Seeing the world in black and white
It is human nature to try and find a reason to explain everything that happens to us and in the world around us. We do this because we crave predictability and control - if we can understand and explain something then we feel more in control and better able to make sure that whatever it is does or doesn't happen again.
This short video shows three shapes moving around the screen.
What did you think as you watched it?
What did you see?
What are they doing?
What are they like?
In the original study, virtually everyone who watched the video saw the shapes as characters and interpreted what they were doing, how they were feeling and the sorts of personalities they might have.
This is the way we go through our day to day lives, making assumptions, drawing inferences and determining reasons.
Reason enables us to see the what goes on in the world in black and white, through cause and effect, it is simpler that way.
Why is very little our fault?
When something goes wrong for us, we know and understand the ins and outs of what was going on around us. We use this knowledge to explain what has happened - it is rationale, logical and we understand it.
So we explain what has happened based on the situation that was at play around us. I was late because I missed the train, I missed the train because I left the house late, I left the house late because the alarm clock didn't go off, the alarm clock didn't go off because I forgot to set it, I forgot to set it because I went to bed late, I went to bed late because I was working late, I was working late because of an unexpected deadline. So I missed the train because of an unexpected deadline. There is a situational explanation for our lateness.
Of course to anyone else it sounds like, the dog ate my homework, but that is just how we see the way things happen to us.
It is different when it comes to other people.
If Bob turns up late to a meeting we don't know the situation that led to this. We do know a little bit about Bob though, Bob was also late last week and he didn't have a copy of the agenda. Because we need to find a reason to explain what we have witnessed, not knowing the context but knowing a bit about Bob as a person, we find a reason related to his personality. Bob is late for meetings because he is not a very organised person.
We tend to attribute explanations for our own behaviour to the situation i.e. not our fault. We tend to attribute the behaviours of others to what we know about the person i.e. their fault.
What about teams?
We also do this in the context of groups or teams. When we belong to a team we are more likely to explain the behaviour of an individual within the team or the team as a collective to the situation. So if our work team is late delivering a project we know the ins and outs of what led to missing the deadline. We attribute the late delivery to the situation.
If we are due a deliverable from another team, we are more likely to see the late delivery as a failure of the team. We won't know and understand the context that led to it, but just like Bob, we know a bit about the team. We know that the team were late delivering another project earlier in the year, we know that they tend to leave the office on time and we know that they don't always respond to our emails quickly. We conclude that the team is not being run effectively, not collaborating with other teams and we see the late delivery as due to the team and not the situation.
What can we do about it?
Awareness is the first step and hopefully reading this has helped.
Notice when this crops up for you. Is the triangle really a mean angry bully? Or is it just a shape moving around the screen.
This is just an example of one of the common biases we make when we attribute cause and effect. Interestingly it doesn't occur in all cultures, individualistic cultures are more prone to thinking this way......one for another blog.
Something to read...
To find out more about the biases we make in our everyday rationale thinking read Daniel Kahneman's 'Thinking fast and slow'. It defines the two systems of our mind - the automatic one that thinks quickly with little effort or control and the second which gives effort and attention to the activities it carries out. The first system has many biases and it is impossible to switch off. We also need it to get through our days effectively. We also need system 2 to make sure we have thought things through rationally. How do we balance the two systems to reach the best decisions?
References
Heider, F., & Simmel, M. (1944). An Experimental Study of Apparent Behavior. The American Journal of Psychology, 57(2), 243–259. https://doi.org/10.2307/1416950
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