Blind Leading the Blind

How do we counter our Bias Blind Spot or sometimes called Objectivity Illusion? i.e., “the tendency to see oneself as less biased or more objective than other people, or to be able to identify more cognitive biases or subjectivity in others than in oneself.” Wikipedia

My tip, for what it’s worth, as a person with cognitive biases, is to look out for and listen to how people frame their thoughts to you. Premising our statements with “I think..” or “to me…” is a handy reminder. Supplying references from where they got the information would also help us avoid our biases. Failure to remind each other that this is only our thought is a worrying sign to me that something is amiss with their biases.

I know this will sound logical, but just because you think it is right does not make it right. So why does there seem to be so many dogmatic or absolute statements out there like “This is that..” and “That is untrue…”, where we seem to think that what we are saying is the one true fact. You can especially hear this during a discussion, argument, dispute, or conflict.

I would have thought that none of us wants to take the responsibility for sending someone in the wrong direction. I may be wrong here, but I urge us all to try to preface our language more to help us all avoid misleading or being misled by each other when we share thoughts.