The Chimp Model
Treat your mind as three separate systems — Human, Chimp and Computer — so you stop confusing your machine with yourself.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 95%
Peters simplifies the neuroscience of the brain into three operating systems. The Human thinks logically but slowly. The Chimp is a primitive, emotional, impulsive system that thinks in short-term consequence and moves about four times faster than the Human. The Computer is a store of programmed beliefs and autopilots that runs roughly twenty times faster than the Human and can operate without either of the other two. Crucially the Chimp consults the Computer's beliefs in about a fifth of a second before it acts, which is why installed beliefs decide behaviour more than willpower does. The model's payoff is separation: once you can name which system is speaking, you stop treating emotional hijacks as character flaws and start managing a machine you are responsible for but do not control.
Origin
Peters trained as a consultant psychiatrist across general adult, old age, child, learning disability and forensic psychiatry, then decided as a young doctor that he did not want to be a psychiatrist who could not manage himself. He began working on his own mind, and the model came out of that. He looked at the great apes back in the 1990s and named the emotional system 'the chimp' because chimpanzees run on that system with only a primitive human system alongside it.
Core principles
- 01You are the Human system; the Chimp and the Computer are the machine you inherited.
- 02The Chimp is not bad — everything it does is natural, but natural is not always good or helpful.
- 03You can manage the Chimp but you cannot control it, and you remain fully responsible for what it does.
- 04The Chimp checks the Computer's beliefs before acting, so beliefs beat willpower.
- 05The Chimp thinks in short-term consequence; the Human thinks in long-term consequence.
- 06Everyone's Chimp is different, so nobody can tell you what yours is like — you have to learn it.
- 07The model is not for everyone; it only works if it genuinely resonates with your own experience.
How to run it
- 1
Become a student of your own mind before you touch your problems
Peters refuses to start with the presenting problem. He asks the person to first learn the blueprint of how the mind works and then work out, together, how they specifically perceive the world, perceive themselves, perceive others and what they want from life. Only when that is done does he agree to enter the person's world — the sport, the business, the relationship — and apply it.
Pro tip Vicky Pendleton and Ronnie O'Sullivan both told the press the same thing: he did not take them to sport, he took them to themselves first.
Watch out Skipping straight to tactics in your domain means you are applying tools to a mind you have not mapped.
- 2
Define who you are, then define what your Chimp is like
Take the two definitions separately and in that order. Peters gives general truths about the Chimp system — it is impulsive, it does not consider consequence, it is emotionally driven, it takes over when you are tired — and asks the person to check which of those they recognise in themselves. The aim is a clear line between the person and the system.
Pro tip Peters works through a deliberate series of steps rather than throwing everything at someone at once.
- 3
Identify what is prodding your Chimp into action
Work out your specific triggers. The Chimp can simply react to an event — someone shouts, it shouts back — or it can go quiet and feel intimidated, depending entirely on what beliefs are sitting in your Computer. Two people meet the same trigger and behave oppositely because their stored beliefs differ.
Watch out Do not assume your reaction is 'the normal reaction'. The trigger is only half the story; the belief behind it is the other half.
- 4
Find the Computer beliefs sitting behind the reaction
Before the Chimp acts it turns to the Computer and asks what beliefs are held, and this happens in about a fifth of a second. So the leverage is in the belief, not the moment. Peters demonstrates this with Bartlett's belief that shouting achieves nothing, formed by watching his parents shout — which is why Bartlett has never shouted in his life. It is not that he cannot; his Computer stops him because the Chimp has to listen to those beliefs first.
Pro tip Hold more than one belief on things that matter. Peters calls it a gang of autopilots — if one gets shaken, the others come in.
Watch out You cannot install a belief you do not actually believe. It must come from your own experience or education and genuinely ring true, or it is brainwashing and it will not hold.
- 5
Manage the machine, and be kind to yourself when it gets out
Peters likens the Chimp to owning a dog. If your dog bites someone you cannot simply disown the dog — you apologise, you compensate, and then you go and train the dog so it does not happen again. What you do not do is kick the dog or beat yourself up for failing to manage it. This is a skill model, not an excuse model.
Pro tip If you do want to go at yourself, draw a line after a set time and then move straight to action.
Watch out Repeatedly beating yourself up escalates from 'I can't manage the dog' to 'I'm an incompetent person', and that deposits fresh evidence of low self-worth into the Computer, which makes the Chimp worse next time.
In the wild
Before meeting O'Sullivan, Peters watched YouTube footage of him hitting the white ball with the cue and then, part way through a World Championship, shaking hands and walking out. When they reviewed the incident, O'Sullivan described a voice saying he did not want to be there, getting stronger, telling him to hit the ball and keep walking, while he himself was saying he just wanted to play and enjoy the game.
→ O'Sullivan challenged the model at first, but after about an hour said he got it — there were two of him, and his Human and Chimp systems were poles apart. He has since spent over ten years working on recognising and managing that system, across his whole life rather than just snooker.
Bartlett grew up with parents who had a loud, shouting relationship and concluded first-hand that shouting achieves nothing, is harmful to both parties, and means you are not heard. He has never shouted in his life.
→ Peters points out this is not willpower — the belief is installed in the Computer, and the Chimp has to consult it before it can move, so it simply cannot get out. That is the mechanism the whole model is trying to reproduce deliberately.
Common mistakes
Treating the model as an excuse rather than a skill
Saying 'that was my chimp, not me' to dodge accountability breaks the model. Peters is explicit that it is not an excuse model — you still apologise, you still compensate, and you remain one hundred percent responsible for the system you are carrying.
Trying to control the Chimp instead of managing it
The Chimp is powerful and means business; if it wants to get the better of you at some point, it can. Aiming for control sets you up to fail and then to punish yourself for failing. All you can actually do is keep reinforcing the Computer's beliefs and strengthening them.
Assuming your demand for fairness is your rational Human
When you insist on being treated fairly it feels like logic, but Peters says the neuroscience shows the opposite — chimpanzees and even capuchin monkeys demand fairness. It is the emotional system. The Human can accept unfairness and get on with life.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone who repeatedly does things they did not intend to do — losing their temper, freezing, people-pleasing — and who wants a working vocabulary for what is actually happening rather than a label for what is wrong with them.
Not ideal for
People who do not experience their emotional reactions as separate from themselves. Peters says plainly the model is not for everyone — it only works for those who can relate to it.
From the transcript
“there are three systems in your head keeping it very simple ... one of the systems will hopefully to think very logically and I call…”
“the chimp system the neuroscience is it always turns to the computer and says what beliefs do I hold before I make my decision and…”
“we can only manage the chimp system we do not control it and if it wants to get the better of us it can”
“I always liken it to having a dog I'm a great dog lover if one of my dogs comes in here and bites you I…”
From the episode
The Mindset Doctor: The Secret Man Behind The World's Top Performers: Steve Peters
The Mindset Doctor