Freeze, Fight, or Flight

I've been studying in the field for a long time, and when I read about this concept in this book... it was one of those defining moments. It is not often a "new" concept is verbalized.

Joe Navarro, the author and former FBI agent, says that often we don't have only two options when surprised as is most often reported: fight or flight. We actually have three options: freeze, flight, or fight. It actually makes sense. Now I don't buy his orgins of this behavior, but the studies in this area support his conclusions.

Whenever we are faced with cognitive processing we are in fact freezing. This would be most common in interrogations at the police station- as compared to the would be attacker in the garage parking lot.

When we lie, we often show clues because we are processing information, and weighing our options.

Joe Navarro, I tip my hat to you, for being the first to recognize it and write about it in a book. Cheers!

To those of you that haven't checked out this book, I can highly recommended it- especially if you are in law enforcement, the examples he provides are from the field as a top FBI agent who several times wrote for the FBI bulletin.◦

Freeze, Fight, or Flight