Are You Wedded To Your Opinions?

I enjoy people who have strong opinions, but I don’t like to debate with people who think they are always right. Dogmatically assertive people have strongly held opinions that they refuse to change, even when they are unreasonable. They speak as if their opinions are facts rather than mere beliefs.

A black-and-white approach to life can be a significant pitfall. This is known as cognitive rigidity. While they are committed to their beliefs, they often forget that all of the principles they espouse are neither universal nor objective. They don’t realize that their way isn’t the only way and that others have much to contribute and should not be dismissed.

The technical definition of cognitive rigidity is “difficulty changing mental sets.” This means switching from thinking about things one way to thinking about them a different way. On the other hand, people who can do this easily are said to have “cognitive flexibility”.

Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. He has researched what makes us see things so differently from one another. He identified thirteen biases that help us understand why we hold tightly to our preferred beliefs. He says that people can’t see what they can’t see. Their biases get in the way.

• Confirmation Bias: We judge new ideas based on the ease with which they fit in with and confirm our existing beliefs.

• Complexity Bias: Our brains prefer a simple falsehood to a complex truth.

• Community Bias: It’s almost impossible to see what our community doesn’t, can’t, or won’t see.

• Complementarity Bias: If you are hostile to my ideas, I’ll be hostile to yours. If you are curious and respectful toward my ideas, I’ll respond in kind.

• Competency Bias: They underestimate their own incompetence, and consider themselves at least of average competence.

• Consciousness Bias: Some things simply can’t be seen from where I am right now. But if I keep growing, maturing, and developing, someday I will be able to see what is now inaccessible to me.

• Comfort or Complacency Bias: I prefer not to have my comfort disturbed.

• Conservative/Liberal Bias: I lean toward nurturing fairness and kindness, or towards strictly enforcing purity, loyalty, liberty, and authority, as an expression of my political identity.

• Confidence Bias: I am attracted to confidence, even if it is false. I often prefer the bold lie to the hesitant truth.

• Catastrophe or Normalcy Bias: I remember dramatic catastrophes but don’t notice gradual decline (or improvement).

• Contact Bias: When I don’t have intense and sustained personal contact with “the other,” my prejudices and false assumptions go unchallenged.

• Cash Bias: It’s hard for me to see something when my way of making a living requires me not to see it.

• Conspiracy Bias: Under stress or shame, our brains are attracted to stories that relieve us, exonerate us, or portray us as innocent victims of malicious conspirators.

So, the next time you catch yourself holding rigid beliefs about what you perceive as a truth, you would be wise to lessen your grip on this idea and examine if you have an unconscious bias. Through self-awareness, we can learn to recognize our biases. Find opportunities to have discussions with others from socially dissimilar groups.

And the next time you find yourself engaged in a discussion with someone who needs to be right, listen hard to find an area of commonality. Find a kernel of agreement and work from there toward meaningful discussion. They will be more likely to be open to your opinions.