From Confirmation Bias to A New Higher Possibility

[Music]

when i was

five years old my best friend in the

world

explained to me that the chocolate

cereal at her house

was good for us that’s right it

contained

all the vitamins and minerals we would

ever need to grow up big and strong

wait what seriously

i never knew that and after tasting it

i was positive she must be right

but as i learned a little bit more about

nutrition and

product labels new information started

creeping in

and my perspective started to shift and

even though i really

wanted her to be right i realized

we were wrong a few years after the

serial incident i overheard some adults

talking at a family gathering they were

talking about a friend of theirs who had

accidentally gotten pregnant later in

life

wait what accidentally gotten pregnant

no see i was eight and i knew

how babies were made and i was pretty

sure

nobody could do that by accident

i went home and talked to my mom about

it and i was pretty sure

she would say i was right and they were

wrong

you can imagine my surprise when i

learned from her that

honey sometimes people who love each

other

do that because it feels good

it’s even called making love

oh i was eight and that

no boys were gross and the process of

making babies was disgusting

well since then i’ve incorporated

some new information and my perspective

on that

has also shifted significantly

dare i say i was wrong

now the process of incorporating new

information and shifting beliefs

it’s a natural part of learning and we

do it very easily when we’re young

because we come from a beginner’s mind

where it’s okay to be wrong we’re

supposed to be learning things

being wrong is even cute sometimes but

as we get older we want to be more and

right about stuff being right becomes

very

very important and this is where the

problems begin

you see our perspective forms our world

view a lens through which we see things

and when we’re young our world view is a

little flexible because we’re always

incorporating new information

but as we get older our perspective

shifting

sort starts to stall or even halt

completely

and we human beings well meaning

we start pouring cement around it

and the new information as it goes by is

harder to get in

but if it agrees with our world

perspective it’s welcome

but if it doesn’t then it sort of hits

that

cement wall if you will when does this

start happening

and why confirmation

bias it’s a term that was coined in 1970

by english psychologist peter wassen

he found that people had a tendency

to prefer information that confirmed or

supported their existing beliefs

and they paid more attention to it and

they

overlooked or ignored that information

which did not

meet their existing beliefs in fact

a stanford did a study on this and they

found

that when participants were given false

information

and then information that clearly showed

that the information was false

that participants still clung to that

initial information

the study concluded saying that once

established beliefs

are remarkably resilient in the face of

empirical challenge

they were very hard to overturn

interesting so yeah there’s a sweet

seductive

pull of being right i’ve fallen into it

many times but if we’re actually

ignoring information that’s factually

correct

just because it doesn’t meet our current

world

view and we’re pretending it’s

not real then we’re sort of living in a

bit of a fantasy land

a fairy tale if you will

so i’d like to take you on a little

journey and this journey

begins with a fairy tale perhaps you

know it

once upon a time there was a little

mermaid who lived in a castle

under the sea she had a beautiful

singing voice

she was happy but restless she was ready

to see

something new so one day she ventures to

the surface

and she’s sitting on a rock happily

singing when along

comes a boat with a handsome prince

the prince is captivated by her

beautiful voice

but wouldn’t you know it before they can

meet

a storm comes up and rages and knocks

the prince unconscious and overboard

the mermaid rushes in and rescues him

and lays him gently on the beach

she is smitten he’s a handsome prince

after all

so she makes a deal to become human

so she can live with him forever

all she has to do is give up her view

beautiful voice

she does the two fall in love and live

happily ever after

lovely right a happy hopeful tale about

sacrificing in the name of true love

but let’s continue our journey and see

if we can look at this same tale

from another perspective

once upon a time there was a little

mermaid lived in a castle

under the sea yada yada singing

surface boat prince storm got it

mermaid rescues him lays him gently on

the beach

good so far right but then

what happens she gets it into her head

that she’s in love with him and makes a

deal to become

human with a witch all she has to do

is give up her friends

her family her royal crown

and get this her voice

she agrees to all of these terms without

negotiation

because she believes she must be in love

with the prince

and be with him forever the prince she

just met

a few hours ago oh wait technically they

haven’t even met because he was

unconscious

and all right

no matter the deal is done and she’s

turned human and deposited on the beach

the prince finds her naked on the beach

and falls for her immediately he assumes

that she’s also been a victim

of a shipwreck as he has but with no

voice the mermaid cannot explain to him

that she is no victim she’s actually the

hero

that rescued him when he was drowning

and now she’s the one who gave up

everything to be with him in the hopes

that he would

also kind of like to be with her forever

that said now the princess has no voice

to answer him

and so she can only agree in a series of

pathetic

smiley doe-eyed nods

really really and now they can

live happily ever after with a

relationship that’s based on a

serious lack of information and some

really

misguided beliefs i don’t think so

now that i could see from this

perspective i

saw the little mermaid for what it was a

dangerous

slippery slope fairy tale with some

deeply

misguided beliefs seated underneath no

it was wrong i was positive

and i took great joy in pointing this

out

to everyone else who would listen

can’t you see how they’re treating

this entire tale can’t you see what

they’re trying to teach

our children that it’s good to give up

your voice that it’s perfectly fine to

give up who you are for someone else

that it’s totally fine to neglect your

duties and responsibilities to your

community

and ignore leadership that it’s

perfectly fine

to do this without even negotiating

and signing off on contracts without

reading the fine print

absolutely not i was now on a mission

to reveal the truth of the little

mermaid

until one day when my very own

fairy godparents in the form of

three good friends and a bottle of wine

came to me and said oh kimberly

don’t you realize you need to stop

hating on the little mermaid

you need to show her some love some

compassion

don’t you realize she just made mistakes

she was doing the best she could with

what she had at the time

many of us have made the same mistakes

she has

even you wait

what no no no no no no no no

i would never make the same choices she

made

never never

so you can tell this is going to end

badly for me right

so never say never especially not when

you’re with your three

fairy godparents in a bottle of wine it

was a heated discussion

for sure that evening i didn’t want to

be wrong i

loved being right about the little

mermaid

but as the night wore on i took a long

hard compassionate loving look back at

my own life

and i saw that there were times

that i had given up who i really was for

someone else there were times that i’d

failed to be there for people who needed

there were times that i had achieved

heroic deeds only to downplay them later

and there were times that i’d

given up my voice but now that i could

see that

i could decide to make different choices

now that i could see it from this

perspective

i could be better next time i could

do things differently and i liked that

i had shifted with a little help from my

friends

so if you’ve come along on this journey

with me today maybe you’ve felt

something

shift for you as well if you have it was

actually two things shifting

one is your willingness to incorporate

new information

and the second is your willingness to

break through that

concrete and shift your belief a little

bit

about what the new information meant

now shifting beliefs is hard it’s

scary and depending on how long you’ve

held those beliefs

it can even feel terrifying and our

fight or

flight can kick in that is exactly what

i was doing with my fairy godparents

that night

i was pushing away the information i was

running from it

why because i was scared i was scared i

was wrong

i was scared i was wrong about the

little mermaid sure but i was scared

that i was wrong about me

about how i was showing up in the world

and once i shifted i realized

that i could do something about it and i

felt a lot better in fact it felt

not scary at all but like a weight had

been lifted

it felt like i was stepping out of some

weird sticky fairy tale i

told for myself and back into my

real life now remember that stanford

study

that showed that people ignore

information when it doesn’t fit their

world view

well harvard did a similar study and

they found very similarly that

76 of people clung to the rightness of

their belief

even when presented with concrete facts

to the contrary

but they found something else very

hopeful as well

they saw that in that narrow margin of

of people who did shift their belief

that they were six

times more likely to achieve their end

goal

so yes shifting your beliefs is hard

scary terrifying difficult

but when we do lovely things can happen

so in fairy tales right and wrong is

often portrayed as good and evil or

black and white but ladies and gentlemen

real life is not a fairy tale

it’s a journey and

it’s a journey of beautiful new

perspectives

it’s not about something silly and

simplistic like being right or wrong

so here we are you and me

in real life and i encourage you i

invite you to set down that sticky

compelling need to be right and instead

walk into a new world

a world where it’s okay to be wrong

where it’s okay to think from a

beginner’s mind

it’s okay to believe that we all have

very godparent

best friends who are willing to help us

along this journey when we get stuck

a world where making love is about

way more than making babies and a world

where that delicious chocolate cereal

well maybe not nutritious

can feed us in a lot of different ways

so i’ll leave you with this i believe

that if we’re able to set down the fairy

tale

of being right and we’re able to shake

off some of that cement and shift our

perspective

and we’re able to allow all the

information

in whether it agrees with us or not

that we can enjoy this glorious

delicious journey called

real life and we can do it

happily ever after

you