017 Negativity Bias
Here is a contemporary idiom that you probably have heard, in one form or another:
“A lie (bad news) can travel around the earth before truth (good news) can lace up their shoes.”
The origin of this idiom seems to be in the 1700’s. A lie was then described as ‘fast, fleet of foot, winged. Truth was labeled as slow. Of course this current version has been amended many times and seems that no one person can be attributed to this expression, not even Mark Twain or Winston Churchill!
Negativity Bias is the term that sociologists and therapists use to describe a certain tendency in us.
Humans seem to have a built-in need to speak about negative things: perhaps an evolutionary aspect of survival telling others to be aware of danger or to avoid misfortune. We could certainly call this a built-in ‘bias’ which shows up in spreading gossip and news of tragedy or another human’s character flaws, or language and related cultural viewpoints.
Really? Someone does something kind to, or for, you early in the day, and by nighttime all that is spoken about or remembered is the nasty comment from a fellow worker or the blasphemous driving of a fellow commuter.
Yet, we continue.
Does the out of state license plate, the choice of clothing being worn, the wrong political view, or the chewing of food with one’s mouth open - does this experience need repeating from a condescending viewpoint? It would seem that our views are ‘correct’ and others are ‘questionable’. We tend to seek news and share views with others that are similar to our own. This is reinforced on social systems and news sources by suggestions and advertisements that are favorable to our written or spoken opinions. Bias based footing continues to erode our personal structure.
Bias is sometimes ‘known’ and many times ‘not even thought about’. We are influenced and summarily reinforced during our lives on so many items that we only know that something is different when we bump into a diametrical opinion, AND at the same time we choose to listen for a change and not defend.
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So is there a method for reducing bias?
It’s a lot like admitting we have a negative addiction prior to making any corrections.
From a far away viewpoint of looking back at our actions how do we see our manners?
Is it even worth the effort to reduce our bias’s? If ‘good and kind manners’ are seen as light and healing’, and ‘selfish and negative bias’s as darkness and communicable disease’, can we sum up our present earthly journey? Light, grey, partially light and grey intermittently, mostly dark and sometimes quite dark, on and off alternating light ?
Does it personally matter to examine our bias since it seems no one else on our present journey is concerned for these things?
=====================
Here is a contemporary idiom that you probably have heard, in one form or another:
“A lie (bad news) can travel around the earth before truth (good news) can lace up their shoes.”
The origin of this idiom seems to be in the 1700’s. A lie was then described as ‘fast, fleet of foot, winged. Truth was labeled as slow. Of course this current version has been amended many times and seems that no one person can be attributed to this expression, not even Mark Twain or Winston Churchill!
Negativity Bias is the term that sociologists and therapists use to describe a certain tendency in us.
Humans seem to have a built-in need to speak about negative things: perhaps an evolutionary aspect of survival telling others to be aware of danger or to avoid misfortune. We could certainly call this a built-in ‘bias’ which shows up in spreading gossip and news of tragedy or another human’s character flaws, or language and related cultural viewpoints.
Really? Someone does something kind to, or for, you early in the day, and by nighttime all that is spoken about or remembered is the nasty comment from a fellow worker or the blasphemous driving of a fellow commuter.
Yet, we continue.
Does the out of state license plate, the choice of clothing being worn, the wrong political view, or the chewing of food with one’s mouth open - does this experience need repeating from a condescending viewpoint? It would seem that our views are ‘correct’ and others are ‘questionable’. We tend to seek news and share views with others that are similar to our own. This is reinforced on social systems and news sources by suggestions and advertisements that are favorable to our written or spoken opinions. Bias based footing continues to erode our personal structure.
Bias is sometimes ‘known’ and many times ‘not even thought about’. We are influenced and summarily reinforced during our lives on so many items that we only know that something is different when we bump into a diametrical opinion, AND at the same time we choose to listen for a change and not defend.
===================
So is there a method for reducing bias?
It’s a lot like admitting we have a negative addiction prior to making any corrections.
From a far away viewpoint of looking back at our actions how do we see our manners?
Is it even worth the effort to reduce our bias’s? If ‘good and kind manners’ are seen as light and healing’, and ‘selfish and negative bias’s as darkness and communicable disease’, can we sum up our present earthly journey? Light, grey, partially light and grey intermittently, mostly dark and sometimes quite dark, on and off alternating light ?
Does it personally matter to examine our bias since it seems no one else on our present journey is concerned for these things?
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Pretend for a moment that our words are like a dandelion in full seed. Do we know where the winds of life will spread our biased views? and into which journeyer’s heart these may fall? |  |