Fact, Fiction, and Prevailing Wisdom: What I Learned Through Questioning My Bias
Honest Moment
In a recent blog, I used a study which I am questioning whether it was the right move. I tend to base blogs on the content of the books I consume. Crediting the author, drawing on their ideas, wrestling with them, and layering with my own reflections, experience, and world-view. However, I had been considering a progression toward evidence-based research to strengthen topics.
During a cold and wet February evening, as I was closing in on the blog, I began frantically searching for a peer reviewed study to back a firmly held belief that my experience told me worked. I was searching with the best intention: a topic on reframing our perceptions, looking at challenges and hardships through an alternative lens to alleviate mental psychological stress. But the unconscious intention, I now recognise, was the pursuit of a credibility bias. I was searching for information that agreed with my view. After releasing the blog, the study addition sat with me. Despite the credibility of the source (APA), can I justify crediting a single study, should I remove it from the blog, is it misleading in anyway.
It just so happened that two recent books I read, Think Again by Adam Grant and Thank You for Arguing by Jay Heinrich’s, gave me the chance to chew on biases further, and on more generally, the wider landscape of how we handle information.
The similarities between these two excellent reads are the focus on constructive arguing and the challenge to rethink. What follows is a wander through the ideas they provoked, touching on the need to be right, situational context, credibility and diversification.
Context Is Everything
The more we think about the consumption and handling of information, the more we need to realise the challenge is not just pursuing the correct information, it’s also knowing the context. The difference between a critical lifesaving decision in healthcare, and a sweeping statement generally accepted in a social gathering are very distinct. A surgeon needs precision and verified information. Whereas a dogmatic opinion rooted in bias at the dinner table might be accepted (or ignored) without the need to challenge.
In Think Again, Grant reflects an honest account of his own flaw during constructive arguments with peers. He approached debates at work thinking the key to victory was to go into battle armed with airtight logic and rigorous data. The harder he attacked, the harder his opponents fell back. He was focused on convincing them to accept his views and rethink theirs. He goes on to say that although he felt motivated to persist in making his points, he often ended up alienating his audience and not winning.
As Heinrich points out, you don’t win an argument by logic if you fail to persuade your audience. Know when to push, when to pull, and when to change tactic.
Easy to Say, Harder to Justify
I remember being left taken aback about six year ago during a conversation when asked to explain what I meant by, “they seem to know their stuff”, in reference to someone who appeared to have done their research for an informal job prospect conversation.
According to Grant, psychologists find many of us are vulnerable to an illusion of explanatory depth. We quote what we think we know, but when asked to explain detail, we struggle. It’s the same pattern as the sweeping statement, easy to say, harder to justify when someone asks for clarity. I recognise this was the case six years ago.
In a similar vein but in the context of persuasion, Heinrichs describes that explanatory questioning was known as a rhetorical technique used by the philosopher Socrates. He called it aggressive interest, used to debunk an opponent’s statement often to persuade on their own.
“Know their stuff” was a loose term in my eyes, but respectfully for the receiver, it wasn’t. I don’t think they were trying to persuade me otherwise. Perhaps they just hated sweeping statements.
Exploring context and the pursuit of correct information in small group settings is just the beginning. What about when it happens at scale?
Credibility, Misinformation, and Changing Your Mind
Grants, Think Again strengthened my opinion on the “science says” fad we see and hear across social media platforms in a saturated world of marketed digital content.
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Grants social science stance is to base on meta-analysis, wherever possible, research studies of studies, with footnote caveats to nuanced data. If we assume for a second this is the gold standard, is everyone else playing by these rules? Did I when I wrote my last blog? Should I have? The reality is I doubt most are. A confident claim with no source, or a persuasive voice with a camera and an opinion can all cause real damage shaping beliefs and influencing decisions. We must wary of misinformation because it can spread like wildfire.
It raised another question for me. What happens when the facts change, or your opinion does? Afterall, that study, book or blog is a snapshot in time. Coincidentally as I was dual reading Thank You for Arguing, and recalling notes from a book I read last year (Moonwalking with Einstein), I came across Michel de Montaigne, the chap who invented the essay. What I found fascinating was De Montaigne’s approach to continuous improvement. He kept his writings as live documents. He would update his work as he grew, learned new information, and challenged his old assumptions and ideas. I love this notion so much I have a blog in mind I may rejuvenate.
Situational context, the due diligence and caveats in what information we share, to the snapshot in time are all pertinent to how we handle and consume information. Yet, sitting beneath all of this is something harder to measure: the individual.
The Human Side of the Argument
If we jump back into the small group conversational context of fact-finding and sweeping statements and consider a final point: the neuro-diversification in how we think and communicate, and the respect that deserves.
If we jump back into the small group conversational context of fact-finding and sweeping statements and consider a final point: the neuro diversification in how we think and communicate, and the respect that deserves. We each consume, process and communicate information differently, and when presented constructively this helps us challenge our own assumptions. The bigger question again is context, a democratic brainstorming session to kick-start a project is very different to the life saving decision. It reminds me of a saying I once heard from a business mentor “You don’t call a committee meeting while the church is on fire.”
Know When to Push and When to Pull
Gosh, it’s all very complex, isn’t it? Human relationships and the handling of information are no binary measure. To reflect and know when our own biases show up. To know when to argue and when to ride along with the prevailing wisdom. To know when the facts are critical and when to correct yourself when they change. Value diversification but know when to act over delay.
I’ve shared but a few examples from a vast ocean of many more. The context and situation will be yours to analyse and work through. But remember it is okay to go back and correct yourself. Like De Montaigne it is okay to update your opinion. That’s the beauty of the learning process, we discover new information about the world we all share. Whether through “fact” or prevailing wisdom, we live in an evolving world, not a fixed one.
I’ll take the lesson in my credibility bias moment. I have no qualms with being open and discussing my life-ling learning journey, especially if it can shine a light on real challenges of information handling.
I hope I have inspired you to reflect on your own biases and where and how they turn up, even when the intentions are honest. Finally, let’s not forget how misinformation can cause harm, and perhaps that’s the one piece of prevailing wisdom we can all agree on.
Jack Willis
Leadership and Development Coach
Business Intelligence Professional
References
Grant, A. (2021) Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know. New York: Viking.
Heinrich, J. (2020) Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion. New York: Three Rivers Press.
