Our Biases

Do you think that we're sometimes heavily influenced by our biases, prejudices, and "conclusions"?

I mean I know some people who'd scratch someone's Ferrari, just because they believe all rich people cheated their way to the top and deserve nothing better. Or that all problems inherently stem from politicians, when in reality the power of governments has been greatly diluted in the past half a century.

Also, how do you overcome your own biases?

 

Of course our beliefs are responsible for the way we behave and react to situations in our lives. They are the driving force and the fuel that causes us to respond the way we do and ultimately get the results that we get. Sometimes the beliefs are unconscious and we just assume that's just the way things are, and never realize that we can change them in order to empower ourselves.

 

We're always influenced by our prejudices, biases and so on. It's called life experience, how you grew up informs how you act. You can't help it, it's like a little subconscious switch in your head that activates if you don't think about it.

About the only way to get past it is to recognise when you are acting unthinkingly and do something about it. For me, I'll normally try and not respond immediately to everything and give my brain a bit of chance to make sense of a sentence before I open my big gob and make myself look like an idiot.

Oh yeah, and read lots. The best way to try and get past a bias is to understand exactly what your bias is and why it is the way it is. Reading up around it and confronting it with hard facts, stories and experiences may not be to everyone's flavour as recognising your wrong is always difficult, but if can swallow your pride, it'll make you a better person.

 

That's a really great way to put it. I totally agree with you. The more we understand why we do the things we do, and why we don't do some of the things we want to do, the more we will be able to start acting in a way that is in coherence with the results that we want to achieve in our lives.

 

I do the same thing. I rarely "react" to something immediately. This helps me take a step back and analyze the situation pragmatically instead of via the fogged lenses of my own biases and prejudices.

 

From my viewpoint, having biases or prejudices is not necessarily a bad thing. They are there for a reason, and that reason would be our personal experiences. They don't have to leave us bitter or wanting to hurt others, just guarded.

 

Then what's the difference between bias and prejudice and our experience.

I would have said our experience makes us be wary of people because of what has happened to us previously, but bias and prejudice are our thoughts without reason.