application, this horse – and her owner – have never had the problem again.\u00a0 Likely she’ll never have this problem with any horse she works with in the future either, because she has an understanding she didn’t have before.<\/p>\n So how do we avoid the treacherous False Consensus Effect?\u00a0 In a nutshell, we learn about how our horses think and how their bodies work.\u00a0 With that knowledge we no longer have to guess about why a horse is doing what he or she is doing.\u00a0 We can toss misunderstandings, personification and <\/b>anthropomorphism<\/b><\/span> aside and use our new knowledge to build experience which allows us to advance in our success.\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n Happy 2018!<\/p>\n Scott Phillips – January 2018<\/p>\n![\"alien](\"http:\/\/articles.amazinghorsecountry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/ufo-1265186_640-300x169.jpg\")
Your brain will want to make order of what you see.\u00a0 Your understanding of something you are not familiar with starts by using information you already have.<\/em>\u00a0 Without consciously thinking about it, you will start with this premise: that your <\/em>opinions, your<\/em> beliefs, your<\/em> preferences, your<\/em> values, and your<\/em> habits are normal and typical.\u00a0 From that you will start making comparisons and assessments.\u00a0 You will seek similarities between what you are observing and your own life.\u00a0 You will make judgments based on your morals.\u00a0 And you will make a ton of assumptions.\u00a0 And you know what they say about assumptions!<\/p>\n\n
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That’s no different than hearing someone say, “My car hates me.\u00a0 Every time I drive it, it breaks down.”\u00a0Sometimes we refer to this phenomenon as personification<\/em>.\u00a0 That means that we’re subconsciously human qualities to a non-human object or animal in an attempt to explain what they’re doing.\u00a0 \u00a0We sometimes personify when we seek an understanding of what we see but lack the knowledge to explain it.\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong>And it’s critical as horse-people that we overcome this, because it prohibits us from advancing our knowledge and skills.<\/p>\n\n
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