How to Rise Above Your Biases

Avoid politics and religion in conversation. The advice sounds cynical, but most of us have learned it the hard way. One sharp disagreement can turn a warm relationship cold in a matter of seconds, and the words that get thrown around in those moments tend to stick. Afterward we see the person differently. The old ease is gone. To sidestep the discomfort, we often start sidestepping the person entirely. You almost certainly have someone in your life like this, a relative or an old friend whose company you enjoy as long as certain subjects stay off the table.

What troubles me more is how our view of that person curdles. Someone who used to be a full human being, worth our affection, gets flattened into an opponent, a representative of the other side. Our private biases let the toxic sorting of politics, race, and belief seep into relationships that had nothing to do with any of it. And in the process, our own growth stalls.

So where does bias come from? Start with how we learn. The brain begins making sense of the world the moment we arrive in it. Experiences accumulate into meaning, and that stored meaning becomes the platform we stand on to judge whatever happens next. Eat an entire jar of olives in one go, get sick, and you may flinch at the sight of an olive for years. Or you adore olives because your grandmother did, and every one you eat carries a memory you hold close. The example is small, but the mechanism underneath it is the same mechanism that drives bias. Input arrives, from parents and teachers and books and songs, and we form a verdict. The verdict hardens into a worldview.

Once an identity gets built on top of those associations, we start protecting it, and several well-studied cognitive biases do the protecting for us. Confirmation bias pulls us toward sources that echo what we already believe and lets us wave away the ones that don't. The pull comes from a wish to feel secure; we would rather prove ourselves right than sit with self-doubt. B.F. Skinner described the discomfort that follows contradiction as cognitive dissonance.

Ingroup bias describes the reflex to back our own and distrust the stranger. Oxytocin, the brain chemical sometimes nicknamed the love molecule, may deepen our loyalty to the values of our group. The same chemical may sharpen our coldness toward anyone standing outside it.

Then there is status-quo bias, the quiet assumption that the way we already think is correct and that departing from it invites disaster. You can watch it play out in American politics right now, where each side treats the other as simply mistaken and the result is a stalemate with no exit. Projection bias runs alongside it. Because we are self-centered creatures, bound to our own experiences, we have trouble believing any viewpoint but ours could be valid, so we default to assuming ours is.

Other biases keep us partial too. The media's negativity bias feeds our fears, and the bandwagon effect nudges us to adopt whatever opinion seems popular. For the purpose of actually developing as a person, though, the biases worth owning are our own.

Dodging hard conversations isn't a solution. Censorship has never made anyone wiser. Honest, open talk about religion and politics and race is the only thing that moves us toward answers. Shut your mouth long enough and you may find your mind has shut along with it. The work is to notice our biases, make room for difference, and let other perspectives in. If the aim of a life is to keep growing, what growth is possible once you've decided you already have the answers?

Step one: admit the biases are there. You judge people the instant you see them. You assess words the instant you read them. When someone speaks, you weigh their credibility against your own leanings before they've finished. Stay awake to that. Ask what you're missing, what you've failed to learn, what someone else was offering that you waved off. The growth is your responsibility.

Step two: treat people with dignity. As you start catching your own biases, it gets easier to see that everyone else is carrying theirs too, convictions they value exactly as much as you value yours. You want to win them over; so do they. Give someone your attention and your time, and more often than not they'll return it. Those respectful exchanges are where real change tends to come from, and nothing changes without some compromise.

Step three: watch your reactions. We're built to react, and thinking before acting runs against the grain. Still, a breath before speaking protects two things at once: the other person's dignity and your own shot at catching some piece of wisdom you'd otherwise miss. Ask what you can actually agree with in what they said. Imagine their circumstances as your own. Look for the one idea you could fold into your thinking and come out better for it.

Step four: be yourself. Don't get swept up in propaganda or hate. Aim to be self-made rather than assembled from other people's slogans. Let your mind be your own work, blend ideas, keep the whole picture in view, and always look at the other side. After you've sat with something, throw out what's harmful and keep what holds up. Stay humble, stay curious, keep learning.

Reference: Dvorsky, G. (2013, January 9). The 12 cognitive biases that prevent you from being rational. Retrieved March 9, 2015.