Thought for the day #2

[GEORGE]

How is the human Physche so changable.

How is it that the people I have raced with are such nice, caring, helpful, friendly, and Enthusiasticly social people.
And then you put them behind a racing visor and they become another animal altogether.
Shouldn't a college study be done one these individuals who have two polar opposite personalities the can be switched on and off at will.
Unlike Dr Jeckel and Mr Hyde, The race car driver is totally in control of this personality change.

Discuss

[phantomjock]

Very interesting point.


In fighter training, we were always cautioned about, “Getting Your Fangs Out.” When you get so intent on completing an action – a kill – you lose the perspective of what is really important, say flying the jet. That also is a relevant description of “Target Fixation.” I guess when we speak of “The RED MIST” similar psychological things must be happening. If this is what you are referring to – I bet parallels could easily be drawn.

There are a couple of good books on combat and killing, written from these psychological perspectives by Lt Col Dave Grossman. Both are good and should be required for all combat personnel (IMHO.) http://www.killology.com/book_oncombat_summary.htm


Cognition and Arousal are two components that can be easily described and for a deeper look – you could check out the Changing Minds web pages Nice 4 Box diagram [Four Battle Personalities] that may have some useful information on the subject: http://changingminds.org/disciplines/warfare/articles/battle_personality.htm

Sure, there aren't direct correlations - but may be indicative of enough similarities to continue/spark more discussion.

No, I’m not a psychologist, but personality typing, learning, training, and Human Factors are a keen interests of mine – especially when wrapped in high stress environments {My masters work was on Human Factors in Air-to-Air Combat- unpublished}


More Discussion? Hope so. Maybe something from "Think Fast" or the Bentley Series fits in here too?

[dalyduo]

Suspect neuro linguistic programming plays into this subject as well.

We all have different dominant sensory awareness that affects the way we process information. Some are visual dominants (how things look), some kinesthetic (how things feel) or auditory (how things sound) Your dominant sense will affect whether you're more analytic or emotional while under performance pressure.

I know several people whose personalities change dramatically in the car.

One guy who has to serve many masters at work uses racing as his one place to go completely selfish and lets his, "Win at all cost" cat out of the bag. He doesn't care if he's liked or respected... He becomes a selfish child with absolutely no shame and behaves like one on track. He doesn't have a lot of fans at the track but he truly doesn't care.