Patrick Sallee discusses the powerful influence of our hidden psychological biases.
We live in a zero attention span, hyper active society with an overload of information. The answer when we are asked how things are going is generally some form of “busy.” We often form opinions on as little as the headline we saw scrolling through social media.
Human psychology takes over. But it doesn’t have to, if we pay attention and are aware of how it works.
One of my favorite books is You Are Now Less Dumb, by David McRaney. He describes the many ways we fool ourselves about the way we see the world, our opinions and even why we act the way we do. A couple of our natural biases seem to be exacerbated by the speed at which we are trying to process information and the lack of deep knowledge any of us take time to develop concerning important issues. Here are some of the ways our biases affect our perceptions and judgment.
The Halo Effect: This bias is based on the idea that our impression of a person impacts our judgment of that person’s character. This plays out in things like: the attractiveness of a politician often impacts our view of their ability, intelligence or honesty. Many studies have been done on this, from interviewing courtroom jurors for their assessment of a defendant to how teachers view their students.
If we aren’t careful our judgment is clouded to another perspective, to the other side of the argument or even worse, to defending outrageous behavior and treatment of people.
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The downside: If we aren’t aware, this impacts how we respond when we see a video of a police officer dragging a high school student out of her chair. It impacts how quickly we respond negatively to a quote from a politician from the opposite party. If we aren’t careful our judgment is clouded to another perspective, to the other side of the argument or even worse, to defending outrageous behavior and treatment of people.
The Backfire Effect: This bias is the concept that when people’s beliefs are met with counter arguments that prove their belief incorrect, instead of changing their opinion, they dig their heels in more. Think of the conspiracy theory around President Obama being born outside the United States … even after his long-form birth certificate was shared, the “birthers” strengthened their position.
The downside: When we form our opinions and beliefs so quickly and with limited information, we risk making the wrong choice, supporting the wrong person or missing an opportunity to help someone. Adding in this effect, both sides dig in, without hearing each other.
The next time someone changes their opinion from an argument on social media will be the first. Our timelines are filling with arguments over police brutality, gay marriage, access to healthcare or whatever other hot issue the media drives. Not only are we not changing each other’s minds, we aren’t even hearing each other.
Most of these arguments, the reality or truth falls somewhere in the middle. In the gray area. Where an understanding of this natural psychology could go a long way to help us. But if you disagree with me that these issues exist, I likely just made your argument stronger …
Photo Credit: flickr.com/wwworks
I have one of those stickers on my tailgate. I also have “I’m not democrat, I’m not Republican, I want my country back. I have life 3 pro-life stickers, a couple stickers related to my faith, “In God We Trust” (Just got that one). Oh … one of my favorites “Honk if you’re a liberals worst nightmare” (I get quite a few honks). There’s one with a little bear that says “Save a baby human” I can’t stomach liberal media and I’m not too happy with FOX … they appear to be moving to much toward the center. Si I… Read more »
Oh, one other … “Thin Blue stripe”
The people who saw the debate on television thought John Kennedy won, the people who listened to it on the radio thought Dick Nixon was the winner.