671. What Does It Mean to Have a Bias? And How Do Biases Shape the Way We See the World?

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Way the World Works. So today I want to talk about something that we've kind of talked about.

We've actually talked more specifically about it, but I want to talk about it in more broad terms. And what that is, is what a bias is, what having a biased opinion or a biased view of the world is. And we've talked about specific instances before because there is this great book, Beware Your Bias.

If you don't have it, pick it up. It's a really good example of a ton of different biases that we can have that we use, not that we can have like we're choosing, but that we do have, unfortunately. And you'll notice the book says, Beware Your Bias.

So it's not saying like, pick a bias, you're gonna love it. It's saying, here's things that we as humans do, and we should probably work on them. So there are things like the optimism bias, where maybe you think that you think too optimistically about the world.

And so you don't account for the fact that bad things do happen. It's a bummer, but they do. There's also the confirmation bias, the halo effect.

These are things we've talked about before, but I want to back up and just talk about what this is. What is a bias? What is having a biased opinion? So let's talk about it. A biased opinion, or if you have a bias, think of it as like when you wear sunglasses.

Now when you wear sunglasses, the world seems a little bit darker, right? That's the entire point. Now did the world get darker, or did you just see the world darker because you have your shades on? We all know the answer to that, right? The world did not suddenly get darker unless it's nighttime and you forgot to take your sunglasses off and you realize it's real dark outside. But it's not what's going on in the world.

It's the sunglasses. It's what you're, the shades, the lens you're looking through. And that's exactly what a bias is.

A bias is a lens that we see the world through. And how do we develop them? We develop them through our own experience. And I want to be careful when I'm saying this because a lot of times you'll hear this jargon nowadays.

It's like, well, you have to respect their truth and, you know, you have to respect their life experiences. And I'm not saying it's not a good thing to be, you know, a little empathetic towards people and understand where they're coming from. That's a good thing, especially for trying to have really thoughtful conversations.

But there's, you know, objective truth. There are things as Ayn Rand used to say, A equals A. There are things that simply are. They are universal truths.

And there are subjective views of the world where you think something because of your experience. But a bias is more like the subjective part, right? It's just ways that we have grown to see the world. And I also want to be very careful in noting that they're not inherently evil.

They're not inherently good. They're just things that as human beings, we are prone to developing. We have, we have on our own bias shades, right? That's what we're looking through when we see or hear a subject.

For example, let me use a different example. So I use the sunglasses. Have you ever gone to a movie, you and a friend or you and a sibling and you, you think it's a perfect movie.

You walk out of that movie and you're like, how could anyone not like that movie? That is the best movie in the world. It's not even an opinion. It's just a statement of fact, best movie.

And then your friend or your sibling or whoever you saw with looks at you and is like, that was the worst movie I've ever seen. Acting was horrible. And they're going off and it's like the complete opposite of what you think.

And you're sitting there and you're like, did we, were we in the same theater? Like, did you not see that big musical number where it was just like dazzling and everyone was great. And, and you're having a hard time wrapping your head around how anybody could see something differently than you do, because that's just your bias. That's the lens that you're seeing the movie through.

Maybe it's because it had your favorite actor in it. Maybe it's because it was like a musical based off a musical that you saw on Broadway or something like that. So there's all these different ways that we see the world that we, we go into experiences with a kind of preset knowledge or not knowledge, but a preset slant or tilt on, on how we interpret a situation.

A bias is not something you outgrow. It's not something that, you know, you magically turn into adult and you're a rational, you know, you can look at every situation without bringing a bias to the table. That's, that's not true.

We all have them. And as the book says, beware your bias. I want to, I want to talk about that today, especially because just to, to share my own experiences, I've noticed that over the last year, I've really had to beware of my bias because I haven't, it's easy to, to have a, I guess you'll call it like a stimulus.

Like you have something that, that stirs emotion or stirs a thought process. So let's call it an instigating event. Something happens in the world, some event, whether that's war or, you know, um, a tragedy, somebody dying, things like that, something happens.

And as humans, we react. In fact, as humans, that's kind of our first thing is we react and, and we react based on again, these biases, these lenses we see the world in. And I've noticed there've been a lot of things every year.

I don't want to say the world is getting worse cause I don't think that it is. Um, I think the world has always been a little crazy, a little chaotic, and people have always relied too much on their biases to, to see things perfectly clear. But I've noticed lately that something will happen and it's like, I almost, before I know everything fully, I will, my brain kind of like searches through its code in a way.

And it says, okay, how do I usually approach this kind of situation? And maybe it'll look for little markers and, and this is all happening very quickly. It's not like I'm sitting there, but it's happening very quickly. And things like maybe some, some core principles I have, don't hurt people, don't take their stuff.

Let's say someone on my, let's say I play, there's like kickball leagues here for adults. Let's say I play kickball. I don't, I don't do sports, but maybe I do, maybe I will someday.

So let's say I play kickball and one of my teammates gets, you know, arrested for shoplifting and automatically my brain says, no, that's my friend. I know that person. Clearly they haven't done that because I know them and I don't know or talk to people who steal.

And so my bias has already been set and I'm already seeing the situation through a very specific lens, but maybe I'm surprised. Maybe, maybe my friend did make a mistake. Maybe, maybe they were, they'd fallen on hard times and they had to steal some bread or something like that.

I don't, you know, I'm just making up the situation. So I could be wrong is kind of what I want to get at here is my, my, I have this strong bias on the situation, but that doesn't mean it's the right read on the situation. And so sometimes the best thing to do when an event happens is to, to stop, to sit back and say, okay, what was my initial reaction? Is that actually aligned with the facts that I know about what happened? The facts that are available to me and, and I want to definitely hone in on that because when something happens, it's likely that we don't have all the facts right away.

Sometimes it takes days, weeks, months to get all the facts. Okay. So when we don't have all the facts, our brain is trying to fill in the gaps and it's trying to say, you know, this is probably what happened and it's taking those tilts.

It's taking the lens that we see the world through and it'll say like, okay, well I didn't like, you know, the security guard at that store and clearly he's targeting my friend because we didn't like him, blah, blah. So we're like, our brain almost makes up these reasons as to why our view on what happened is correct, because the brain is always searching and trying to make meaning even if we don't know that it's happening. So that's going to happen.

We do that as people. And so again, it would be, so it would behoove us to sit back and before we make a reaction to really think, okay, am I looking at this situation with, with a bias? Am I going into this already kind of thinking I have formed my opinion? I'm not going to do that. I'm going to step back and I'm going to maybe not form an opinion until I have all the facts.

And I was wondering why this has become so hard because I've noticed this is becoming hard for a lot of people. And I think what it comes down to is that we are getting information so quickly. And as soon as we get information on social media, what do people want to do? They want to form an opinion and they want to share their opinion, right? That is, that is what we do on social media.

Or sometimes we want to be like the first person to break the story. And it's not enough for us to just say this thing happened, right? I think we all have an inclination. We all have this urge to, to have a hot take as they call it, right? To have some, some edgy or some new or, or be the first one to take this specific view on what happened.

And because of that, and because of how fast the news happens, we are maybe too quick to post things. We're maybe too quick to form an opinion. And I always have respect for people that maybe make something initially, say something, make a post, and then maybe more information comes out and they'll say, you know what? I was wrong.

I didn't realize this, this, and this. And I always just, I, even if they're wrong, I actually think there is almost more respect in somebody willing to stand up and say, you know what? I had a bad take on that. I was not right.

Because it's being able to admit you're wrong is, is hard. And so it's, it's great when, when people do actually have the nerve to, to the bravery to say I was wrong. But there's a way we can get away from that where we don't even have to say we're wrong.

And that's to maybe wait. And I've noticed lately, and I've had to get a lot better at this. I'm forcing myself to wait before I weigh in on anything.

And sometimes that means that I'm going to miss that news cycle, or I'm going to miss the relevance of where it was the hot issue on, on, you know, the internet, and I'm not getting all these likes and shares. But that's okay. Because I think what is more important to me is to really stay true to my principles.

Because there's a lot going on right now where it is very easy to bend what we believe in, to bend what we've always known to be true. Because maybe that, maybe, maybe, maybe that means we have to side with the other team. And if you're listening, I did that in scare quotes, because tribalism is not great, but it happens, right? And there's this, this us versus them mentality in the world right now, no matter what side of the political spectrum or, you know, political aisle that you're on, it comes to this othering of like, well, they think this, so I think that.

Sometimes if you're true to your own principles, and you're really being cognizant, you're recognizing when you can see those biases pop up. Sometimes that means having to say, oh, okay, this actually doesn't fit my narrative of what, you know, my political angle of this event, I'm going to have to actually agree with this other side, because what this person did really was wrong. And this person really was in the right, we have to put aside those biases, and, and look at what is there.

And I wish more people would do this, because I've been really discouraged to see that people who I assumed would think logically, or, or, or sit back and kind of wait to form an opinion are very quick to form an opinion. And we just don't know everything right away. And so they're, they're, they're giving a hot take, without knowing the facts, and then being willing to die on that hill.

And what does that mean? Dying on that hill means they're, they're willing to refuse to be wrong or refuse to admit they're wrong about about something, even if all these facts come out that shows that they actually are wrong, right, they will go down with the ship, if that happens. And it happens too often. And so this is something that I'm really working hard to try to do.

Because so much is happening in our world today. And again, I want to emphasize that doesn't mean today is somehow scarier than it's ever been. We're just seeing it more because social media and information travels so quickly.

But don't let that make you think that you have to, that you have to have an opinion on something, and that there's a timeline to have an opinion. Because some things, most things in life are not black and white. Most things are a little nuanced.

Most things take looking at something very objectively, it takes looking at the facts of something. And so watching some video footage or hearing someone and then immediately making up your mind before we have all the facts, that's, that's dishonest to yourself, because you don't really know yet. And I think you're you're selling yourself short, you're selling your principles short.

And you're not, you're not being aware, you're not being aware of your bias, right? You're not, you're not following the instructions of this wonderful book. But I also think that you're also doing what we get mad at other people for doing, which is like, oh, that person just wants to believe that their narrative is right. And so they're doing this, this and this.

Well, we and I say we meaning all of us, because we're all humans, and we're fallible. And we are, you know, we make mistakes. So I think what I would like us to do for homework is to next time there is a big to do happening on the news, and I'm sure you won't have to wait too long, because it does seem like everything is televised these days.

Next time an event happens, maybe as a family stop and say, okay, what was our initial reaction? Each of you probably have a different one. What was our initial reaction to what happened? What do we actually know right now happened? What are the facts available to us? And what our opinions change if we have more facts. So that's a really interesting homework assignment.

I'm really I'm loathe to have you watch the news. I know some families don't and I applaud you for that. I try not to watch it because, well, the news is biased.

So you're never getting the full story anyway. And sometimes the news isn't even covering stories. They should be covering like global events, things happening in other countries.

Well, there's stuff going on in Iran right now. We will talk about that in another episode. But so I just I really wanted to make this episode less specific about a very specific bias and we will do others because I do like going through this book.

There's so many good things in it. But I want us to just generally speaking, beware our bias because we have them. And for us to really be individualists and critical thinkers and be searching for truth, we have to be willing to look at a situation with those glasses off and to see the world as it is.

So we will leave it there. As always, don't forget to like and subscribe to the podcast. And until next time, guys, I will talk to you later.