Blindspot: Why we have biases

Driving along

You're in your car, on your way to an appointment. Traffic, as usual, is terrible. Your patience is growing thinner. Suddenly, a car cuts you off. Some of the things you say to the oblivious driver shouldn't be repeated in polite company. But was your assessment of the situation fair?

Should someone say mean things to you?

What happens when it's your fault? You start to switch lanes, but you hear a loud, long honk from a startled (or angry) driver. You might toss up a hand as an attempt to apologize. You are embarrassed, but you were paying attention. You are a responsible driver, but you simply didn't see them. They were in your blindspot. 

The blindspot is inevitable

The Blindspot

When we compare blindspots to cultural bias, the metaphor gives meaning to a complex idea about living in a society. The idea of a blindspot is that you can't completely rid yourself of it. No car in the world has the technology to eliminate the blindspot, but drivers can certainly deal with theirs better if they are aware of them. If their cars have mechanisms to warn them, even better. But even with all the failsafes technology can provide, every now and then, that blindspot still surprises us and sparks a chaotic moment – or worse – in an otherwise ordinary commute. The same is true with bias: being aware of our blindspots can keep us ready to adjust our thinking and be ready to avoid – or deal with the aftermath of – a chaotic social moment.

Thinking about thinking

Look at the image below for 20-30 seconds. How many dots do you see?

What do you see?

This image is an optical illusion. Optical illusions "fool" the brain, but they also tell us a lot about how our brains are wired. Once I tell you that the dots appear to be moving because your brain is filling in some information gaps, you’ll know what’s happening, but your brain will still see those dots appearing and disappearing. You saw the "truth" with your own eyes. You corrected your bias. But your brain didn't get the memo.

Most of the time, this is actually a good thing. We've evolved as humans from our hunter-gatherer ancestors to function as thinkers and inventors at the top of the food chain, but we've kept the fight or flight instincts in our brains. We can rapidly recognize danger and instinctively protect ourselves by running or hiding. Our brains process what we see, hear, and do and even when this goes wrong, the brain is working correctly. 

When does this instinct work against us? Perhaps when a cold chill crawls up the spine as the eye tracks an email in which a supervisor admonishes us for a mistake. Maybe it's when we close our eyes tightly during the latest zombie movie. Either way, it’s something people have a hard time controlling. Actually, most of the time, we simply respond to these feelings, since it’s unlikely we can prevent them wholesale.

How does the brain work?

Implicit consciousness

The brain also helps us develop biases, working a lot like a social media algorithm. The more we click on cat videos, the more cat videos pop up to entertain us. The brain learns from our habits to keep us happy and safe. So, it categorizes billions of patterns and makes assumptions on our behalf – in record time. Scientists study implicit consciousness, or unconscious cognition to learn about biases. 

One resulting feature of all this is the social mindbug. In Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People, Banaji and Greenwald (2016) tell us that we tend to make assumptions about other people based on "less than perfect knowledge" (p. 15). Even when we learn new information, our assumptions often stand. They turn into stereotypes, which our brains unconsciously reinforce.

Everyone has biases. Period

If we were to take a moment and think of some of the folks who irritate us, we could name their most annoying characteristics instantly. If we were asked to describe our own behavior during interactions with these folks, we might say that we’re patient and collaborative, or something similarly innocuous. But if we were to watch a video and rate our facial expressions and tone, we might come away with a different set of qualifiers. 

Turns out, we make assumptions are typically favorable to us, especially when we have to fill in information gaps. We tend to remember things in a more positive way, which is a sort of self-preservation technique. Being unaware of this type of brain behavior can have harmful consequences. 

In a case like this, unconscious inferences are often paired with retroactive inferences to make us feel better about our behaviors. But it can make life very hard for marginalized groups.  The mind is categorizing, which is necessary, but this can quickly lead to assumptions about groups of people, rather than a drive for true understanding of individuals with unique life circumstances and experiences. 

Good people

Luckily, human beings are learners. We've put rockets into space, created electric cars, and developed a hand-held communication device that can create an image of an elephant with a top hat on it if we so desire. 

We are continuously gaining and refining our knowledge. As we learn more about one another, we make corrections to our mental bank of assumptions, but the work of our brains is still more than 80% unconscious. We can't stop biases from clouding our judgment at times, but we can pay attention to our side mirrors and respond to the yellow light that says we need to slow down our thinking. Good drivers sometimes have accidents. Good people have biases. It's being aware and making things right that is important.