Our Biases – The Enemy Within
Most of us think we are reasonably good citizens, family members, and friends. We think we are good people who do the right thing. But most of us don’t realize that we have an enemy, someone who prevents us from making good judgments in many situations. This enemy is us! Actually, it is our biases because they influence our beliefs, perceptions, and actions. In some situations they could be self-defeating and even dangerous. While they are not always impactful, they can keep us “locked in” to a particular situation and prevent growth.
A bias is a particular tendency, trend, inclination, feeling, or opinion, especially one that is preconceived or unreasoned (Dictionary.com). They can be about many things.
Biases can be acquired from many places such as family, schools, friends, training, etc. They are often studied in fields such as psychology, sociology, and business.
Some examples are as follows.
1. A confirmation bias is a tendency to readily see information that supports our beliefs. If I believe that all government employees are lazy, I will ignore articles or statements that are opposite, and exclaim “I told you so” whenever they see statements that support my belief – even if they are in the same document.
2. Another is a false consensus effect where we think that others believe and agree with our opinions more than they actually do. The hindsight bias is the tendency to believe the first thing we hear about a topic and favor that over things we hear later.
3. Ageism is the tendency to make decisions about others based on their age.
4. A beauty bias is a tendency to believe that beautiful people perform better at all tasks.
There are many more important biases.
This is a very important topic for interpersonal ethics and could be a good place to start a course of study. Getting a grip on our biases and controlling them can help us in friendships, families and at work. Every person has a responsibility to become aware of their own biases and to modify them.
The following articles (all accessed on May 2, 2024) could be very helpful.
https://www.verywellmind.com/cognitive-biases-distort-thinking-2794763
https://hbr.org/2022/02/are-you-aware-of-your-biases
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias
https://builtin.com/diversity-inclusion/unconscious-bias-examples