Let’s say you want to move from the United States to Paris. Without realizing it, you’ll start listening to French music and picking up on French culture. Though your body is in the United States, in your mind you’re already living in Paris.
“It is a very complicated cognitive process making decisions before you even realize it,” said David Kyle, a professor of sociology in the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis.
In 2009, Kyle coined the term "cognitive migration" to describe the decision-making process that allows us to imagine ourselves embedded in new places and cultures. When we engage in this process, we take on a new identity.
How do we travel in our minds?
Cognitive migration describes when our imagination guides us through potential futures. It’s a process through which we work out the emotional, cognitive and social problems of traveling to a new location by putting ourselves in a future time and space.
“You might think you’re migrating or resettling to a different place once you drive or fly there, however, you have already moved there in your mind many times over and that will continue to shape your experience of it once you arrive,” Kyle said.
According to this idea, which Kyle introduced in collaboration with Finnish sociologist Saara Koikkalainen, before any major move we take on a new identity and truly start to feel like we are part of new cultures.
Our mental journeys can be influenced by all sorts of social factors, such as our friends, mentors, and even institutional authorities. These factors can help us face uncertainty and anxiety. Although, these positive influences can also disrupt our sense of self.
“It’s a feature of who we are, our bodies are not necessarily where our minds are,” Kyle said.
How can our cognitive migrations be manipulated?
While cognitive migration can be positively influenced by social factors, these factors can manipulate our mental journeys as well. For instance, harassment can disrupt our journeys and influence our decisions. Cognitive migrations can also be influenced more subtly as well.
“Even normal marketing and propaganda techniques can manipulate how we can live in the future” Kyle said.
While these techniques are not manipulating our rational brains, they influence our imagination and how we see our futures. Doing so disrupts our sense of self, potentially leading to self-harm, burnout and decreased creativity.
Kyle explained that, although it isn’t perfect, our decision-making process is a superpower. Cognitive migration forces us to think about how our future shapes our current identity.
“To work out what the future is going to be like is to empathize with your future self,” Kyle said.
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