The Illusion of Knowing: Why Stress Makes You Think You’re Right

Ep 145. When we experience stress—whether from physical danger or social judgment—our sense of safety becomes compromised. The body responds immediately. Heart rate rises. Breathing shifts. Attention narrows. The nervous system moves into a heightened state designed to protect us.

In these moments, something important happens:

We feel pressure to figure things out quickly.

Human beings are wired to resolve uncertainty. We seek answers, clarity, and predictable outcomes. This drive helps us survive—but under stress, it can also work against us.

With limited information and elevated emotion, the mind begins to fill in the gaps.

We start building narratives. We make assumptions. We interpret signals rapidly—and often incorrectly. The intensity of the feeling creates a powerful illusion:

It feels true… so it must be true.

This is the illusion of knowing.

Under stress, confidence can appear quickly—but it is often built on emotional intensity rather than accurate perception. The brain prioritizes speed over precision, leading us to act on incomplete or distorted information. Decisions made in this state can feel certain—but may be fundamentally flawed.

This is where many mistakes are made.

Not because we lack intelligence—but because we are dysregulated.

True confidence does not come from rushing to conclusions. It comes from self-regulation.

When we learn to regulate the body—through breath control, awareness, and physiological grounding—we reduce the emotional intensity driving our perception. This creates space for clearer thinking, better judgment, and more accurate interpretation of what is actually happening.

Instead of reacting to assumptions, we respond to reality.

Instead of being driven by urgency, we operate with clarity.

The difference is critical:

• Illusion of knowing = stress + assumption
• True confidence = regulation + awareness

Mastering this distinction allows us to make better decisions, communicate more effectively, and maintain control—even in high-pressure environments.

Slow the body. Clarify the mind. Choose the response.

Take care. Walk well.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Welcome back, folks, to episode one hundred and forty-five 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. And what we're going to discuss today has to do with stress-borne states that bring about what we would call the illusion of knowing, thinking that what is happening is the way it looks. And often when we're under stress, we're more apt to believe what our perceptions are telling us versus what the facts may actually be, and we may misinterpret evidence as a result. So we have a sense of confidence that comes along with being self-regulated and comfortable and being able to have a sense of I'm not going to interpret prematurely. But also there's a sense of certainty that comes along whenever things come up very quickly, when acute stress and the speed of a situation may be threatening somehow. We tend to lean on things based on what we assume to be correct, and that assumption often happens at light speed, it seems. And uh we're going to discuss these two things. So the illusion of knowing and also self-regulation and confidence, and also what comes to be belief born of stress. So to kick off the discussion, we're going to discuss what stress does to us, as far as at the perceptual level, uh we tend to become much more dominant on in the sense that we rely more so on our perceptions. That's going to be our five senses, and taking in that information and using that moment to moment, and we do interpret it at the neurological level before it ever becomes a thought process that we can narrate and give names and labels to, this sort of thing. So it happens very quickly. So not everything is going to come up as, oh, a friend or a foe, and I have an ability to tell the difference if it's too fast. About 150 to 300 milliseconds, that's pretty darn fast. That allows us to differentiate if somebody is friend or foe, this sort of thing in an environment. But any faster than that, closer to the 60 millisecond range and less, or 60 milliseconds to about 100 milliseconds, we start dealing with things as if they're a threat by default. But the illusion of knowing often may arise from what we see in our environment. And we have to default to our perceptions because that all that is autonomic, it's automatic, it's something that we enter into any situ any and all situations, and that is not an absolute, but that is as close as absolute as we can get accurately and determine whether or not in an environment uh is something is dangerous to us, or can I approach it, avoid it, this sort of thing. So it's hedonically driven, yes, and it has to do with our immediate sense of safety. But uh the illusion of knowing, uh the reason I use this term is that often under stress, uncertainty is really uncomfortable. And it's a physiological sense of discomfort, not only neurological firing that says, hurry, hurry, get out of here, this doesn't look good, because there's uh a measure of ambiguity when there isn't any clarity, when there are things aren't differentiated and things are nebulous or not very well detailed, we tend to treat them as if it could be potentially dangerous. Not that it's a threat, but it could be potentially threatening to us. So therefore, that ambiguity can make us terribly uncomfortable, and we may start acting on what evidence we may have. And it's a functional belief system of sorts, but not one that you get inculcated in and have to go to school to learn, but rather one based on the evidence and the signals that are coming in at a very fast rate. We have to determine so we can make a decision to either get out of there really fast to maintain our survival as an organism, or to make friends with it or eat it or other things. And uh this is one of the things that helps us in resolving moment-to-moment uh situations, but resolution is something that we need whenever stress is high. And resolution is what we seek when stress is high, and therefore we seek for the certainties and the evidence to support that. But if it comes on too fast, that need for certainty and that need for resolution to actually lessen the level of anxiety, stress, or discomfort becomes very compelling. And we may be more apt to take on a belief based on what things look like and how they seem versus how they actually are. And we need to be able to have a little distance and time to be able to do that, to be able to engage one, our rationale and two, our proximity that allows us to have more than two arms length and six inches between our fingertips to allow us to have space to see what's there, if it's an individual or being or something that may be teetering or about to fall, so I can get out of the way, this sort of thing. So time is very important to this. Now, the need for certainty is something that we all have, and we seek that by looking for answers. Clear answers are helpful. Whenever we're in a social situation where we're, let's say, debating or or arguing something with somebody, in that sort of situation, we're in need of clear answers, so we ask for definitions. But if things are happening too fast, we very quickly will opt out of the seeking definition to the assumption of whatever belief I may be taking based on what things look like, what I've heard, and I may concoct a narrative that may be absolutely incorrect or terribly inaccurate, such that I may act on it and I might have feelings about it. And that tends to fall into the category of supportive evidence of sorts within us, and this happens within fractions of a moment, mind you. And you may have seen situations get derailed based on somebody not hearing clearly, and whenever the hyperarousal happens, heart rate goes up, breathing changes, and my running model kind of uh points this out too, is that we lose blood flow to the inner ear, so the ossicles, the little bones in our ears do not transmit sound nearly as well. And also on top of that, we start losing fine motor skill in our fingertips, we get a little more ham-handed, and we tend to gesticulate much more largely and abruptly, and that can cause stress in somebody else that may be nearest to where they may feel a little threatened or anxious, or as a result of seeing us moving more abruptly because we're starting to move into uh gross motor skill dominance, and we're losing fine motor skills, so we can't pick up coins off a table if we had to. We have to slide them off into our other palm because we're a lot stronger, but we're losing some general finesse, physical finesse, in addition to some actual finesse and be able to hear clearly. You don't have to be hearing if you're in the state of elevated heart rate, because if you're exercising sitting down or standing like a bean pole right where you're at and not moving whenever stress is happening, you should be running. You should be away from there as far as what our physiology is telling us. You don't need to hear clearly or speak clearly and be able to make math happen. Blood flow leaves the front part of the brain, we get a little dumber, but we do that to trade for this for the strength and uh capacity to be fast and be able to get away. Um, momentarily, all that stuff comes back over time once the stress is gone, once our assumption of safety is met once again. But the important thing is that whenever this occurs, we lose fine motor skill, we lose capacity to hear clearly, and those are the things that we need most whenever we're trying to muddle through an argument or a disagreement, and we don't want it to turn into something that could be potentially violent if somebody gets offended. Now, clear answers, we need those to be able to continue with a communication, especially if we're verbalizing things. Uh defined meaning to the best of our abilities, we want to be on the same page. If we're in the ballpark and we're talking dog, what dog specifically? My dog? Have you seen my dog? Those kind of things are really important. But generally speaking, we know what the category dog means and the umpteen different variations of what you consider dog and my understanding of what dog is are probably within the ballpark, but we're not on the field playing ball. Now, if we're talking about my little chihuahua, then we're playing ball. We're talking about my my dog. Yeah, that little brown one with the with the baseball bat and the suit. Yeah, that's mine. That kind of thing. Whenever we get very specific, then we're able to communicate more effectively, and we have a defined idea as to what it is we're talking about on the same page, clarification, the meaning, and then we have an elevation of predictable outcomes as a result of having these things. Very important stuff. So this creates a very strong pull towards certainty when we're able to seek certainty, seek clear answers, define meaning and predictable outcomes. These pushes in the direction of having a level of certainty. Now, to touch on the term illusion of knowing that I was mentioned earlier. Now, whenever we're under stress, certainty can arise quickly. It certainly can. And uh this is something that we have to pay attention to. We may be very fortunate and have things turn up the way they look, and then we have the evidence that we need, and things are something that I would call largely reliable, we'll call that certainty, and we can count on those things, but it doesn't always play out that way. But whenever the illusion of knowing starts occurring, a person may feel that I know what this is, but if our stress level is really high, we may be apt to believe that more quickly with inaccurate evidence, or maybe with a lack of evidence or no evidence, or maybe just believing it to be because they heard it from somebody, because that could be evidence enough if they have a measure of trust, or they have a visual image of this individual or or history of this individual being trustworthy, and then all of a sudden, whatever they tell me, their word is law, it is reliable, so therefore I believe it. And it could be totally wrong. And this is where things like uh talking behind people's back and gossip can become very damaging, and usually nobody goes back and corrects the errors of those things that are being passed around that are inaccurate. But I'm pointing this out because this is a dynamic we have to pay attention to. A lot of that is stress-born. If we think about when we hear things being passed along, often there is an inflection or tone of sincerity. I believe this, and also one of this is important, so it's not the typical voice tone you would hear if you're talking about, oh, we need postage stamps. So things to pay attention to. I understand what's happening. Now, understanding is something that we do when we have higher cognitive process, when our prefrontal cortex is nice and full of blood carrying blood sugar to do the things that we call thinking. But whenever our heart rate goes up, we start to marginalize that. One plus one equals two. We've had that down since second grade. But now it becomes effort. Now I know how to do it, and I've done it before, but it becomes a little more difficult when I don't have enough fuel to do those things. And this is clearly the situation, in quotes, is something that we could say based on what we believe things to be, our summation of evidence or what's going on. And that may be a conclusion that I've jumped to because once again, uncertainty is uncomfortable, ambiguity is uncomfortable, and we're always in need for resolution. We're always having to make sense. Our brain, by nature, by default, is always seeking to categorize categorize, label, name, and make sense so that way it can put it away and know where to put it. And PTSD, whenever we have things along those lines, um, wherever we're trying to make sense of things that happen too quickly, maybe when we're too young, uh, whenever we didn't have the wherewithal, such as the words or the verbiage or the capacity to protect ourselves, now we have to deal with things that are very visceral, and we have to find a way to make words for that, to bridge that into consciousness, to be able to discuss it and make sense of it and realize that we're not fundamentally flawed, but we're dealing with a fundamentally serious situation with no language with which to speak it. So this is very important stuff. Now, the next thing, the sense of knowing is not always based on full information, is often based on narrow perception. Our eyes tend to move in the direction of uh tunnel vision the higher the heart rate goes, and also rapid category categorization. If it looks that way, therefore it must be, and also state-driven interpretation. We may prematurely interpret stuff based on what things look like. This creates an illusion of knowing, this sense of certainty that I know what I know and therefore it's true, and I'm going to go by it. And of course, that'll fall down like a house of cards once you start trying to apply that and get agreeable or expected outcomes. So some very important stuff to pay attention to. Now, why it feels convincing? Certainty under stress feels real because it reduces internal tension. We have an answer, a direction, or maybe even something we can make plans with. It simplifies decision making. That means it takes the thinking out of thinking. That means we start leaning more towards assumptive reasoning. That means our reasoning does not have the Socratic sense of weighing and and determining whether or not something may be factual, true. Where'd you get it? Does it make sense? This sort of stuff. That doesn't happen. We fast track that to make it a usable tool to help move us towards resolution. When a resolution becomes the cart before the horse, then our reasoning following that horse will lag behind. And often, depending on how stressful things are, we may lean in that direction. The system is not verifying accuracy, it is stabilizing itself. It's trying to stabilize whatever measure of a stimuli that makes me feel stressed or stressful, and might even make me feel threatened at some level. So we have to keep in mind whenever we're seeking that need to resolve and that need to be certain, often depending on how stressful things are, we may jump to a conclusion just with this idea of trying to reestablish that homeostatic comfiness that was not feeling stress before all things started going wrong, if it becomes a stressful situation. Now, there's a cost. The cost of premature certainty when certainty forms too quickly, alternative interpretations are excluded. That means we tend to become a little more concrete and narrowed in what we see as possibilities and outcomes. We're less apt to be open to the ideas and maybe the possibility of an accurate interpretation. Whenever we start having stress, we start leaning on that. We start becoming attached to what it is that we're thinking because we're trying to find a resolution that makes us feel less stressed, makes us feel less threatened. And ambiguity is something we don't need. We want something more concrete. And we lean more towards the concrete because we're losing blood flow to the front part of the brain, to the muscles. It's going to the muscles and it's leaving our intestines and our and our stomach going to the peripheral areas because that's where we need it if we're in a state of fight-flight. If I feel threatened or I feel a sense of vigilance or hypervigilance at the more extreme, that's where it's going to go. And that's what our thinking tends to resemble. But that cost of premature certainty, there is one. New information is ignored. If something is new or novel, that goes against whatever cognitive bandwidth I have available to be able to think with, to be able to make sense with, to be able to determine right, wrong, and way whether or not I should or should not do in a certain situation, especially it's one that's emerging really quickly and it seems like it could be potentially dangerous or threatening. So new information tends to not only be ignored, it tends to be shunned if it comes up even at a slow pace, if I've already developed an affinity for what it is that I came to a conclusion about. Next thing, behavior becomes rigid. We tend to be very narrow in what it is that we're going to do. Not in the sense that you get physically stiff, but we become rigid in the sense that we're only one to do one thing. There are some people that get stuck in a loop of behavior, depending on how terrified they are, doing the same thing over and over and over, because that's the only thing they have available. Uh my poor cat that um we've not seen her probably about six weeks, he may have uh passed on and uh never made it home. But um I remember once I was working out in the garage and there was a symbol from a drum set that was settled against the wall and it slipped for I guess it was the wind that knocked it over, and it crashed onto the cement where I was training. And I wasn't making any noise, but that thing made a loud clattering sound, and this cat jumped, then rolled over on its side, and it started to arch its back, then it rolled over on its side, then it started to walk around and hop, and it started doing every possible programmatic option that it had it could think about at the moment, during that sense of complete sheer fright that it experienced as a result of the surprise. And we as humans can experience the same thing. Levels of stress will narrow what our behaviors are to where it seems almost like a knee-jerk program, no thinking. And that's kind of what it is whenever it gets to an extreme level of stress, something to pay attention to. You see this in children as well. When they don't know what to do, they start trying stuff out, they start doing stuff where they might start doing things that they've done before because they don't know what the appropriate behavior is within a certain paradigm. And uh, those aren't bad things, but things to pay attention to, because even if we as we age, if we get taken by surprise, we will startle and we start even doing things that are totally uh not helpful, not life engendering or protecting, but yet uh there are things that we try to do because we don't know what the answer is. Once again, ambiguity is not only a concept of discomfort, but there's a physical one, and we're seeking resolution to make the discomfort, the stress, or even the pain stop. So keep this in mind. There is a cost to premature certainty and interpretation. So the myth of complete understanding, this is where it's a common belief that effective action requires complete certainty, not true. Effective action sometimes requires that we only have enough information to determine some sort of direction so we can go. But in real environments, complete certainty is rare. And it's the closest thing that you can come to as far as an absolute, and those are things I really try not to speak in because there really isn't an absolute anything that we deal with when it comes to human interaction, especially when it comes to self-regulation in stressful environments. So in real environments, complete certainty is rare, but waiting for it can lead to hesitation, over analysis, or the analysis paralysis, or what I call the prepper paralysis as well, whenever we get over involved in trying to figure out what's going to happen and what we're expecting and predicting based on experience, even if we've never had that experience before, which shuts us off from new knowledge that we talked about earlier. And maybe we prevent us from realizing that I don't know what's coming next. And that stress level makes us freak out a little bit and we can't choose well as a result. Also, it can put us in a state of inaction or freeze in a very physical sense, but one wherever we're overwhelmed and analyzing and we do nothing. We get stuck or maybe even get injured as a result of that. So acting without awareness can lead to error, sometimes overreactions, even loss of control. The goal is not certainty. It is clarity with flexibility that we seek. And this is straight out of my running man model, and I'm teaching it because it's particularly important and pertinent to what we do generally speaking, and it doesn't have to be the most extremes, but we even notice it in a day-to-day environment. But uh very important to know. Now the prepper paralysis versus adaptive readiness is something I'd like to talk about relative to the themes that we're talking about today, but some attempt to solve uncertainty by preparing for everything. We overdo it. This can become over planning, excessive scenario building in our minds. We tend to ruminate on the possibility that hasn't happened yet, and we get kind of stuck there and we delay action. We may even be late in action as a result of that. So this is sometimes experienced as paralysis through preparation. In contrast, adaptive readiness is being prepared to respond. That means that we have mindfulness involved in what it is we're choosing versus the reactivity, which is what we were talking about earlier. Without needing to predict everything, we move forward and we try to observe and analyze as we go. So sometimes that requires that we have time. Now there is an assumption there that says that our assumption of safety is met to the degree that we can take time. Sometimes we do not have that luxury, and that's just the fact. And it's a very uncomfortable fact, unfortunately. Remaining flexible as conditions change is an amazing thing. And uh, to the best of our abilities, the more we practice that whenever conditions change under stress, the more we become stress inoculated, and also we become stress-flexible. We become more dynamic and adaptable in difficult situations. Now, what I'd like to touch upon just a little bit is working with certainty and uncertainty, and we do have the capacity to be confident under stress and to have confidence in stress, but not necessarily experiencing excessive stress, but rather self-regulation whenever in stressful situations is probably the more correct term. And understanding that whenever we're more confident and able to realize that we can take in information and learn within the dynamics of a situation that's unfolding, we're able to make better decisions with fewer errors, cognitive errors when it counts the most. And the idea is being open to more new information when we are confident in how we respond and know that we're not going to freak out or fall apart. And also adjustment of action. We tend to adjust based on the need of the situation. And we're also aware of our limitations, not going from the frying pan into the fire, because we know that that's not going to work. And it's okay to do that. So we have self knowledge going in, maybe even familiarity with levels of stress. But let's say you go into something that's absolutely Completely novel, you've never been into, but it's stressful. One of the things that we can do, and I encourage people to do, and this was something that was validated at a mass violence uh event training that we went to this past week at my job, is realizing that heart rate variability through the exercise, our body's ability to change and vary a rate of heart rate to high heart rate, low heart rate based on whatever our environment is at the moment, is one of the most useful tools and allowing us to develop a sense of confidence, not just in a mental sense, but also that sense of I am confident in my body going through this state of stressful, uh whatever event might be occurring, and knowing that it's going to be okay and not getting stuck in the highest level of heart rate that makes me feel overwhelmed. So sometimes we have to realize that life is difficult and we will be working with uncertainty at times. The skill that we're talking about is not about eliminating uncertainty, it is be able to to be able rather to remain functional within it, and that means recognizing when certainty is forming too quickly. Also allowing space for additional information, knowing that I don't have everything I need, but let's see what's going on if we have the luxury of that time in that moment, and acting without needing complete resolution. The idea of resolution can become an absolute depending on how stressful things are, especially if it's a very sudden onset and we just want it to stop. And that can be seen many times whenever we have uh the the fight, flight, freeze responses. And some other things. As the system stabilizes, perception widens, you can't actually gain control in an ambiguous or even novel situation you've never been in, especially if one is unfolding rather quickly. Interpretation becomes more accurate, and uh maintaining a heart rate variability by exercising regularly helps us so that way we can still be able to leverage the max capacity of our highest level of reasoning and thinking whenever things are stressful. And certainty softens into clarity. Whenever we become more comfortable with these kinds of things, you have become very, very skilled. And clarity allows for better decision making, of course, more appropriate action and reduce escalation, especially when it occurs in situations that not only need it, but would best benefit us whenever we're in stressful situations to be able to use those tools. Clarity in particular. So just some ideas. Under stress certainly can be necessary, uh, but it's not always available. But it's often created too quickly based on our desire to want to resolve things. And it can create a sense of discomfort whenever we don't have answers that are working, especially if it falls apart in the middle of what we're trying to build as a narrative to make sense of things. If you can recognize this, you gain the ability to hold interpretation more lightly, stay open to new information, and act without becoming rigid in the process. Because effective action does not require certainty, it requires clarity, flexibility, and timing. And these are incredibly useful ideas regardless of what situation you may be entering into. And once again, this is straight from my running man model that I teach to help people learn how to self-regulate, but also this works with anxiety, stress, environmental situations, wherever you may be dealing with difficult situations, people that are angry, customer service, uh self-defense. Use this in this sort of uh environment before. So it's very, very applicable broadly, but it's also great for kids that are going to school, teaching them how to deal with problem solving, showing them how not to get freaked out when their legos fall, and showing them and arriving in a way that you model calm, certainty, and confidence so that way they can grow into that as well. So really useful stuff. Now, I do want to tell you thank you for listening with me this Sunday evening, and I want to ask you to please share this podcast with people. Now, if you have any feedback for me, you can send it to the email at running man git skills project at gmail, and we'll be talking to you soon. I really enjoyed doing this podcast, and I hope it benefits people. And please share it with people. Like, subscribe, and share on YouTube, look at uh Spotify, iTunes, iHeart Music, and Amazon Music. My stuff is right there as well, and at no cost to you. And I certainly love doing this, and y'all take care. Be certain, walk well.