So picture this. It's 1987. I am a fair-skinned, fair-haired teenager in Utah,
and I'm lying on a trampoline in my backyard, slathered head-to-toe in baby oil.
Man, there's a ditty joke there. But my friends and I are convinced that we've
discovered the secret to the perfect tan.
We're literally cooking ourselves in the sun. And in the winter,
we would drive up to the ski resorts in the canyons and create these makeshift
reflective tanning beds in the snow because apparently we thought that year-round
skin damage was the key to looking cool.
And then fast forward to my early 30s, and I find myself sitting in a dermatologist's
office, and he's explaining that all of these years of sun worship are about
to haunt me for the rest of my life.
Those scabs and these little scales that are covering my scalp,
they're called actinic keratosis.
They are these precancerous growths that develop when your skin has been damaged
by ultraviolet radiation over the course of many, many years.
So basically this teenage quest for a tan that I never actually really got,
I was more of red and peel, had turned my scalp into a field of potential skin cancers.
So for the next several years, I would go to the dermatologist's office twice
a year and he would burn or freeze off the keratosis using liquid nitrogen.
It would sting and it would scab and then they would go away and I would be
good for a few more months when then more would appear in different places.
So eventually, a doctor recommended a treatment that sounded almost worse than the problem.
It was a topical chemotherapy cream called fluorouracil.
And this medication works by targeting these
rapidly dividing cells like cancer cells but
it also affects any sun damaged skin cells at all the process is intense to
say the least the cream essentially causes all the damaged skin to become inflamed
and then scab over and then slough off and then eventually revealing new beautiful
healthy skin underneath and if you are curious about what this looks like.
You can actually Google my name, an actinic keratosis, but buckle up because
the pictures are very, very dramatic.
I chronicled the entire experience some 15 years ago, but for about three weeks,
I looked like I'd been in some sort of accident.
My entire head and my forehead were covered in these thick, crusty scabs,
big ones, and I became a walking testament to the dangers of sun damage.
Now, here's what was fascinating. The way the world treated me during those
three weeks was completely different.
People would honestly, it appeared to show some disgust.
Some did show pity, but most people just avoided me and they looked away.
Not like I'm getting people staring at me constantly, but there were people
that were actively looking the other direction and they were avoiding eye contact.
And it was like my appearance was somehow contagious or it was definitely offensive.
Cashiers would look down at the register and waiters would seem to focus on
their notepads and even my own friends seemed a little bit more uncomfortable
and it was it seemed like normal conversations were much shorter and,
So for three weeks, I experienced the world as somebody who looked different,
less socially acceptable, and it changed everything about how I moved through the world.
And I can still think about that now and I can feel the feelings because I started
to become less social and a little less likely to go out.
It wasn't as important to me, which led to a little less confidence in conversations.
And even though I knew the scabs were temporary and people around me did as
well, or at least that's what I had communicated to them.
And I also knew that this was the right thing to do. It was going to lead to
new skin, healthy new skin. But the way that people treated me made me feel
fundamentally different about myself.
So here we are almost 15 years later, and I just completed the treatment once again.
Now, it was with a new formulation that's supposed to work faster, and it really did.
And even though I'm generally a pretty secure person, I did notice a lot of
familiar feelings that crept in.
Anxiety about how I'll look, worry about how people will react.
And a part of me wanted to just hide until it was over. I was still seeing clients in real time.
And I had a copy and paste that just gave them a little bit of a heads up because
I didn't want to take the time and therapy to explain what they were going to see.
But there was about a week this time where it looked like I was just very,
very red and puffy and burned.
And now I think I've got that luxurious skin again for who knows how long until
I have to go through it again.
But that experience before and even the feelings of doing it again recently
taught me something really profound about the relationship between how we look
and how others treat us and how we feel about ourselves.
Here's the crazy part. What if I told you that sometimes this relationship works
in reverse? What if how we think we look is actually more powerful than how we actually look?
Welcome to the virtual couch.
Please take a seat for pillars, emotional maturity.
Music.
My name is Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist,
certified mindful habit coach, writer, speaker, husband, father, and four.
And today we are diving into one of the most fascinating experiments in psychology,
the Dartmouth SCAR study.
And this is where researchers discovered that believing you have a visible flaw
can be more powerful than actually having one.
So my experience with these actinic keratoses gave me a real world lesson in
how visible differences affect our social interactions and how we feel about ourselves.
But now imagine though, if the reactions that I experienced,
the averted gazes, the discomfort,
the change behavior of others that did happen, but imagine if that happened,
even when there was nothing actually different or wrong with how I looked.
What if that was just all in my head?
Imagine if the scar was invisible to everyone but me, but I still experienced
all of the discrimination and the judgment.
That's exactly what happened in this groundbreaking 1980 study at Dartmouth College.
And what it revealed about the human mind, you're not gonna be able to unhear
what you are about to hear.
And it will change the way of how you think about belief, perception.
But more importantly, what we're going to dig so deep into today is why it is
so incredibly difficult for us to change our own mind or why we try to change
the minds of others about things that matter the most to us.
So before we do that, I would just love for you to right now go to tonyoverbay.com
and sign up for my newsletter.
I got a newsletter out this week and I have some really, really cool things that are happening.
And I want to let you all know about that. The quickest way is going to be through the newsletter.
Go to tonyoverbay.com or follow me on Instagram at virtual.couch or TikTok at
virtualcouch or on YouTube at the Virtual Couch Podcast Network or on Facebook,
Tony Overbay Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.
And some of you should have started hearing by now more information about the men's group.
And if you haven't yet, it's coming. And if you still want to be a part of the
men's emotional architects group, then reach out to me.
And one of the most exciting things is a cruise that I am the,
I don't, I just, I guessed with my friend, Julie de Jesus, and it's a ICU living
mental health cruise, which means we're going to talk about positive things
about mental health. I would love to answer all of your mental health questions.
And that is sailing out of the port of Galveston. It is in, it is the end of
January of next year, 2026.
I will have all the information in a link in the show notes or shoot me an email.
Come see me. If you find me on a boat and I have soft serve chocolate ice cream
in my hand or in my bowl, I probably would rather put it in a bowl than carry it around in my hand.
I will answer all your mental health questions and I love it.
I love what I do. I would love to help you.
If you are interested in working with me as a therapist, as a coach, then shoot me a note.
Email me at contact at Tonyoverbay.com. I really enjoy working with people that
are familiar with my work or the things that I work on, whether you're an individual or a couple.
I am starting to create a little bit more space or availability for some new
people, and that would either be virtual wherever you live, or I have offices
in the Mesa, Arizona area or up around the Rockland, Roseville, California area.
Let's get to the nuts and bolts of today's show.
Here's the setup for the Dartmouth SCAR experiment. It's 1980.
There's a psychologist named Dr. Robert Kleck and his colleague, Angelo Strinta.
They conducted this experiment at Dartmouth College that would,
I really think it fundamentally changes how we understand the relationship between
our beliefs, our perceptions, and our reality.
So here's how it worked. Students were told that they were participating in
a study about how people with facial scars are treated in social interactions.
The researchers brought in a professional makeup artist who applied a very realistic
looking scar, a big one, to each participant's face.
The participants were then shown their reflection in a mirror so they could
see exactly what they look like with this prominent facial defect.
Here's where it just gets so interesting the makeup artist then before
they went out and interacted with others said hey
i need to need to touch that up i need to add some
setting powder to make sure that the scar looks realistic and wouldn't smudge
during their upcoming social interactions now what the participants didn't know
and i would imagine they're already thinking oh my gosh this is going to be
something there maybe their heart rate's elevating a little bit that amygdala
is about to get hijacked so not maybe paying complete attention because when
the makeup artist did this touch-up what they actually did was they were able
to remove the scar entirely.
Now, participant did not know that. So they left the room believing I have this
hideous scar on my face, this visible facial scar, when in reality now they
appeared completely normal to everybody that they encountered.
So they were, were fascinating, striking, heartbreaking, because the participants
who believed that they had the scars reported that people treated them differently.
But the ones that thought they had scars, they perceived stares,
awkward interactions, and what they interpreted as very discriminatory behavior.
They felt judged. They reported feeling marginalized. And they responded to
what they saw as very clear evidence of others' negative reactions to their hideous appearance.
Remember, there was no scar. The people that they interacted with saw completely normal faces.
So this discrimination that they experienced, it existed entirely in their perception.
And I think this experiment reveals something so profound about human behavior, psychology.
Our beliefs about ourselves and our circumstances can be so powerful that they
literally shape our reality.
They change the inner landscape of our mind.
The participants didn't just think that they were being treated differently.
They genuinely experienced different treatment because their expectations influenced
how they interpreted very neutral or ambiguous social cues.
And we did a live Q&A episode that I released a few days ago with Sydney,
and we covered the study in more detail and we interacted with a lot of the
people that were there on the live.
But we also discussed how to best navigate a faith journey. I talked in more
detail about some additional details of this Dartmouth-Scar study.
So if you want to hear more about this, we go into a completely different direction
than where I'm going in today's episode.
But think about this for a minute. These weren't people who were lying or making things up.
These people who thought they went out into the world with this huge noticeable
scar on their face they were experiencing their reality through the lens of
their beliefs about what was happening to them in very real time i recently
heard somebody say that your unconscious mind is always listening and it believes you.
So be kind in how you talk to yourself. Basically, they were asking,
would you talk to a friend the way that you're talking to yourself?
Now, hopefully no, but if you say yes, then you might want to talk to a professional about that.
And I think that this experiment shows a very similar version of this.
If I believe it, it is. Or the cliche, your perception truly is your reality,
even though if it's to your detriment or the detriment of a loved one.
Now, let's go back into the world of emotional immaturity. One of my favorites.
There's a concept there where I share, if I believe it, it must be true.
You don't care about me, says a well-meaning but insecure or immature partner.
So therefore, it is true. Even if your partner is putting on a masterclass of caring for you.
But if you don't feel it, if that's not how you are perceiving their efforts,
then what they are doing is wrong and bad, even though most likely you're not
even sure what it would take to make you believe that they cared.
But that's how powerful perception can be without the ability
to think critically to self-confront to
bring some personal responsibility into the mix with maybe even a dash of humility
that i may actually not know what i don't know that i might actually not know
how to get the help necessary to improve my situation okay but where was i your
perception is your reality even if it is to your detriment or the detriment
of a loved one a relationship an ideology a belief system a religious community,
an experience, you name it.
We are so hardwired to create meaning, to predict what comes next,
to try and seek certainty.
I want to know if this will work, if this person cares, because then I'll put
forth effort and we want to avoid discomfort.
And this shows how powerful that the mind can be, both in harmful ways and in helpful ones.
I will never forget the day that I drove home in a mini Cooper.
All of a sudden, they were everywhere.
And you also have an awkward club nod that you nod or wave to other Mini Cooper owners.
It's like when I had a Jeep at one point, all of a sudden though,
these Mini Coopers were everywhere.
Or I think about this often, if you buy your probably your 15th fancy new insulated
water bottle over the last few years, now listen, you notice,
oh my gosh, that everybody has this exact same one.
Welcome to the world of confirmation bias, right?
And I literally said the word right, because I promise that you will now hear
that everywhere. People ending sentences with right.
And if you don't really think it's right, it gets to be a little bit odd.
As a couples therapist, I remember one of the first couples that just did this
so much where the guy might, and I'm saying this purely humorously because he
didn't say this, but it was as if he was saying, you know,
how the guy is going to be the one who is the smartest in a relationship, right?
And so it says it so casually that if I keep going along, then it says if I agreed.
And I found myself wanting to say, I mean, not actually, tell me more about
that. And he would say, okay, it was not that big of a deal.
So it was this verbal tick that this person said. And now I hear it everywhere.
I call this a verbal crutch.
And it's one of the current verbal crutches being used. I don't know. Does that make sense?
Which does that make sense is another one that I am beginning to hear everywhere.
We are also very deep into the like generation, like the number of like times
I like edit out the word like with a couple of the guests that I've like had
on recently is like crazy, right? Does that make sense?
You're welcome. Or I apologize for giving you that particular version of confirmation
bias, because now I would imagine you are going to hear the word right and like.
And does that make sense a lot today?
As a matter of fact, someone please email me and let me know that validate me,
please, that that is what happened.
But what is confirmation bias? It's the psychological mechanism that makes the
SCAR experiment even possible.
Confirmation bias is our tendency to seek out, interpret, and remember information
in ways that confirms our pre-existing beliefs.
It's basically like having a very selective research assistant that is with
you at all times, going around in your brain, who only brings you evidence that
supports what you already think is true, because that does feel better.
Now, this is not about being stubborn, necessarily. It's about how our minds
fundamentally process information.
When we encounter new information, we typically don't tend to evaluate it neutrally.
We run it through the filter of what we already believe.
And let me tell you about the experiment that really put confirmation bias on the map.
In 1960s, there was a psychologist named Peter Wasson, and he wanted to understand
how people test their beliefs and assumptions.
And what he discovered was it just seems so simple when you hear this.
And I would imagine with our own brain trying to make sense of things, here's how it worked.
Wasson would give participants a sequence of three numbers, and it started with
two, four, six, and tell them that this sequence followed a specific rule that he had in mind.
Their job was to figure out what that rule was by proposing other sequences of three numbers.
So for each sequence they suggested, Wasson would then tell them whether it
followed his rule or it did not. So it sounds kind of simple, right?
Does that make sense? Here's what almost everybody did. They looked at 2,
4, 6 and immediately formed a hypothesis. Oh, okay.
Must be even numbers increasing by two. Makes sense.
So then they would start testing by letting them know, hey, I think is the sequence
4, 8-10 or 6-8-12 or 20-22-24.
And every time, Wasson would say, yeah, that follows the rule.
So after getting several confirmations, most participants felt very confident
and they announced their hypothesis.
The rule is even numbers and it increases by two.
So they started testing sequences like 8-10-12 or 12-14-16 or 20-22-24.
And every time when they asked Wasson, he would say, yes, that follows the rule.
So after getting several confirmations, then most participants felt very confident.
They announced their hypothesis.
The rule is even numbers increasing by two. And they were wrong.
The actual rule was so much simpler. Any three numbers in ascending order. That's it.
The sequence 1, 3, 17 would have worked. So would 5, 6, 100.
But almost no one discovered this because they only tested the sequences that
confirmed their initial assumption.
And here's kind of the kicker. If they had tried just one sequence that challenged their hypothesis.
So if they would have just said, let's do a rule out like 1, 3, 5 or 10, 11, 12,
well, they would have also gotten a yes from Wasson and then realized,
oh, my ascending number by two rule is far too narrow, but they didn't want to risk being wrong.
It was if they thought they were going to get another experiment where they're
going to get shocked for saying the wrong answer.
So they only tested examples that they expected to work. This is confirmation bias in action.
We don't naturally try to prove ourselves wrong. We try to prove ourselves right.
And you know what? I get it because it is difficult to be wrong.
It can feel really awkward if you're not good at being wrong.
It doesn't always feel good to have your assumptions challenged.
It causes us to react, not necessarily respond.
We immediately go to fight or flight mode, but here's what makes this really
relevant to our daily lives.
We do the same thing with our beliefs about politics, religion,
relationships, parenting, you name it.
We look for evidence that confirms what we already think and we avoid information
that might challenge us.
So think about it. When was the last time that you actively sought out information
that fully contradicted something that you believed in strongly?
When did you last read an article or watch a video from somebody whose political
view is opposed to yours?
Not to argue with them, but to genuinely test your own assumptions and see what
feelings came up for you.
It's not that we're necessarily stupid or stubborn. We're human.
Our brains are designed to protect our existing beliefs, especially when those
beliefs are tied to our identity or our community or our sense of safety in
the world, in our community, in our family system.
And just like those participants in Watson's study who were so close to the
truth, but missed it because they were afraid to test their own assumptions,
we might be missing very important insights about ourselves and the world because
we're more comfortable confirming what we already believe than discovering that
we may actually not have the right information.
The beautiful thing is once you understand this tendency, you can start to work
with it. You do not need years to begin to think critically or look at yourself.
You can begin to ask yourself, what would I need to see if changing my mind
about this was even possible?
What would I need to actually do? And I can seek that out to test my own belief system.
Or what if the opposite of what I believe is true? What if it was? Just humor yourself.
And they're not comfortable questions, but they're the kinds of questions that lead to growth.
It might lead to a little more understanding and I would dare say wisdom.
Today, I want to pepper you with a real world example. Imagine a husband whose
wife says that she is feeling depressed and she wants to go back to work.
She believes having a sense of purpose and adult interaction outside the home
might help her mental health and make her a better mom when she's with the kids.
Now, the husband's initial reaction is two, four, six. His hypothesis becomes
stay-at-home moms are better for children and families, period.
But here's what he's not even willing to admit, even to himself,
that if his wife goes back to work, he'll more than likely need to do more around
the house, pick up kids from daycare, help with dinner prep,
maybe share the mental load of family management,
help out a little bit more with the laundry at night and fold clothes together. And that scares him.
But instead of examining that fear, he focuses on proving his hypothesis. So what does he do?
Just like Watson's participants, he starts looking for evidence that confirms his belief.
He goes around and he asks coworkers and friends, hey, did your mom stay at
home when you were a kid? How'd that work out?
When somebody says, oh yeah, my mom stayed at home and leave me. I turned out great.
He mentally files that. Got it. There's a good example. I'll file that as confirmation.
Now, when another colleague mentions, actually, my mom worked and it taught
me more independence. Plus she was, seemed to be happier and more engaged when she was at home.
And she seemed more interactive with my dad. He seemed genuinely curious for her work life.
So when he heard that this person, he dismissed it. Well, I mean,
every family is different. Or, I mean, I guess that worked for you guys,
but that's not what I'm, that's not what I'm talking about.
He starts Googling things like benefits of stay-at-home moms and children of
working mothers' problems.
Notice he's not searching effects of maternal employment on children or stay-at-home
versus working mothers' research.
He's searching for confirmation, not for information.
He finds some blog posts from some very conservative parenting websites and
a few studies that suggest children of stay-at-home mothers have slightly better
outcomes in certain areas.
And he screenshots these and he sends them to his wife as evidence.
But when she shows him peer-reviewed research about how maternal employment
can actually benefit children's development and how women with a sense of purpose
outside the home often experience better mental health and relationship satisfaction,
he immediately finds ways to dismiss it. We literally had these sessions in my office.
He said things like, well, those studies are probably biased or they don't account
for our specific situation or he doesn't really realize who you are as a mom
and I'm worried that if you go out in the workforce, that's going to be really hard for you.
He talks to his father who says, your mom stayed at home with you kids and you guys turned out fine.
Confirmation. Talks to the guy at church who he talks to guys at church who
praise their wives for sacrificing to stay home. More confirmation.
But when his wife's friend mentions that going back to work actually saved her
marriage because she felt more fulfilled and present when she was at home,
he thinks, yeah, it's kind of different though.
She probably wasn't as naturally maternal as my wife.
Here's the kicker though. Now he never tested his hypothesis.
He never asked, what would I need to see to believe that my wife working might
actually be good for our family?
He never genuinely explored, what if my wife being fulfilled and mentally healthy
is more important for our children
than having her physically present but depressed, really for my benefit?
And I hope you're wanting me to say, or how about just ask her,
which he did, but he was even asking her.
I did an episode on curiosity a few weeks ago where he would ask her to check
a box or ask her so that he could then get more data as an attack surface and
then tell her where she's wrong, not with genuine curiosity.
So just like Watson's participants who kept testing 8, 10, 12,
and 12, 14, 16, instead of trying 1, 3, 5, this husband keeps seeking the same
type of confirming evidence instead of genuinely testing whether his assumption might be wrong.
And there are a lot of times where this air quote works because the person in
the position that this husband is in is essentially showing that,
hey, I'm going to grind you down until you do what I say.
And then I will feel better. I will tell you that isn't this better.
And by that time, because of the relationship dynamic we have,
most likely you'll say, uh-huh, sure, because you just tried,
again, to find your voice and express yourself, and it didn't work.
And by the time, and if you make it to couples therapy, and you finally express
that you haven't felt seen or heard or understood, and when he then says,
well, why haven't you told me?
This is the part where I love raising my hand and saying, I can take this one
and laying out a scenario like this one. Back to this Watson study.
So that real rule, the ascending numbers in this scenario that I'm talking about
might be something like children thrive when their parents are mentally healthy,
fulfilled and present when they're together, regardless of employment status.
But he'll never discover that rule because he's afraid to test sequences that
might disprove his hypothesis.
And part of the narrative that they're bringing into couples therapy is their
husband has felt like they don't do anything around the house,
but the husband in those scenarios has not been curious. They are just projecting. They're just telling.
And that's one of the saddest parts. In this scenario, his confirmation bias
isn't just protecting his beliefs about parenting, it's protecting him from
having to confront his own fears about increased responsibility and change.
He is not wanting to even truly know who his wife is or explore why this is
so uncomfortable for him.
So instead of dealing with those fears directly, which could be an amazing opportunity
for the two of them to connect,
and those are the types of things that we can explore in therapy,
Maybe he's unconsciously recruiting research to avoid the real conversation
that he needs to have with himself and his wife.
This is why simply presenting facts to somebody rarely works.
And you will often hear so many versions of this. Well, I just need to tell
them this or, and I told them what I thought and they did not magically change
all of their beliefs and their mind.
His wife in this scenario could and actually did show him a lot of studies.
I was about to use narcissistic math and say dozens and dozens of studies,
all the studies showing all the studies, but it was a couple of them about the
benefits of maternal employment.
But his brain has already decided those don't count.
He is not looking for truth. He is looking for confirmation that his current
belief system can stay intact and he can go to doing what he wants to do.
And then she will leave defeated and wondering, can I even stay in this relationship?
And I don't feel good about myself.
And I look at this as almost this drive-by type of invalidation.
She can put out an emotional bid. He can drive on by. Nope, don't like it. And then keep on going.
And then she's left to deal with, wow, I don't know what to do now.
So let's dig a little deeper into the world of confirmation bias because research
in that area has identified a few different ways that confirmation bias then manifests.
And I think these are important to understand so that you can now know what you didn't know.
One is called selective search. We look for information that supports our beliefs
and we avoid information that challenges it. Selective search.
Another one is called biased interpretation. We interpret in ambiguous information
in ways that will support our existing beliefs. So we will take this lump of
clay of information and we can mold it to fit our belief system.
There's selective memory. We remember information that confirms our beliefs
better than information that contradicts them.
We will go into a lot of detail about memory, selective memory,
confabulated memory in an upcoming episode because memory is one of the most
fascinating things ever.
I can watch a couple not remember what somebody else said two minutes before,
but yet they are committed to a narrative of something that happened 10 years
ago and cannot believe that their partner doesn't remember it the exact same way.
There's also a concept called discounting. We find ways to completely dismiss
or minimize information that contradicts our beliefs.
And let's talk about these different types of confirmation bias.
And a quick side note, when I am working with couples, there are five what I
call highly charged topics that people want to talk about, but don't have the
tools to talk about them.
So when they come into therapy, they don't quite put together the fact they
typically want to talk about these very high charged topics.
Things that they did not succeed in talking about out in the wild.
They want to talk about these high charge topics without knowing how
and this is why i think an unskilled couples therapist
can easily get drawn into the role of referee or judge you
have to slow your role you have to learn the right tools
when talking about ordering food through
the taco bell drive-thru or through a miscommunication of
getting something from the grocery store because my five highly
charged topics are drumroll please money parenting
sex religion and politics so today
it's time to work in the world of the high charge topics because well
they're everywhere especially politics and in my
world and in my practice currently religion so i'm going
to pepper in what some might believe to be these controversial
topics or high charge topics and of course your opinion or beliefs may and probably
will differ from what i share and if they do then there is truly no better time
to literally practice what i am preaching than in this very podcast episode
if you run into contradictory information to what you believe so back to the
different types of confirmation bias.
Let's go into selective search and I'll give you some details and I'll give
you some examples. Let's talk about a political example of selective search.
A very conservative person will only read or watch Fox News.
Wall Street Journal, editorial pages, and conservative blogs while actively
avoiding things like CNN or NPR or any liberal source.
Conversely, a liberal person only consumes CNN, MSNBC, New York Times opinion
section, and progressive podcasts while avoiding all conservative media.
In the health world, somebody who believes vaccines are dangerous only seeks
out anti-vaccine websites, testimonials from parents who blame vaccines for
their children's autism, and studies that suggest vaccine risks while avoiding CDC data,
peer-reviewed medical journals, or pro-vaccine information.
Or let's talk about a personal example. A person convinced their spouse does
not appreciate them, only notices the times their partner seems distracted or
doesn't say thank you, while unconsciously avoiding or not seeking out evidence
of their partner's appreciation and love.
I had a session recently where a husband has been accused of being on his phone
a lot, and he has finally acknowledged that, okay, that has been the case.
Fast forward a week in couples therapy. They had had a good week.
They'd gone on a date. They had done some fun things.
And she said, but he still pulled out his phone a couple of times.
And he was very frustrated because he had worked very hard to be present.
So she found the times or had hung on to those times when he pulled out his
phone and did not look at that with genuine curiosity or appreciate the fact
that he did not have his phone out as much. And I understand that too.
And my beloved four pillars of a connected conversation, that pillar one of
giving someone the benefit of the doubt, or no one wakes up in the morning and
thinks, how am I going to hurt my partner?
So this person had tried to do a lot of work on staying away from their phone,
almost to their detriment.
So it's hard because if someone is not assuming good intentions,
then they are essentially looking for the things that will confirm what they're looking for.
Seek and ye shall find. If you look hard enough, you are likely going to find
what it is that you are looking for.
In each of these cases, they are actually curating their information diet to
only include sources that will tell them what they want to hear and systematically
avoiding information that will challenge their existing beliefs.
So the second type of confirmation bias called biased interpretation.
Let me go down the political realm. Two people watch the same presidential debate.
A supporter interprets that the candidates pause as thoughtful consideration
while an opponent sees the exact same pause as not knowing the answer or being evasive.
Or let's say that a presidential candidate runs on a platform of being open
and transparent about some controversial information.
But then And after he's elected, he says, I cannot believe the people are still
talking about wanting him to release the information, despite the fact that
there are several instances of him saying prior to being elected that he has
no problem releasing the information.
Maybe even take it further and somebody on his staff says that they have the
information and they'll release it shortly, but then the information is no longer available.
Somebody who is devoted to that candidate at all costs,
even at the cost of their own personal values or integrity, is going to say
he must have a good reason for not only completely changing his mind,
not acknowledging that he had said that he would release the information,
but even must have a good reason why turning on his own base for calling them stupid and foolish.
He must be doing this 4D chess that I've heard of while somebody who doesn't
support that candidate is going to say he lied.
He misrepresented the facts yet again, or he must be trying to hide what is in the information.
Let's go into the world of sports. I know this one far too well.
A referee makes a close call against your favorite team. You interpret this
as evidence, it's rigged.
The ref is biased. The game is rigged against your team. Always is.
While fans of the opposing team see it as not as a fair call or,
well, it's about time they've been favoring your guys' team the whole time.
There is no greater place to observe confirmation bias than with a fandom.
Let's go relationships. Your partner comes home and says, hi, in a neutral tone.
And if you're feeling insecure about yourself or the relationship,
you might interpret this as coldness or distance.
If you're good, if you're feeling secure, then you might interpret it as normal,
or maybe they're tired, or maybe they were distracted by work.
And I might jump in with a little more curiosity.
Let's touch on the high charge topic of religion. A person of faith experiences
a coincidence, like thinking of an old friend right before they call.
As a believer might interpret this as divine intervention or a spiritual connection,
while a skeptic sees it as simple probability playing out.
So notice how the same exact information, a debate performance,
a referee's call, a partner's greeting, gets filtered through the lens of what
we already believe, and that leads us to see evidence for our existing beliefs,
even in completely neutral events.
Next up is selective memory. Let's go into the world of parenting.
Parents often remember their children's successes and cute little moments far
more vividly than tantrums and difficult phases.
They might tell stories about how their toddler was such a good sleeper while
forgetting months of sleep deprivation.
Or I was working with a financial planner as a client at one point,
and he would often just talk about their, his successful trades,
the years that he made a whole lot of money so much more clearly than his losses.
I hear gamblers often say that they win more than they lose,
which I don't think that's a thing. The casinos aren't built that way.
They might recall this one time that they bought Apple stock before it jumped
while forgetting the multiple times they lost money on similar sure thing investments.
Or the world of academics. A student who believes they are bad at math will
more easily remember the times they got wrong answers or felt confused while
forgetting or downplaying the
problems that they solved correctly or the concepts that they understood.
Well, after a breakup, people often remember either the mostly good times if
they want to get back together or mostly the bad times that they want to move
on while forgetting the more balanced, nuanced reality of the relationship.
I have processed many a person who is going through divorce,
and it turns out that they knew.
They knew 30 years ago from the moment that they were heading to the wedding
that everything since that time has been bad.
Our brains act like these biased historians, carefully preserving memories that
support our current beliefs while allowing contradictory memories to fade away
into the distance, creating a personal archive that seems to prove we've always been right.
And then another kind of confirmation bias discounting we'll
talk about climate change somebody skeptical of climate
change might dismiss any scientific study by saying yeah scientists are just
trying to get grant money or the data has been manipulated rather than engaging
with the actual evidence or a medical example a person who believes in alternative
medicine might discount their doctor's advice about needing surgery by saying
doctors just want to make money or western medicine only treats symptoms not
the root causes and while there might be some truth in that,
it's not that black or white or all or nothing.
Let's talk about a personal growth example. Somebody receives feedback that
they interrupt people frequently.
Instead of considering if this might be true, they discount it by thinking,
hey, you're just too sensitive. Or, hey, that's just the way I communicate.
Or, they don't understand my passion for the topic.
And we'll talk a lot more about this later in the episode, but let's go with
a conspiracy theory example.
When presented with evidence that contradicts a conspiracy theory,
believers often discount it by saying the evidence itself is part of the conspiracy.
Of course, the government would say that. Or, well, the media is going to cover
everything up. That's what they don't want you to understand.
Or an academic example, a student gets a poor grade and discounts it by saying,
dad, the teacher didn't like me.
Or this class is just about memorizing things. It's not really about learning.
Rather than considering, they might actually need to study differently or even ask for help.
When we can't avoid or reinterpret contradictory evidence, we attack the source itself.
The messenger becomes the problem rather than the message. And that allows us
to maintain our beliefs by questioning the credibility of anybody who challenges them.
Let me share a client story. And again, these stories. I've always had details
change to protect confidentiality.
I worked with someone who I think perfectly illustrated how all of these types
of confirmation bias can work together.
He came to me and he wanted to grow and see his blind spots.
I loved it. I was on board. He said, challenge me, Tony.
He said, I really want to understand where I might be wrong about things.
So I thought, okay, sure. Here's somebody who appears to be genuinely open to
feedback and different perspectives.
Not the normal job of the therapist. I'm right there beside him trying to help
them find where they want to go. What are the problems and challenges in the way of that?
He wanted a little bit more like a life coach. Just tell me,
just let me know, give me the truth, tell me what it is.
But what happened next was fascinating. And it actually was pretty exhausting
when I would offer an alternative viewpoint or presented information that I
felt very confident about that contradicted something that he believed.
He immediately responded with my favorite, the yeah, but yeah,
but followed by a reason why my perspective didn't actually apply to his situation.
Yeah. But that research was probably done on a different type of people or yeah,
but you don't understand my circumstances.
I mean, I know you're just doing your job or yeah, but that might work for some
people, but that's not what I'm looking for.
So when I pointed out this pattern, something very interesting happened.
He started to recognize that his yeah, but responses were actually a form of
emotional immaturity, specifically the black and white thinking he had talked about earlier.
He realized that whenever somebody expressed an opinion different from his,
his brain automatically interpreted it as they think they are right and I am
wrong, which felt like a threat to his intelligence and his competence.
So instead of him being curious about the different perspective,
he would then impulsively try to regain what is often referred to as the one-up position.
He'd scramble to find counter arguments, sometimes even make up facts that he
wasn't sure were true, but that he thought, I could probably find data to back
it up just to avoid the feeling like he was losing the intellectual battle.
Here's where it gets really interesting. When I would present what I thought
was a valid piece of research or peer-reviewed data, he developed even more
sophisticated ways to dismiss it.
This was my favorite. He said to one particular thing that I felt very confident about, a healthy ego.
I knew because I'd done the work to know, but he said, but do you really honestly
know what you're saying is true?
Which then is putting me on the defensive because the answer to that is yes.
When I would explain my sources or my reasoning, he would say,
well, you can actually find research to back up anything you want these days.
So hopefully you can see what was happening. He had created a perfect system
for getting out of any conversation without having to self-confront.
He could even walk away from that saying, man, I really appreciate that session.
I feel so much better about myself because I, turns out I was right about everything.
So selective search. He only looked for information that supported his existing views.
Biased interpretation. Any neutral information got filtered through his existing beliefs.
Selective memory. He would remember the times that he felt right and forget
the times that he might've been wrong.
And then discounting. When faced with any kind of contradictory evidence,
he would attack the credibility of the source and it
was kind of brilliant to watch actually from a psychological protection standpoint
because it was also causing him to isolate more
and more and he found himself seeking out only people and online
communities and groups who thought exactly the way he did because they
were the only ones who didn't trigger his defensive responses now the problem
was those relationships were ultimately unsatisfying he started to realize what
so many people do well not enough people do that surrounding yourself with yes
men with people who only agree with him wasn't actually validating. It was lonely.
He wasn't just connecting with people. He was just collecting these yes men.
So the breakthrough came when he recognized that his yeah, but wasn't actually
protecting his intelligence. It was protecting his ego from the discomfort of
potentially being wrong.
And that discomfort, that cognitive dissonance was actually the information
that he needed to start to pay attention to, not something to immediately resolve
by dismissing other perspectives.
And I think this so accurately shows how confirmation bias isn't just about being stubborn.
It is about how our minds systematically process information in ways that protect our existing beliefs.
And often, most often, we don't even realize it's happening.
My client thought he was being intellectually rigorous, but he was actually
being very intellectually defensive.
So now let me show you how this pattern would play out in a more public context
that I think most of us have probably witnessed or even experienced ourselves.
And this does have to do with vaccines, vaccine hesitancy.
And I am going to use this as our muse, whether you are pro vaccine,
vaccine hesitant, or somewhere in between. mean, I think it's a very nice way
to recognize these psychological patterns in action.
If somebody has developed concerns about vaccines, they would most likely engage
in exactly the same confirmation bias behaviors that my client was using,
just applied to a different topic.
So that selective search, they find themselves gravitating toward anti-vaccine
websites, testimonials from parents who believe that vaccines harm their kids,
and alternative health practitioners who then validate those concerns.
Now, meanwhile, they most likely are avoiding mainstream medical websites or
CDC information pro-vaccine content.
Again, not necessarily because they're being deliberately closed-minded,
but because that information creates that same uncomfortable cognitive dissonance
that my client was trying to avoid.
And then you've got biased interpretation. So when their kid gets a fever or
seems really fussy, especially after a vaccination,
then they interpret that as evidence that, see, vaccines are harmful,
instead of considering it might be a normal immune response,
it could be a coincidence, then that same parent might not care their child's
good health to the diseases that they've been protected from.
Selective memory. They vividly remember every story they've heard about people
who were injured from vaccines or adverse reactions from vaccines,
even if the statistics about life saved or epidemics prevented or children who
have been protected seem less memorable or they aren't as emotionally compelling.
And then you've got that concept of discounting. When presented with data,
let's say CDC data showing vaccine safety, they immediately dismiss it as that's
just government propaganda. What else are they going to say?
When shown peer-reviewed studies, they counter that with, well,
who pays for that? Big pharma? They fund all the research.
And just like my client saying, you can find research to support anything.
They've created a system where no contrary evidence can penetrate those beliefs.
And just like this client I was talking about, this isn't about being stubborn
or not necessarily about being unintelligent.
It is about how our mind systematically processes information in ways that protect our existing beliefs.
It's our default. Often without us, I would say most often without us realizing it's even happening.
This is why it takes great patience to build in that pause, to come back into
this present moment, to be able to
recognize when I'm jumping into that confirmation bias or cognitive bias.
If a parent has developed vaccine concerns genuinely and genuinely believes
they are being a good parent by doing their own research and asking questions,
they're not trying to be difficult.
They are trying to protect their child based on what feels true to them.
But the same psychological mechanisms that kept my client then isolated and
defensive are at work here too.
And in so many of the scenarios that we find ourselves in out in the wild,
the more somebody's vaccine beliefs get challenged, then the more they might
seek out only the like-minded communities and the more isolated they become
from people who might offer these different perspectives.
And I hope we're laying out a case today that most people are not going to self-confront
and even question whether or not they might not be correct.
This is why simply presenting facts about things like vaccine safety or any
of these topics typically doesn't work and sometimes even backfires because
the person's brain has already created a system for dismissing contradictory information.
In that scenario, I was going to say they're not looking for truth,
but to them, it can feel, and I'm sure, not even, I'm sure it is. I know I do this as well.
I believe I am looking for truth. But are we doing that?
Are we more looking for confirmation, validation that our protective instincts as a parent are correct?
And think about how this plays out in our current information environment.
We can curate our own news sources, our own social media feeds,
even our own social circles to provide us with a steady stream of information,
that confirms what we already believe.
I can, here's my old man get off the lawn moment, but the doggone social media
and that algorithm, I'll tell you what, right now, I think I'm afraid I'm gonna
have to take some, I wanna say middle-aged, but I'm getting older in age dance
class because I watched an old guy dance at his daughter's wedding.
So now, and me even saying it right now, I'm sure that my phone,
my iPad, everything's probably loading up even more.
These ads of, look, this old guy can learn to dance and five minutes every afternoon.
We can create our own reality bubble. So if we connect these two phenomena,
we got this Dartmouth-SKAR study, and then we got confirmation bias research.
And we're going to set the table here, revealing a little bit more information
about how our minds work.
Let's first look at these similarities
between the two. Both involve these expectation driven perceptions.
In the SKAR study, participants expected to be treated differently. So
they interpreted even neutral behavior as discriminatory
with confirmation bias we expect to find
evidence for our beliefs that is how we are hardwired so we interpret even the
most ambiguous information as okay i can make that fit into my narrative give
me this clay and i will mold it into my very own belief and it will make me
feel better about myself and the things that i am standing for.
Both create self-reinforcing cycles. The scar study participant's behavior,
maybe being more defensive or more withdrawn, might have actually then elicited
different responses from the people that they were interacting with,
kind of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If the person just looks over at me and I think I've got a big scar on my forehead
and I don't, and I say, what are you looking at?
Okay, yeah, you want to, the old Pee Wee Herman bit, take a picture, it'll last longer.
And the person just had literally glanced over. I mean, that person already
is now, they're reacting in the moment thinking, okay, weirdo,
I just literally like looked in that direction.
Similarly, confirmation bias makes us more confident in our beliefs because,
holy cow, we keep finding all kinds of evidence for them.
Both operate largely in the unconscious mind. The participants didn't consciously
decide to misinterpret social cues.
People experiencing confirmation bias aren't usually aware they're filtering information.
Both feel completely real to the person experiencing them. The participants
genuinely experienced discrimination. It was what they felt and saw and acknowledged.
People with strong confirmation bias genuinely believe they're being objective
and just following the evidence, following the truth, recognizing the big differences.
The SCAR study was a specific temporary belief in a very controlled setting.
Now, confirmation bias, that
affects our entire worldview, and it can be across all areas of our life.
The SCAR study involved relatively low-stakes social interactions,
but then confirmation bias can involve our most fundamental beliefs about reality,
morality, religion, community, identity.
And while the SCAR study lasted just a few hours, confirmation bias is happening
in real time, I want to say all the time.
It can shape our thinking for decades, for our lives. So you've got this emotional
investment. The SCAR study did create some temporary discomfort.
The reason I think these differences, these similarities are so powerful is
because you can see these things on a small scale and you might walk away today
and think, oh, that is interesting.
But then this confirmation bias concept is something that is happening in real time at all times.
So it does take more work to be more aware of it.
Confirmation bias is going to protect your beliefs that are central to your
identity and your sense of meaning.
Another thing I find fascinating by this whole experience is in some ways,
then our strongly held beliefs then function like invisible scars.
They change how we perceive the world, how we interpret others' actions,
and how we navigate social situations.
But that difference is that those scars are often invisible to us,
us too. We're operating off of this reactive way that we're trying to make sense
of the world to make us feel better.
And we're looking for ways to confirm the beliefs that we just have come upon.
Or beliefs that were handed to us over time from our family,
from our community, from our political beliefs, from our parents.
There are so many variables that go into the default mode settings that we have
with our beliefs, our values, our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions,
and that's just to be accepted.
Those are there. So now what do we do with them?
Are we open to change, to self-confrontation, to critical thinking? Yeah.
When somebody challenges our political beliefs, we don't just disagree with their argument.
We might perceive them as attacking our intelligence, our values, or our identity.
When somebody questions our religious
beliefs, we might interpret that as persecution or discrimination.
And just like the participants in the SCAR study, we're not making that up.
It is our genuine experience.
That's how we're seeing the world, through the lens of our beliefs.
You don't know what you don't know, and that is powerful.
The participants in the scar study didn't know that they didn't know that they had no scar.
Similarly, just like we often don't know what we don't know about our own confirmation
biases, our own invisible scars, our own ways of filtering reality.
And this is why approaching belief change with humility is really important.
We might be absolutely certain about something and still be wrong. And that's okay.
It's part of being human. It's the very first time you are you going through
life as you in the moment right now.
You're listening to this. You are a combination of so many different variables,
nature, nurture, birth order, DNA, abandonment, rejection, hope,
fears, attachment wounds, experiences of loss, financial circumstances,
everything else that makes you uniquely you.
So why is it then so difficult for people to change their minds or look at things
from a different perspective or try to understand someone else's experiences?
Well, first, we have to acknowledge that we have a continually running psychological
protection system in our brains at all times.
At its core, our brain is a don't get killed device.
It's designed for survival, not really for finding truth or being accurate about reality.
It just wants to continue to exist.
And so scary things may get it killed. So it wants to find comfort and safety
and certainty and security.
Think about that in the context of this SCAR study. Those participants weren't
lying when they reported feeling discriminated against.
Their brain was genuinely interpreting neutral social cues as threats because
they believe they had this visible flaw.
And that psychological protection system kicks in, scans the environment and
says, hey, we're vulnerable here.
People could reject us. This whole SCAR thing, they'll exclude us.
They'll treat us as less than.
Sounds pretty dangerous. Before you know it, we're going to be booted out of
the group and where are those saber-toothed tigers? That's dangerous.
Now, you may think, Tony, we are not living in the Stone Age anymore.
Social rejection isn't life-threatening. But here's the thing.
Our brain is this organ, this facilitator of lots of amazing things.
But it's just trying to live.
Our brains actually have not caught up with modern reality.
For our ancestors, being rejected by the tribe meant death.
If you were cast out from the group, you couldn't survive on your own.
So our brains evolved to treat social threats like being seen as wrong or stupid
or different as existential threats, life-threatening things that we must deal with.
This is why confirmation bias exists in the first place. When somebody challenges
those beliefs, especially the ones, again, that are core, our identity,
our brain doesn't just hear, I disagree with your opinion.
It hears, you're wrong, which means you're not smart, which means you don't
belong, which means you're in danger and you're going to get kicked out of the
group. And the next thing you know, and our pet's heads are falling off and
everything's going bad.
At its simplest level, any threat, even verbal disagreement,
triggers the same ancient alarm system that once helped our ancestors survive
actual physical dangers. That's why we're here today, why we're listening.
The threat must be neutralized and attacked. And this is why we see people become
so emotionally dysregulated when these beliefs, political, religious,
et cetera, are challenged.
Their brain is screaming. look old man
this person is threatening our very survival so that
client example earlier when that client responded with well yeah but
everything he wasn't just being intellectually stubborn
his psychological protection system was activated his brain was interpreting
my alternative perspectives as threats to his competence his intelligence his
sense of being right which to his unconscious mind felt like threats to his
social standing and ultimately his survival the same thing happens when we're
talking about vaccine hesitancy political beliefs or any deeply held conviction.
When we present contradictory evidence, we're not just challenging somebody's
ideas, we're inadvertently activating their threat detection system.
We're telling them that they are wrong and we are right.
Their brain says, if I'm wrong about this important thing, what does that say
about my judgment, my intelligence, my ability to protect my family?
All of a sudden, my spouse is going to leave, my kids are...
You can see we just quickly just devolve.
Let's get to one of my favorite concepts here. It's called the backfire effect.
When the backfire effect happens, when the threat feels big enough,
the brain doesn't just dismiss the contradictory information.
Oh no, it now has to go double down on the original belief as a way of restoring
the sense of safety and competence that it once felt.
But understanding this changes everything about how we approach conversations
with people who see the world differently than we do.
We're not just dealing with different opinions. We're dealing with activated
threat protection systems and adorable egos that are protecting and being the
security guard of your own sense of self.
And those are genuinely trying to keep people safe, even when the danger is
just about being wrong about something or having a different opinion.
It's fascinating if you think about it, of how our minds have evolved these
elaborate systems to even protect our beliefs, especially the ones that are
central to our identity.
From an evolutionary perspective if our ancestors constantly
question every belief and then change their minds at
the first sign of contradictory evidence we would
probably not be here listening because so often
especially for them sticking with what you believe even if it's not perfectly
accurate is safer than constantly changing your mind this is part of why we
have an emotional immaturity epidemic and why the need to become more emotionally
mature is there because there's so much information.
Our brains are going crazy just trying to survive.
Let me give a few examples to show how our minds evolved to protect beliefs for our survival.
So if we look at this as a survival-based belief protection, predator avoidance.
If your ancestor heard rustling in the bushes and believed, I think that's a predator.
It was far better to stick with that belief and run, even if it was just the wind 99% of the time.
If there was an ancestor who constantly questioned this belief and thought,
you know what, maybe, maybe I should investigate that rustling in the grass
just to be sure they would most likely eventually encounter the 1% where it
actually was a predator and they would die.
Better to be wrong and alive than right and dead. And if my daughter cuts that
up for social media, I hope that we get the full context of that.
Let's look at food safety. Somebody in your tribe got sick after eating certain
berries. It was, it was evolutionary.
It was evolutionarily advantageous to develop a strong belief that those berries
are dangerous they made grog die,
And so I do not want to be grog, so I will stay away from those berries.
Now, if there was a person who constantly questioned that belief and thought,
well, it's been a few weeks, maybe the berries are fine now,
they would eventually eat the wrong ones and die. RIP grog.
Tribal loyalty. Our ancestors who strongly believed their tribe was good and
other tribes were dangerous were more likely to stick with their protective group and defend it.
Those who constantly question whether their tribe was really the best one might
have wandered off alone or even been less committed to group defense.
And now let me bring this into the modern world. This belief protection still operates.
Medical adherence. When somebody finds a doctor they trust, they tend to stick
with that doctor and start to feel or maybe adopt their belief system,
even if they are presented with contradictory medical advice at some point down the road.
This is protective. that constantly switching medical philosophies could lead
to inconsistent care and then eventually some dangerous interactions and you die.
Parenting beliefs. Parents develop very strong beliefs about what's best for
their kids. Breast versus bottle feeding, co-sleeping versus cribs, cry it out versus not.
Constantly changing those beliefs based on every new study or every new reel
would create chaos and inconsistency that could actually be a challenge to the child.
And I want to say, don't get me started in the world of finances.
That's a challenge in and of itself.
But somebody who believes the stock market's a little too risky might stick
with the conservative investments.
While they might miss some gains, they also avoid potential devastating losses
that could come from constantly changing investment strategies based on market news.
There are times that this psychological protection system does become problematic.
Let's talk political identity. One of these high charge topics,
our ancestors needed very strong tribal loyalty for survival.
But now the same mechanism, it can make us resist political information that
challenges our party affiliation, even when changing our mind might lead to
a better policy outcome.
I work with people often that will talk about when they vote,
it is the straight party line.
And I will often just out of curiosity, ask if they're aware of the things that
they're voting for other than the candidates.
And I would say the number one answer is no, I haven't really had time,
but I believe it's an all or nothing thing with my political party.
If we look at religious beliefs, the certainty that helped our ancestors maintain
social cohesion, a moral structure,
they can now prevent us from updating our understanding when we're presented
with new information or philosophical information, scientific information,
historical data, health behaviors.
Somebody might stick with the belief that I'm healthy enough and resist information
about diet or exercise changes because constantly questioning our health status
might create more anxiety and decision paralysis and yo-yo dieting and all kinds
of things that would just.
Potentially cause more anxiety. Look at professional identity.
A doctor or a therapist who has practiced a certain way for 20 years might resist
new treatment protocols because constantly questioning their expertise,
they may feel that that would undermine their confidence or their effectiveness.
And I recently had a client who I love, one of my favorites,
ask me when I will figure things out because they've been with me for a long
time and we've gone through four pillars of a connected conversation.
They've been with me long enough where there are only three pillars and attachment
theory and avoidant and anxious and needing validation and discomfort and safety and you name it.
And she said, yeah, when are you going to figure it out so that I don't have
to keep learning? I can lock in.
And I just said, man, I so hear you.
Never, I hope, because I want to continually learn and evolve as I am learning and evolving.
There's a part of this that I refer to in my mind as the better safe than sorry principle.
And I think that also plays into why it can be so difficult to change our mind
or definitely somebody else's.
Here's a few examples there. Let's look in the dating world.
If somebody believes their partner might be cheating based on limited evidence,
it might be safer to maintain suspicion than to completely trust and potentially
be betrayed and heaven forbid, have an uncomfortable or difficult conversation.
Or look at job security. An employee might believe their job is at risk and
work extra hard, even if the evidence is ambiguous, because being wrong about
job security is less costly than being wrong about job safety.
If you look at home security, a lot of people maintain beliefs about neighborhood
safety that maybe err on the side of caution.
Better to believe your neighborhood is a little bit dangerous and take precautions
than to believe it is safe and then become a victim.
There's also a cost of constant belief or vision. It can be decision paralysis.
Imagine if every morning you had to question whether or not am I brushing my
teeth today or not? I got to figure this out.
What am I going to do for breakfast? And what's the best thing for breakfast?
And I don't want to get anything wrong for breakfast.
And whether the route to work is actually optimal. Should I be looking at different routes to work?
Constantly revising basic beliefs or activities would tend to make daily functioning difficult.
It could cause anxiety. It might even develop into almost a ritualistic OCD-like
behavior pattern that is there in hopes of avoiding anxiety.
So, we're doing this even in areas we're not even aware of.
So, rather than lean in and embrace the discomfort or learn more about psychological
flexibility and begin to take pleasure in just being in the individual moment
when the world then is a mystery right in front of you, ready to explore rather
than to fear, and look at your social relationships.
If you constantly question whether
your friends really like you or whether your family cared about you.
It would be really difficult to form a stable, trusting relationship because
you're continually just wondering and ruminating and worrying and trying to
read the room and figure things out.
Or I look at this in the realm of professional competence. A surgeon who constantly
questions their training and their abilities might hesitate during critical
moments when things like confidence, petition, quick action are necessary for a patient survival.
I will end part one here. There is so much more to cover. We're going to get
into a little bit of a modern paradox about the systems that kept us alive,
our ancestors alive, in maintaining useful beliefs.
Now we're causing us to feel a little more stuck. We're going to cover that
and a whole lot more on part two.
But I'll end talking about this professional competence.
I had my surgery follow-up, my four-month follow-up surgical appointment for
my ACDF spinal surgery, which is doing amazing.
It's pain-free back to running walking
push-ups are a little more difficult than i thought but i
feel a little something in my throat at
times when i move certain ways and i even thought is this something that
i was experiencing before and now i'm just aware of it and i'm trying to make
meaning of it so i wasn't even at first going to ask my surgeon if it really
was a thing i love this and i recorded it so that i could go back and see if
my memory was accurate but i said I'm feeling this thing in my neck.
It's probably my head. And he confidently said, Oh no, that is absolutely happening.
He talked about scar tissue. We gave this analogy of in the neck or the throat
that it's like a spider web.
So it kind of moves and you can't really grasp it, but then to go in and try
to address it would then cause more scar tissue. So it's there, accept it.
And I just, I appreciated his confidence and I appreciated his competence and
I'm creating a bit of a narrative,
but I'm grateful that he has continued to learn and hone his craft and be aware
of things that maybe he doesn't know that he doesn't know in order to show up
with that kind of confidence and presence.
All right. Thanks for joining me today. If you have thoughts or questions about
part one, feel free to email me or go through my website, TonyOverbay.com.
And I would love any of your own experiences of any of the concepts we're talking
about today, trying to change somebody else's mind or how difficult maybe it
has been to change your mind.
I would really love an example or two or as many as
you're willing to send of what was a major
belief change for you and how did that come about so send those in and let me
know if you're open to me sharing those on a future episode and going out as
per usual the wonderful the talented aurora florence because i'm telling you
it can be whatever it is have a great week we'll see you next week,
of the day.
Music.