Tackling Bias

You’ll often hear people talking about tackling bias these days. It’s become one of those buzzwords that’s passed around so often that it’s nearly lost all meaning to it.

What IS bias?

Bias is the term in which one determines their decision making on. For example, a person, let’s call him John, may be inclined to walk the long route home from work. On the short route home he had been stopped by several street beggars that had acted towards him aggressively at that time.

Does that mean the short route is a bad route?

Well, no, not at all. It could just mean that several beggars were passing through at that particular time. It could also be that his demeanour and mood at the time indicated towards the beggars that he was approachable. It could be a million other things.

But that particular route wasn’t a bad route. It just meant that due to John’s bad experiences with that route, he wasn’t going to use it again. Therefor John was biased against that route due to his personal experiences with it.

Is bias a bad thing?

No.

If you aren’t biased with your kids then what the hell is wrong with you? You want your kid to be the best that they can be. The standards I uphold for my child is higher than I would uphold any other children. So I’m pretty biased when it comes to my kid.

Talking Tackling Bias

Now that we have that out the way I would love to delve deeper into this. A lot of people like to say they are tackling bias, but they aren’t really. They are supporting their biases. Let me give you an example.

John studied Animal Behaviour and Welfare at College. He’s always believed that Cats were the smartest and independent of all animals.

John loves his Cat. He loves it so much that he let’s his cat roam free in the outside. He’s always known that his cat was an outside cat because of the amount of times it asks to be let out.

He’ll just let it wander free outside and it will always come home, purring at him, awaiting to be stroked.

One day John is watching his regular cat programmes on TV and finds out that cats are actually more communal than he at first thought. The recommended advice is that he shouldn’t let it out of his garden and that he should create a cat enclosure to help deal with the escapes.

John immediately drops to his knees and thinks,

“Oh my hell, how could I have been this morally bankrupt as to allow my cat to roam free. I’ve been so lazy. I need to tackle my biases.”

Right after that John builds a cat enclosure and does exactly what the man on TV tells him. John is so proud that he had the opportunity to tackle his own, and the societal biases about letting cats roam.

Cat’s are the best.

Is that bias though?

Let’s analyse this in detail. Is that bias though? I mean technically from what I read, John was supporting a lot of his own inherent biases in the first place.

He still believes what the man on TV is telling him, and he did exactly what he said.
He still believes that his cat is independent
He’s still believes that his cat is an outdoors cat
He still believes that cats are the best.
He still retains a lot of his biases. In fact he went as far as to do exactly what his favourite cat psychologist said on TV without questioning anything.

That isn’t a bad thing mind you, I am only pointing out his biases.

What would tackling your biases properly look like?

Well, first of all he should question the information presented to him in the first place. There are a few checks that I like to do before I take any professional advice, you’ll see why in a minute.

Ask myself who benefits from this information? This is always important.
Has the TV psychologist in question just invested in any cat enclosure companies?
Is the TV psychologist reputable amongst his peers? And even then, is his peer group a sound group?
Was there observable results? Or did he just talk on TV?
Are cats really that intelligent?

Many questions you could ask yourself to explore the situation further. This is tackling bias. Tackling bias, when done properly, should be tackling the belief system that underpins your decision making.

That’s where I found balance in life.

If you want to tackle bias then you can’t be an Absolutist.

An absolutist thinks in absolutes. For example at the beginning of the Chinese revolution, Chinese Land owners were made to repent for their wealth hoarding. There was no nuance, and if they tried to do so they were murdered. There was only one correct theory and that was the one General Mao had.

But if you want to start tackling biases then you will find there are zero absolutes, nothing in this world is absolute. Well, maybe maths. Maths is never wrong. But I’ve found through my rigorous bias tests that I do to myself that the world is more so several shades of grey.

Think of it this way:

Some people may think that people in prison are there because they deserve to be there for the crimes they have committed. Which of course is true. Society is structured in a way to not reward criminals.

Yet very few think of the nurture they had at the beginning, or the bad paths they took along the way because of said nurture, or lack there of. I remember watching my last prison reality TV show and it looked like most of them just needed some love. Someone to show them how to love themselves.

We can imprison them for wrongdoing, yes. We can’t blame them from the paths they took because of the upbringing they had.

How can YOU tackle those inherent biases?

It’s not an easy thing to do I’ll agree. Most of the time it’s me talking to a wall. That’s been my life after ten years working with Mental Health. But if you’re interested you can start with this:

Pick something you believe is true, and unbreakably true. Then:

Ask yourself who benefits from this belief you have?
Ask yourself what dissidents are saying. Mingle with them. Listen to them. Without judgement
Does dissident opinion hold value? Can you test it out yourself?
What is the peer group of this dissident class? How do they benefit from being dissidents?
Ask yourself about your own peer group. How are they benefitting?
Does your belief feel good, or is it harsh and cold? How does it feel to read dissident information?
What does the research say? Facts and Data outweigh a lot. But always check the source. A study on Americans that are right handed on a sample group of a thousand isn’t representative of the entirety of America.
Is your belief backed by mostly opinion articles, or factual articles? The difference being one linked to reputable study material, rather than just a link to another thought piece on some fluff about whoever.

Do this and it’s a start. It’s never an easy option to tackle your biases properly, however in doing so it will help you in life in many ways.

Ego

Probably the biggest roadblock into bias and judgement is your ego. Basically how you view yourself as a person.

The reason I say this is because most people like to view themselves as good, upstanding citizens, fighting the good fight for their friends and family.

But what if you were to find out some information that conflicted with the way you viewed yourself as a person? That in fact, you weren’t this awesome person that people love to be around?

So you caught your friend Steve telling Jane what an awful person you are. That you’re manipulative, and secretive, and that he wishes you weren’t like that else he and you would be better friends.

Now depending on the scenario Steve might know that Jane likes you, but for this example’s sake we will say that these are two friends of yours with platonic feelings to each other.

You could:
a) Go crazy at Steve and say he was jealous of you. Because of course you’re awesome. Or,

b) Look into some examples of your behaviour as to why he would say that and try and be a better person to him.

Of course this is a very, very simplistic scenario but the premise holds true. Most people will go for a. Some people would go as far to say that choice b. is a soft/wimpy choice.

However choice b. will certainly open a few doors for you in the future for Steve were you to ever try and tackle what he said.

This is why trying to headfirst tackle your biases is SO important. It helps you understand your ego better, deflates the perception of yourself into a more realistic one, and opens many, many, many doors in the future for you.

A person that is self aware can navigate through the roughest of waters.

So get tackling those biases folks!