Bias Blind Spot
How our brain hides our mental shortcuts from us.
“Our research found that the extent to which one is blind to her own bias has important consequences for the quality of decision-making. People more prone to think they are less biased than others are less accurate at evaluating their abilities relative to the abilities of others, they listen less to others’ advice, and are less likely to learn from training that would help them make less biased judgments.”
~ Irene Scopelliti ~
Welcome!
We all have our biases. They may not be harmful or insulting, but as we discussed in our Foundation essays the amount of information the human brain has to process requires mental shortcuts to handle the data. Most of the time our biases are inconsequential and speed decision making.
Biases, like any mental shortcut, means that we are not analyzing all the available information when making a decision. That’s not a problem when selecting an item off a restaurant menu, but it can have an enormous negative impact when making decisions that affect the future of a business or other people’s lives.
When we disagree with others, being blind to our own biases can set into motion what Pronin and Hazel (2023) call a “spiral of conflict.” Both parties in a disagreement tend to view their adversaries as biased and irrational and themselves as unbiased and rational (Kennedy & Pronin, 2008), but little progress or diplomacy is possible unless people become attuned to their own biases.
The Difficulty of Recognizing Our Blind Spots
“A crisis is made by men, who enter into the crisis with their own prejudices, propensities, and predispositions. A crisis is the sum of intuition and blind spots, a blend of facts noted and facts ignored.”
~ Michael Crichton ~
Ideally, we recognize that we have biases and we choose to not reflexively go with them when the potential consequences of a decision are significant. You’d think this would be easy but mental shortcuts are stubborn things. If they don’t cause personal harm, and sometimes even when they do, the brain repeats their use for efficiency’s sake. This typically happens at the subconscious level and goes unrecognized by the slower, conscious mind.
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon ran a study with 661 participants to measure the effects of bias blind spots. Averages being what they are, you’d expect half of the participants to state that they are more biased than others and half to say that they are less biased than others. Only 1 of the 661 participants said they were more biased than others. What we can deduce from this is that almost all of us don’t recognize the extent of our biases.
Blind Spots in the Work Place
“What the human being is best at doing, is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.”
~ Warren Buffett ~
We’ve all heard stories, or even lived them ourselves, when a doctor missed a diagnosis, particularly in a hectic environment. When the brain sees a similar set of symptoms 30 times straight and the root cause for each case is the same, the brain will quickly assume the 31st time these symptoms show up in a patient that the cause is also the same.
It’s not just doctors. We cannot turn off our blind spots. Our brains must make 35,000 decisions a day and there isn’t enough time in the day to consciously examine every decision looking for a blind spot. Mechanics, teachers, parents, military leaders, politicians, and business leaders all have blind spots regarding our biases. As do we.
Preventing Blind Spots
“The people who care about you may not tell you your blind spots fearing to offend/hurt you. Open up and ask their feedback and get enlightened.”
~ Assegid Habtewold ~
We can counterbalance our bias blind spots by openly listening to others with different opinions.
Which brings us back to editor Ernst Cramer, who also liked to tell the story of how he was first hired by legendary German publisher Axel Springer. The two men had a meeting at Springer’s Berlin office that, in Cramer’s view, did not go very well at all. It seems there was a serious bone of contention, a rather vehement disagreement on a political issue that went back and forth between the two for some time. Neither was willing to relent.
Later that day, Cramer received a call asking him to return to meet with Springer again. The publisher greeted the young editor with the announcement, “Cramer, you’re hired.” The somewhat stunned Cramer reminded Springer that the two had spent half their time that morning in very spirited debate, to which Springer replied: “Exactly – that’s why I need you on the team!”
We can practice challenging our own assumptions about situations.
I often say to the MBA cohorts that I mentor that they need to challenge the implicit assumption in the material they read and validate for themselves whether that assumption is true or not. Doing this builds critical reasoning capability. This is a great habit to perfect for screening any information that comes our way because it acts as a safeguard against passive acceptance and possible ignorance.
The Role of Leadership
“It is important to challenge, debate, and learn the nature of each other through the aspect of dynamic and respectful dialogue, to close blind spots and bridge cognitive gaps.”
~ Pearl Zhu ~
As leaders, whether it be in our family, our workplace, or in our social groups it is important to foster a culture that allows for polite disagreement and acceptance of differing opinions. A culture of deference to the leader’s opinions can have drastic consequences. (A phenomenon frequently seen in authoritarian governments.)
Korean Air had more plane crashes than almost any other airline in the world for a period at the end of the 1990s. When we think of airline crashes, we think, Oh, they must have had old planes. They must have had badly trained pilots. No. What they were struggling with was a cultural legacy, that Korean culture is hierarchical. You are obliged to be deferential toward your elders and superiors in a way that would be unimaginable in the U.S.
But Boeing and Airbus design modern, complex airplanes to be flown by two equals. That works beautifully in low-power-distance cultures [like the U.S., where hierarchies aren't as relevant]. But in cultures that have high power distance, it's very difficult.
Implicit Bias
“It's not at all hard to understand a person; it's only hard to listen without bias.”
~ Criss Jami ~
Let’s take a brief detour into implicit bias as it’s often confused with the bias blind spots. In the broadest definition, which I prefer, implicit bias is the natural bias toward our in-groups; which we’ve discussed in other essays. We can certainly have a bias blind spot around an in-group bias but not all bias blind spots revolve around in-group bias. As a side note, I would be cautious with any news report or study revolving around implicit bias. A number of highly publicized implicit bias studies have later been found to have methodological flaws and/or weren’t replicable.
Finale
“The people who would like to manipulate and use you won't tell you your blind spots. They may plan to continue using them to their advantage.”
~ Assegid Habtewold ~
Having biases are a necessary element of being alive. Where it can bite us is when we don’t take into account that we have biases that might eventually become harmful to ourselves or others. We can counter this by listening to differing opinions to search out flaws and missing pieces in our own assumptions. Fostering this habit in ourselves and in our groups leads to better decision making.
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Your friend,
DJ