Fast to Slow Thinking

Fast thinking is not the problem. It’s the reason we survive.

If we were driving home and carefully examined every leaf on every tree, or stopped to read every sign we passed, we would never make it home. Our brains are designed to make quick associations and assumptions. This kind of fast thinking keeps us safe, efficient, and oriented in the world.

It has both a purpose and a place.

Fast thinking becomes risky when we apply it to humans.

In Shape Our Village, fast-to-slow thinking refers to the intentional practice of noticing automatic assumptions and slowing interpretation when working with caregivers, professionals, and learners.

When Fast Thinking Meets Relationship

In behavior analysis and caregiver-centered ABA work, fast thinking often shows up as quick interpretations of behavior. In our work, we often use a simple example: when I say “peanut butter,” you might automatically think “jelly.”

That quick association isn’t wrong but learned. Through experience and repetition, your brain has built a relationship between those two words. In behavioral science, this is described through Relational Frame Theory or the idea that humans learn by relating concepts to one another, often automatically and without conscious effort.

The trouble begins when we don’t realize we’re doing the same thing with people.

Even simple exchanges like “when I say peanut butter, you say…” rely on shared relational histories, but shared meaning cannot be assumed. A family from another country, another region, or even another household may use peanuts differently, speak differently, gesture differently, or attach entirely different meanings to the same word, expectation, or behavior.

When we assume shared meaning where it doesn’t exist, we don’t just risk misunderstanding. We also risk misinterpreting people themselves.

In the United States alone, there are countless dialects, cultural norms, and communication styles. We often assume the person in front of us assigns the same value, intention, or meaning to a word, phrase, gesture, or behavior that we do, and this happens far more often than we are aware.

The work is not to learn every culture. The work is to stay open, stay curious, and take the time to learn about the human in front of us. To switch to slow thinking.

Parents, professionals, and learners all come into a family system carrying prior experiences. Some families have never encountered ABA, while some have had deeply painful experiences. Some have felt dismissed, reduced to numbers, or misunderstood by systems meant to help them. Others may have had positive, supportive experiences and arrive with trust already built and high hopes.

None of this is visible on the surface and yet our brains are constantly filling in gaps.

We make quick associations. We draw fast conclusions. We tell ourselves a story often without realizing it.

Assumptions are Human, Awareness is the Skill

The word bias can feel heavy or triggering, but at its core, this is not a moral issue — it’s a scientific one. Humans make assumptions based on what is already in their repertoire. This happens unintentionally and constantly. When we bring awareness to it, we gain choice.

Within Shape Our Village, fast-to-slow thinking is treated as a learnable skill not a personal failing.

When we slow down, assumptions become information. Then, information becomes curiosity.

Curiosity opens space for understanding. This shift alone can transform relationships.

Behavior as Information, Always

When someone is exhibiting a behavior we don’t understand, there is always more to the story. Always.

Behavior is not the full picture but a signal pointing toward context, capacity, history, and need.

Fast thinking urges us to label quickly. Slow thinking invites us to look deeper. This is where learning lives.

Slowing down allows us to sit cross-legged with a situation, to hold it with curiosity rather than

urgency. In that space, something remarkable happens: learning becomes exciting again.

The Harm of Being Mischaracterized

One of the most deeply painful human experiences is being misunderstood, being reduced to a story that doesn’t fit. It happens all the time.

And here is the second half of the learning: when you are mischaracterized, it is often because someone else is relying on a quick association based on their repertoire, not because you are actually who they think you are.

This doesn’t make the hurt disappear, but it does remove shame. It reminds us that misunderstanding is a human pattern and that repair is possible when we slow down together.

The Art of Slowing Down Together

Within the Shape Our Village curriculum, this practice is referred to as The Art which is the intentional slowing of interpretation to support relationship, learning, and care.

The Art is not about techniques or scripts. It is about intentionally carving out time and space to build relationships, to see one another fully and to check our assumptions before they harden into narratives.

Family teams practice:

• noticing when they’re moving too fast

• naming assumptions without blame

• returning to curiosity

• and remembering the human in front of them

This is not extra work. It is the work.

Seeing the Human First

Fast thinking helps us function. Slow thinking helps us connect.

When we slow down, we stop skipping over people. We stop collapsing complexity. We stop confusing behavior with intent.

We see the learner. We see the caregiver. We see each other. Learning becomes possible again not just for the child, but for the entire village.

Fast thinking keeps us moving. Slow thinking keeps us human.

A note on inspiration

The language of fast and slow thinking is informed by the work of psychologist Daniel Kahneman, whose book Thinking, Fast and Slow explores how humans make automatic and deliberative judgments.

Within Shape Our Village, we build on these ideas by applying them to relationships, learning, and care, particularly within family systems, where slowing interpretation becomes an ethical and relational practice.

Where do you notice yourself moving quickly?

* This piece was originally published on Substack.

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