The magnifying glass

About this video

Compared with the average person, how much do mental biases affect you: less than most, about the same, or more? If you picked "less than most", you are in good company, because that's what most people pick. But we can't all be less biased than average.

In 2002 the psychologists Emily Pronin, Daniel Lin and Lee Ross had students at a university in the United States read short descriptions of several biases, such as taking the credit when things go well and blaming bad luck when they go badly. Then the students rated how much each bias affected them and how much it affected the average student. For almost every bias, they rated themselves less biased, right after reading what the biases were. Travellers at an airport answered the same way. Seeing biases in other people more easily than in yourself is called the bias blind spot.

Why do we miss our own? When we judge ourselves, we look inside, like searching our own thoughts with a magnifying glass. We find no bias, only the feeling of being fair, and decide we are fair. But a bias doesn't come with a feeling, and looking inward tells us poorly why we choose what we do. When we judge other people we can't look inside them, so we look at what they do: what they chose, what they said, whose side they took. From the outside, a bias is much easier to see.

The blind spot is in everyone, and it doesn't make anyone a bad person. Two habits help: judge yourself the way you judge others, by what you did and not by how fair you felt while doing it; and borrow other people's eyes, by asking a friend you trust where you might be biased, then listening without arguing back straight away.

Transcript

1. 0:00Biases affect most people. How much do they affect you? Less than most, the same, or more?
2. 0:07Most people pick less than most, even right after reading about biases. We can't all be.
3. 0:15When we judge ourselves, we look inside. A bias has no feeling, so we find nothing.
4. 0:23When we judge others, we see what they do. From outside, a bias is easy to see.
5. 0:31So judge yourself by what you did, and ask a friend where you might be biased.
6. 0:38We see others' biases. Others see ours.