I was having a conversation with one of my staff who mentioned that one of our nurses didn’t approve of a decision that I made. I mentioned that I did not think that she liked me as she expressed constant disapproval of me. He answered that he didn’t think it had anything to do with “liking” me. He as a staff counselor wasn’t aware of personal bias. He didn’t understand that when people have a point of view (like personal dislike) the perception is only negative. You automatically discount any positive and then over emphasize any negative, sometimes reinterpreting an action to give credence to your point of view. Obviously his preference was to validate her point of view, which told me a lot about him.
What astounded (and appalled) me in this conversation was that I had a staff counselor who wasn’t aware of personal bias. How did this happen? Anyone who has studied psychology has studied this concept of personal bias and personal belief systems.
How Science Manages Personal Bias
Personal bias is the reason that statistics exist. It is the science by which we create an objective reality which does not depend on the opinions of you or me.
Drug manufacturing companies would love it if we purchased expensive medications based simply on the opinion of their marketing manager. Thank goodness that we have laws against this practice. Thank goodness that we have science that will tell us if medications actually work for humans and not just to appease a marketing manager who is stuck on making profits.
Statistics is the idea, the concept, that an objective truth does exist and that there is a way to find it. It involves choosing only randomly from the studied population ensuring that research cannot be biased based on the researcher or research participants. It also involves using big numbers of research subjects in order to prove applicability to all human subjects.
How do you Know that you are Biased?
My daughter once asked me why research can’t be just randomly asking friends your questions. It’s hard to explain, but your friends are likely people who think a lot like you do. That’s called bias. Your questioning is likely to influence the way that your friends answer the questions, that’s called bias. On and on.
Anything observed changes because of the observation. This is a well-known concept in science, in physics it’s called “the Observer Effect” In psychology it’s called the “Hawthorne effect”. Both cause a bias in research, however, because they are known they can be regulated.
Where does Personal Bias come from?
Back to the original concepts and they are this. Humans operate their lives based on their belief structures that reflect their experiences with life and even their parents experience with life. These belief structures are survival mechanisms that help people to cope and even provide a social structure to live within. Think “country boy” and then “sophisticated lady” and your mind will conjure a lot of beliefs surrounding these concepts. Country boy conjures a picture of blue jeans and cowboy hats. You may see cowboy boots and hear country music. Sophisticated lady will bring a whole different set of pictures. These are reflections of the belief structures that we all carry within.
It’s incredibly important to know these things about yourself. It is our beliefs that we build our lives upon. If we wish to change anything, managing conflicting beliefs is necessary. If you aren’t aware of personal beliefs, there is no chance that you can change them. It therefore follows that there is rarely change available to those who do not even know that beliefs exist.
It is our Beliefs that Cause Bias
Beliefs make you see only facts that agree with your beliefs and your brain will discard any evidence that does not agree with those beliefs. Most people swear that they know what they are talking about. Most people will swear that their truth is the truth; a universal truth that the whole world can live by. If you ask them about their personal belief structure they could not separate the concepts into an individual belief system that they own.
Your social group is a powerful survival mechanism and it’s important not to differentiate yourself from others. That’s how community belief structures work. You need your group to stay alive. These beliefs serve you and your group by allowing you to keep peace and give a sameness to daily life. Without this sameness life could be more difficult than it is possible to manage.
The key is to be able to recognize your belief structure and how those beliefs affect your personal bias. If you don’t recognize your own beliefs, then you don’t have the awareness that you need to keep your life on track with your goals.