I am someone who believes that we all have some biases. While I am not racist or xenophobic, I always try to look honestly inward toward my own biases. I am someone who sees women as flat out ugly if they smoke (lack of intellect) or show a lack of human decency. I notice I am more tolerant of men in many cases that have bad traits. I think I was raised to believe women should be better than men, which they usually are. I also have no tolerance for bullies or people who harm others for no reason. I usually suffer from too much empathy, but in these cases I feel devoid of any compassion at all. I think we all have some values shaped in our minds early on and are difficult to come to terms with.
Every single thing that every single person tells themselves is a story. We all live our stories out, letting them shape our values, morals, standards, behaviors, biases, etc.
Change your stories, change your life. Understanding that all people are the way they are for a reason, and that all people act out their patterns based on how they interpreted the world between ages 4-7, is huge in being more understanding. Couple that with the fact that it doesn’t even matter what happened at that age, it’s the meaning we attach to it. People have crazy patterns, and are usually unaware of it. When they are aware of it, they often try to hide it and/or defend it.
Loooooooong conversation. LOL. This principle shows up everywhere in people’s lives.
Biases are normal and serve a purpose. It’s evolutionary.
For the most part, there is nothing wrong with biases and many are based on historical evidence. It’s what we do with them that matters.
We have to balance them with current info gathered.
Edit. I guess it depends on how one defines bias.
the action of supporting or opposing a particular person or thing in an unfair way, because of allowing personal opinions to influence your judgment:
The senator has accused the media of bias.
Reporters must be impartial and not show political bias.
There was clear evidence of a strong bias against her.
There has always been a slight bias in favour of/towards employing liberal arts graduates in the company.
Unconscious bias (= that the person with the bias is not aware of) can influence decisions in recruitment, promotion, and performance management.
1 Like
I understand how experienced shape beliefs and values, but as an adult you have to actually look at why you believe things. Talk to older Americans and the thought of a woman being POTUS is just wrong, talking football on the sidelines is just wrong and being tough is just not “lady like”. Some generations just need to die off, but those younger should evaluate why they believe what they do. Bias against gay people is largely gone as people rightly realized that it really doesn’t affect them. I will never understand the concept, but that is ok.