We are all biased and don't want to admit it ( biased again)

To make decisions we make measurements or judgement calls. The decisions can be simple or complex like deciding between tea or coffee, finding the location of your shop, moving into an industry, chasing a profession, job or even getting in a relationship.

Chances are if we do not understand the bias within us we cannot make quality decisions that can help us now or in future.

I don’t intend to get scientific or statistical here however if you are interested, please do drop me a note.

In a meeting we make decisions about future value of a person in about thirty seconds of meeting and then take our time in justifying it. We measure the future outcomes based on the past outcomes not the potential.

Think about it this way, there would have been about 250 millions sperms chasing the same egg to be born (with you) lot other racing equally fast or some faster ;all blind. One of them turned out to be you. Do you think it was hard work. Of the 250 million I am sure many millions would have raced and worked hard.

Once a person is born the race continues ( it is in your DNA), however one might turn around and say, I worked really hard ( as a sperm) that’s why I was born. Makes you wonder, yes you did however you are forgetting that you were at the right place at the right time in the right environment.

Hard work is necessary but not sufficient for success.

However no one can stop anyone for attributing success 100% to hard work. Knowing this plays out in life in general you may consider this as an arrogant statement should you attribute coming to existence purely on your efforts. Just because you measure better on comparable parameters that are easily quantifiable you assume converse to be true.

I hear about diversity and equal opportunity at workplace or in some countries like India in education as well. Should you add a bias due to gender ( gender diversity) or race ( reservation for backward classes based on genetic and not economic predisposition) we may endow someone with a privilege. I very strongly favour diversity all around. However I do not think we should try give segmentation and privileges to any subsegment of diversity (purely on DNA) . It creates ( sometimes unknowingly) a privileged or entitled group which may not be based on merit (and you cannot combat a privileged group by creating another one). As a result societies trying to combat this enigmatic bias no longer reach the full potential.

If this bias continues for a long time it becomes an acceptable standard and few question it. Think of the QUERY keyboard. It was designed to slow people down to prevent the keys from jamming however now changing it back will be difficult though we are in electronic age and the number of characters we can type in the same time have significantly increased. Certain entitlements vested in a group sometimes manifests in similar light, it is taken or assumed.

You are in a clean area, you are more likely to put your trash in the bin, however if the cleanliness of an area is poor chances are that you may still throw your trash in bin but a significant number of others may tend to miss the aim and be ok with it.

If someone relatively wealthy says something say Buffet, Bezos or Bill Gates the chances are you will value that more than the statement coming someone relatively poor. There is evidence to support that decision. Universe is very much like that even though evidence may not be visible to us we gravitate towards what is evident and obvious. Perhaps you already know that you are only able to see 0035% of the visible spectrum. However you may interpret the rest based on your visual acuity.

You perhaps already know that Time Magazine called Hitler the man of the year in 1938 and sugar was considered healthy in 1965 advertisement.

The scuba divers “I am ok” hand gesture has been listed as a symbol of hate. Unless you are under water (context) it will be a symbol of hate. Aren’t we biased to use the same gesture differently.

Be it the temperature in a room or salt in the food our preferences are different. We expect to serve others with what our preferences are creating a bias. Mexican hot food(spicy hot) will taste hotter than Australian hot food. Such a bias extend to the choice of words that reflect the level of politeness and courtesy. It is certainly a preference turned to a habit and impacts who we are with or associate with.

We are creatures of habit and we give priority on what is in our visual acuity only ignoring everything around it over time what we see or hear becomes our narrative and if we play it in our heads regularly it becomes our story. All stories we tell ourselves may not be the true stories.

There is ample research to suggest how we see and perceive and define colours vary around the globe and is different among many tribes and cultures. We associate colours with national colours, patriotism, strength, festivals or happiness. You may not associate happiness with the same colour I may associate my happiness with.

Same extends to symbol the auspicious symbol Swastika, after being used by Hitler may evoke different set of emotions in you. You may not know that it is considered auspicious by over a billion people. Either ways you have your own bias.

This bias continues in religion and helps strengthen our faith in God or supernatural power. I will use a game theoretic example which is easier to explain.

Assume you are in a near death situation and you pray to God. Only two likely outcomes are there either you will die or live ( assuming :) former did not happen ) your staying alive after praying to God will strengthen your faith in God. If you did not stay alive, the whole discussion will be irrelevant. I am not discounting that belief works like magic and you can read a lot more on the work by Joe Dispenza.

We believe others know what we know and tend to skip details on the contrary people with process driven industry training go in too much detail which sometimes gets very elaborate and digressing. However if we repetitively hear the same stories again we start believing in them. Perhaps ownership of multiple media channels by same company presents the same risk.

Now the trick question, what do you do when you are faced with adversity?

You

- buy another book on motivation

- Call the same friends you called last time who were not helpful

- You take action but it is doing similar type of things that you may have done before

Is there a bias or a pattern that gravitates you to a set of known things that can solve problems ?

Understand that there is an inherent bias in the universe, in people in you Understand it and if it works in your favour consider it a privilege ( not a right or entitlement) Respect it. Help others if you can.

We all love love songs more than we love hate songs. Leverage the positive energy, our true bias that makes us human.