When Danger Looks Beautiful: The Hidden Cost of Stress-Based Decisions

Ep 121. Why We Lose Intelligence Under Stress – The Science of Survival Decisions

When we're in a high-stress situation—facing threat, fear, trauma, shock, or emotional overwhelm—our brain shifts gears. It doesn’t matter how smart you are; under stress and threat, your rational brain takes a back seat. You literally lose access to your full intelligence—your measurable IQ drops.

Why? Because your body prioritizes survival. When you enter a fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response, your skeletal muscles and primitive brain functions take over. This is your Body Alarm Reaction. In this state, the brain can't afford the luxury of slow, logical thinking.

You don't analyze the floor when it's collapsing—you run.

This is why cognitive function is overridden during emergencies, arguments, panic attacks, or trauma. Your body reacts before your brain has time to think. Thinking is too slow in a gunfight. And it’s too slow when you’re emotionally overwhelmed, spiraling in anxiety, or facing relational conflict.

In these moments, we don’t think clearly—we feel first. And feelings distort thinking. This makes us vulnerable to poor decisions, risky behavior, and false assumptions—like trusting someone dangerous just because they seem attractive, familiar, or comforting in the moment.

This is known as “When the dangerous looks beautiful.” It’s a brain shortcut meant to reduce perceived threat quickly, but it often backfires—leading us from the frying pan into the fire.

We also tend to misjudge others, project our emotional state onto them, and assume they’ll respond like we would. But they don’t. And sometimes, that can result in conflict, even violence, simply because we overestimated the similarity between us.

Bottom line? Assumptions are dangerous. Stress distorts our reality.

To stay safe and connected, we must learn to pause, breathe, and restore our ability to reason—even when everything in us wants to react.

🧠 Your mind under pressure isn’t broken—it’s just trying to protect you. But we must practice how to re-engage our higher brain, especially in moments when it matters most.

Take care of your nervous system. Train your calm. Think before you speak.
 choose wisely, walk well.

Transcript

Welcome back folks to episode 121 of the Running Man Self-Regulation Skills Project Podcast with me, your host Dr. Armando Dominguez, PhD in Health Psychology, licensed professional counselor and an adjunct professor at a local community college. What we're going to be discussing today is basically a principle that nature implies danger with, and that is...

when things are shiny and bright and Chances are they're poisonous and dangerous to us, so we must stay away.

that is a signal that tells us don't go near and even our behaviors as humans tend to reflect such things and there are many that may not like this opinion but there are those that change the colors of their hair and the way they adorn themselves to get not only attention but it's more so a signal versus look at me it's more so don't mess with me because i'm dangerous is the underlying tone and sometimes images are either softened by like somebody that's a biker carrying a puppy this sort of thing or somebody that

that is dressed to the nines but yet they get upset when somebody looks at them. they're signaling, and some would say virtue, but I would say signaling social signals that determine whether not there's an approach or avoid consequence resulting in that. So what I want to point out today, the beginning of our discussion is going to be on the heels of a tragedy that's happened here in the United States, and I'm not going to mention the name, but there's been somebody that's been unalived as a result of

of

armando (02:42.616)
would appear on the outside unreasonable to announce that observer, if they were to comment on what was going on, but also in myself, self-regulation once again, that an option becomes more useful to me in its outcome. And I might take a risk and do something that would otherwise be damaging, harmful or injurious to myself, but yet it becomes an attractive option under a state of duress or stress or

trauma in particular. Now the reason this idea is important is that currently and whenever there is anything political going on like elections and this sort of thing, we see a lot of divisiveness and where people are very astute to what people are saying and listening and reminding and remembering little bitty things and distorting things out of context and sometimes things are worsened or somehow lessened or twisted. So there's this so-called spin that occurs in media and often we miss

the actual message itself and what was intentionally delivered as a message with a certain realm of understanding that is no longer there and things can get misunderstood and then people get upset or offended as a result. Now when we interact individually, where is it that I'm responding from that I would be apt to do something that would be out of my norm as far as character and that would be unpredictable as far as if somebody knows me and they've known me for a long time and then they get

by wow they're always kind they're calm and soft and they are very gentle but yet I wouldn't have expected that from them they would never hurt a fly mind you I use the term never because it's an absolute and sometimes our beliefs are very assumptive such that there is an absolute quality sometimes that we tend to get really comfy with those areas and our assumption of safety is believed to have been met but maybe it's not sometimes we get comfortable we get complacent and we

tend to assume things are the way they look and that can be very dangerous if you're trying to create a safe space for yourself, for your family, that includes that work, how things are happening and maybe even saying things that may be a little off-color or crass but not necessarily harassing per se but in the wrong crowd that could be considered that so then our assumption of safety within the job is not met and I've taken a risk unnecessarily and then somebody may get offended and act on that.

armando (05:12.176)
within that social scheme. So what about the idea of whenever the dangerous is shiny and pretty attractive and beautiful. What does that tell us? If anything, that's an attention grabber that says, pay attention. And the second thing is usually those creatures that have those colors, even a skunk for instance, that is not particularly aggressive, but they're definitely very brightly marked down the back of wherever

However, even if an animal doesn't have color vision but has basically grayscale black-white vision, they're able to determine if something is moving even in the dark that may or may not be good for them. Minus the smell, that identification visually tells us a lot. Should I approach? Probably not. Should I avoid? More than likely. Now, the caveat here is...

We have to be careful whenever we are entertaining the idea of human values in a social situation because often when we become stressed, there is a physical component there. Even if it starts with verbiage and nobody is threatening anyone physically but yet, there is a belief quality, there is a compelling quality that causes the cascade of stress chemicals to occur in the body and then we start ramping up. We get sympathetic tone increase. So heart rate goes up, breathing changes, temperature goes up.

we stronger physically, blood flow goes to the muscles, blood flow leaves the front part of the brain and then all of a sudden, wow, we're not nearly as rational or smart because our IQ, our functional IQ dropped for a moment because we don't have the resident fuel to do the thinking with the deepest levels of our capacity at that point. It's there. It's just not something that we can turn on. It's almost like having a key to an engine, but not knowing where to place the key for a bit. And then by the time you find it, maybe it's too late. And in that sense, whenever we have arousal as a result of getting

offended and honked off at an idea just because somebody said something and we take it up in the sense that that's us to ours to defend somehow then if we're defending an idea why are we physically getting aroused and physically

armando (07:24.822)
angry agitated and sympathetically awakened such that we're going into a high heart rate like we're going to run fight or flee that is a rhetorical question ask yourself this but this may not occur to you very often but it happens to every human being without exclusion that is a safe statement for me to make and the stats would prove it under the right amount of stress we all stress and we all respond sympathetically so this is a very broad breast stroke that

happens to be very accurate when it comes to stress and how we manage but my question once again is what is it that's going on inside of me that makes the attractive appeared rather the dangerous appear attractive and Makes the dangerous look beautiful such that I would choose or pick it not necessarily in that I like it want to pick it up and go play with it like a coral snake but rather In the sense that we would make a decision that otherwise we wouldn't mess with we wouldn't entertain and we'd stay out of that quadrant so to speak and we

would pick a lesser evil or something that is an exact opposite like not being there instead but yet whenever we get to a point where we start choosing a dangerous option, start choosing a damaging option, where we start picking something that would be less than appropriate in the social situation that might harm somebody in a physical sense, could cause somebody to lose a job, could cause somebody mental emotional harm in the sense that the words hurt and it bothers them and they get emotional.

Not only do we get angry sympathetically and fight flight sometimes our flea and our fawning occurs because we may feel threatened by virtue of those words as well and If somebody sells it and they have the body language and the physical capacity to to back it up We have done harm and we have chosen the dangerous the shiny the brightly colored that poisonous thing that otherwise we would have left alone and avoided and just let it be Love live and let live so to speak but instead of two ships passing in the night we

start doing the black flag, flying our pirate ship and start ramming the ship. Instead we choose that. And our question that we should ask ourselves is what is it that goes inside of me, goes on inside of me stress wise that my choosing something that is more damaging, more hurtful, that is not pro-social but rather is anti-social. Mind you anti-social is not the worst along the spectrum but some of us that

armando (09:54.536)
May be able to speak to this do something that is even further along the spectrum called a social that means there aren't any rules and that's direct predator in the sense that I'm hunting you and I'm gonna eat you or kill you this sort of thing a Social no rules. You're playing by my rules, but you don't know about it So we have to think about that too But what is it that generally speaking turns us into more anti-social not pro-social and not rapport building? Often it has to do with our capacity to think being reduced to where our capacity

our strength of rationale and reasoning gets lowered. Some people overvalue the higher cortex in the sense that they tend to think that their best thinking is going to bear them out whenever things are really hard. And sometimes the adage, the cliche, the cooler heads prevailed, not always do they prevail. You can have cooler heads, but if you're dealing with somebody that is a hothead, to use that term, somebody that doesn't have good self-regulation skills, then no matter how much you want to negotiate and do the right thing by keeping

things at the word level and maybe strategizing or coming to an agreement or deciding to agree to disagree in part ways in that sense peaceably without necessarily getting into fisticuffs are worse whenever you deal with somebody that's not willing to do that or their level of arousal is higher

there's a principle from the martial arts too that comes out that came from the injuistic says the stronger spirit always wins and Not making this a spiritual religious perspective or rather more so like the cheerleader in this case we're trying to get people to demonstrate their spirit by getting louder and more physical and and Generate support by making noise so to speak when somebody is in that sense more spirited than the other They're more likely going to win. They may make more errors

But if they're physically superior and capable of creating a threat, then you, the cooler head will be in danger if you're unable to make egress, if you can't get away, or if you know they can outrun you, or if you start turning your back and they go into predator chase mode, you're in big trouble. And those are some realities that occur even within the confines of what we would call our in quotes, social, safe, and assumed safety situation. And it can change very suddenly.

armando (12:11.45)
Now, why am I pointing this out? One is because we're seeing a great deal of agitation globally. Lots of protests, lots of anger, lots of upset. And what we have to look at when we look at groups, we're looking at a mob mentality and the influence of the group where there is a drop in social capacity in the sense that we're no longer doing what an individual will do with the best benefit of my neighbor in mind. But often we will do what otherwise we would not do.

within the anonymity of a group or a crowd or a mob and do something that could be particularly heinous or that otherwise would be considered out of character for me as an individual on the regular social level wherever we're being polite and cordial and using our words and our guidelines and our manners and Whenever we're in a state that we're more physically active and agitated more of a pack mentality There's a potential for danger especially if you don't look like someone else or somebody says

something that doesn't sound like what you're saying, but yet they're dressed like you and then you take them as a traitor, they will get hurt.

They will get pounced upon by the same group that they may have walked in with. But if one person is not doing what everyone else is doing, and the mob is agitated, for instance, the group or the crowd is agitated, and you speak against them, there's a really good chance, even though you started with them, once you realize that they're going further than your own personal level or limit of appropriate or pro-social capacity, then we're looking at the possibility of getting hurt, threatened, assaulted, this sort of thing. So self-righteousness,

the very important thing. But one of the most important things about self-regulation is keeping yourself in a place where you can still self-regulate. Wherever the immediate environment is not suggesting to you danger, danger, wherever you will be going into default mode or where you will be choosing lesser options that have long-term consequences in a moment where you're more physically oriented and we have to realize our wiring, our human capacity. This vehicle was developed during time.

armando (14:18.9)
that there was no law, there weren't any guidelines, there was no socially appropriate, it was a survive and in some cases it was going to be one died and the other didn't. If you were fortunate you'd made it and hopefully not crippled and didn't as a result get lethalized over time because you succumbed to injury. So self-regulation is a very important thing, it's something that we all work with every day. It's not always the extremes but once again on the heels of what

just happened here recently today is 9-eleven the anniversary of of the Twin Towers being Decimated and I remember that many years ago. I was training martial arts in the garage that came in I couldn't believe what I was seeing on the television when I walked in to get water Out of my kitchen Walking out of the garage to go get something to drink It didn't make sense to me at that moment and then the cascade sense has really shifted how we look at things even today the rippling effect of

what happened then impacts how we live today.

Now the only thing that didn't change is the fact that we're human. That is a constant. And those things that are symptomatic of being human, being bipedal for the most part, having high brain capacity and also being social and living in large groups called cities and towns and having technology now, but also communicated vast distances with our verbiage and being largely sociable and getting along and not living within chaos and having guidelines and protections.

That keep us safe generally and allow us to raise kids this sort of thing We live within this space, but we even within those spaces have realized the impact of of tragedy and we just had another one recently and what we're seeing is how people get reduced down to the most emotional state sometimes and react and either celebrate cry because One side or the other got offended but fact of the matter is whenever we have a human being

armando (16:22.612)
that is decimated that is gone as a result of another person's action we're seeing some terrible things going on and we hear opinions come out that are very ham-handed very rude some are very aggressive and some of the faces attached to those opinions don't look like warmongers

They don't look like people that would hurt a fly. That's an assumption. They don't look like people that are very old or very young or carry weapons or have gone to war. Some of these people just regular John Q. Citizen, Jane Q. Citizen, and they have their opinions and say things that are very wrong based on their experience. And many of these people say things because they've been in situations where they've been.

basically spoon-fed what they call their lives and not had anyone resistance against them or threaten injury to them if they say anything that's particularly offensive and they may live by certain rules, largely what comes out is that they're out for themselves.

Now these are a small number that pushed out by media to make it look like there are a lot of people out there that have these opinions and there are but it's not the majority they're a minority and we have to keep that in mind and keep things in order and realize that we can't be following the narrative that is being fed generally through the media because those are very triggers some things because whenever we see you know, we're very vicariously impacted whenever we observe and we see trauma to another we respond

And we went sometimes we don't feel the pain but our body responds because we don't want to feel that that's a very human response And we know that we don't want that to happen to us Even if you your is stress inoculated for military type work. We still shirk back We may see things and keep going and then we compartmentalize and we have that data inside that at some point it's gonna have to be dealt with and it results in sometimes people getting emotional or not wanting to deal with memories and they start using substances and they start doing other things so they don't

armando (18:20.96)
to deal with it because it is that uncomfortable to our human wiring so to speak. But what I want to point out is that self-regulatory skill starts at home and it doesn't just have to be for the individual practicing. You could share this stuff with your kiddos. You can teach it to them. But also propriety is something that's modeled. We show people how to act and how to respond and when to respond and how not to respond as well. And the education that we provide our children for instance before school

Paramount it's incredibly important and the people that we have teaching our kiddos incredibly important folks, too but there are many that do not belong there because their principles and values have been one compromised and to they're too busy espousing their politics versus learning how to act like a decent human being to other people and We have to realize that we're very ego driven and sometimes we have to

Put our egos in check and that means everyone and not be putting our agendas first and realize that we do live within a collective that doesn't mean that your dreams should die and that they're not important and that the group is more important than the whole the individual not saying that the individual is incredibly important. That's what makes up part of that whole but being able to temper ourselves control ourselves and know what is right. What isn't meant what to say what not to say is really important. We have to realize that just because somebody

speak words and they can speak words doesn't mean you should speak words, especially if they're hurtful, damaging or insulting. And there is something to be said about self-control. There really is. But the important thing is that if you deal with just the right person and you've never had resistance and this person that you offend has gone through great trauma or is apt to act out, that does not make them a bad person, but it does make them somebody that may be sensitive. And if you're pushing that button,

Who's at fault? You can always say, I was just saying words. Yes, but you don't know what's happened to them. And if you cause them a reaction that might indicate that a traumatic reaction may come up to them for them rather than your equally as fault for, starting, even though you may not have physically done anything to them. We have to realize that not everyone has the same capacity to manage what it is that we call our verbal communication or conceptual stress that we might put on somebody or an

armando (20:46.737)
some people like to do that just to get people to react and then they cry victim whenever they get beaten or hurt because these people do not have the same level of self-control that they think they should have they assume that because they can talk and get away with it that somehow the people they're speaking to are willing to entertain that and not act out and We can't run around that assumption because you put yourself in danger and then you wind up yes getting hurt and yes the person that acts that way does

and where you injure another, you will be held responsible and accountable. And those of us that aren't suffering with something like that don't have an excuse. People that do suffer with that do not have an excuse for acting out there. They're to be held accountable and responsible. Now, can they be held competent for trial for certain things? Maybe not, but what we have to realize that they're being held accountable and responsible by having

in in the hospital or a jail setting to where they're away from the regular population. So there is a consequence no matter what. And we have to realize that we have to learn how to regulate ourselves ultimately when acting with people, acting out with people, whenever being in groups and even when we're by ourselves. We have to remember that it is up to us if it's going to change. If it's going to be, it's up to me. And yes, that's cliche, but it makes a really good point of if we want

change our world. We have to change the space that I occupy within that world. I have to change me. And it's not change for changes sake, but rather change for the sake of improvement, for evolution of self, and also the evolution of how I interact with people out in the world. And improving those settings whenever I'm out there by virtue of my changing me by arriving as a better person. That's going to be it for today. That's a lot in a little bit. And I just want to say thank you for listening to me.

this

armando (23:16.187)
direction we're probably about a step and a half away from there and that is the goal if you have any feedback or comments for me or in anything you'd like me to talk about please send it in that suggestion to my email at running man get skills project at gmail I'd love to hear from you take care walk well