So picture this, it's 1987.
I'm a fair skinned, fair haired teenager in Utah, and I'm lying on a
trampoline in my backyard, slathered head to toe and baby oil man, there's
a Diddy 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 thirties, and I find myself sitting in a
dermatologist 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 pre-cancerous 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 cancer.
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 flu uracil.
And this medication works by targeting these rapidly dividing cells like
cancer cells, but it also affects any sun damage 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 and 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
cresty 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.
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 gonna 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 crep 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 'em a little bit of a heads up.
'cause I didn't wanna take the time and therapy to explain
what they were gonna 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?
We're gonna talk about.
Welcome to the Virtual Couch Presents, and whether you are hearing
this on the Virtual Couch Podcast or the Waking Up to Narcissism
podcast, I'm so glad you're here.
My name is Tony Overbay.
I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, certified.
Mindful, have a coach, writer, speaker, husband, father in 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.
So my experience with these actinic keratosis 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, the discomfort that 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 gonna 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 tony over
bay.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 gonna be through the newsletter.
Go to tony over bay.com or follow me on Instagram at Virtual couch or
TikTok at Virtual Couch or on YouTube at the Virtual Couch Podcast Network.
On Facebook, Tony over Bay 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 wanna 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 gonna talk
about positive things about mental health or I would love to answer all of
your mental health questions and that is Sailing Outta the Port of Galveston.
It is in, it is the end of January of next year, 2026.
I'll 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 served 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'll 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@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 Show.
Here's the setup for the Dartmouth Scar Experiment.
It's 1980.
There's a psychologist named Dr. Robert Cle and his colleague Angelo Reta.
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, uh, I 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 gonna be something they're, 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 touchup.
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 the results 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 and a episode that I released a few days ago with Sydney,
and we covered this 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 darkness scar study.
So if you wanna hear more about this we go into a completely different direction
than where I'm going in today's episode.
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 wanna 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.
This 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, it's, 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're doing is wrong and bad, even
though most likely you're not even sure.
What it would take to, 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 and ideology.
A belief system, a religious community, and experience.
You name it, we are.
So hardwired to create meaning, to predict what comes next
to, 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.
Just 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 all of a sudden 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, and if you don't really think it's right, it gets to be a little bit odd.
As a couple's 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 they, he didn't say this, but it was as if
he was saying, you know, how, the guy is gonna be the one who is the
smartest in a relationship, right?
And so it says it so casually that if I, if I keep going along, then it
says, if I agreed and I found myself wanting to say, I mean not, not
actually, tell me more about that.
And he would say okay.
It's 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 dunno, 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
that 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 are 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 it 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 preexisting 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.
'cause 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.
And 1960s, there was a psychologist named Peter Watson and he wanted to
understand how people test their beliefs and assumptions and what he discovered.
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.
Watson would give participants a sequence of three numbers, and
it started with 2, 4, 6, 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 Wassam 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 'em know hey
I think is the sequence 4, 8, 10 or 6, 8, 12 or 20, 22, 24.
And every time Watson 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 Watson, 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've worked.
So would 5, 6, 100, but almost no one discovered this because they
only tested the sequences that confirmed their initial as assumption.
And here's kinda the kicker.
If they had tried just one sequence that challenged their hypothesis, so
if they would've just said let's do a rule out like 1, 3, 5, or 10, 11, 12.
They would've also gotten a yes from Watson and then realized,
oh, my, 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 gonna get another experiment where they're gonna
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.
Our sense of safety in the world, in our community, in our family system, and just
like those participants in Washington 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 are 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 I were 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?
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 wanna 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 2, 4, 6.
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 it, 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 home when you were a kid?
How'd that work out?
And 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 about her work life.
So when he heard that this person, he dismissed it, well, I mean, every family's
different or, I mean, I guess that worked for you guys, but that, 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 mother's problems.
Notice he's not searching effects of maternal employment on children or stay
at home versus working mother's research.
He's searching for confirmation, not for information.
He finds some blog posts from some very conservating 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, you're, that's
gonna be really hard for you.
He talks to his father who says, well, 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
praised 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 that'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 are 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.
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
gonna 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, Uhhuh, sure.
Because you just tried again to find your voice and express
yourself and it didn't work.
And by the time it, and if you make it to couples therapy.
You finally expressed 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 Wasson study.
So that real rule, the ascending numbers and 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 is 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's 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, that we can explore in therapy.
He's unconsciously recruiting research to avoid the real conversation that he needs
to have with him, himself and his wife.
This is why simply presenting facts to somebody rarely works.
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 the 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 back 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 and 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 manifest.
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's 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, and 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
that they typically wanna talk about these very high charge topics, things
that, that they did not succeed in talking about out in the wild.
They wanna talk about these high charge topics without knowing how.
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-through or through a miscommunication of getting something from
the grocery store because my five highly charged topics are drum roll 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 are 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'm
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 M-S-N-B-C, 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 had gone on a date, they had done some fun things and she said, but he
still pulled out his phone a couple times and he was very frustrated because
he had worked very hard to be present.
So she found the times or had hung onto 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, in 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 gonna 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 you shall find, if you look hard enough, you are likely gonna find
what it is that you are looking for.
In each of these cases,
they're 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.
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 the candidate's 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.
Then after he's elected, he says, I cannot believe that 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 gonna 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 good, a good reason why turning on his own base
for calling them stupid and foolish.
He must be doing this 40 d chess that I've heard of while somebody who doesn't
support that candidate is gonna say he lied, he misrepresented the facts yet
again, or he must be trying to hide what is ever what is in the information.
It's gonna the world of sports.
I know this one far too well.
A referee makes a close call against your favorite team.
You, 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 that, not as a fair
call or, well, it's about time.
They've been favoring your guys' team the whole time.
There.
There is no greater place to observe confirmation bias than with a fandom.
Let's go relationships.
Your partner comes home and says Hi, and a neutral tone.
And if you're feeling insecure about yourself or the relationship, you might
interpret this as coldness or distance.
If you are 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 in 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.
The student who believes they were bad at math, well more easily remember the
times they got wrong answers or felt confused while forgetting or downplaying
the problems that they solve correctly or the concepts that they understood.
After a breakup, people often remember either the mostly good times if they
want to get back together, or mostly the bad times if they wanna move on
while forgetting the more balanced, nuanced reality of the relationship.
I processed many a person who was going through divorce, and it turns out that
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's 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 wanna 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.
Or let's talk about , a personal growth example.
So 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 the 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, well, the media's
gonna 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 of always had details changed 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 of a life coach.
Just tell me, just let me know.
Gimme 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 to regain what is often referred to as the
one-up position he'd scramble to find counterarguments, sometimes even make
up facts that he wasn't sure were true.
But 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 healthy ego.
I knew because I had 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?
'cause the answer to that is yes.
When I 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 have 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 pro
protection standpoint because it was also causing him to isolate more and more.
And he found himself seeking out only people in 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 gonna use this as our muse, whether you are pro-vaccine vaccine
hesitant, or somewhere in between.
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 close-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 might be a normal immune
response, it could be a coincidence.
Then that same parent might not connect 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 C, D, C data showing vaccine safety, they immediately dismiss it
as that's just government propaganda.
What are, what else are they gonna say when.
Have 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're 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 gonna
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 back buyers.
'cause the person's brain has already created a system for
dismissing contradictory information.
In that scenario.
I was gonna 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, Dogg on social media in 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 age, but I'm getting older in age dance
class because I watched a, 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 of these ads of look,
this old guy can learn to dance in five minutes every afternoon we
can create our own reality bubble.
So if we connect these two phenomena, we got this darthmouth scar study,
and then we got confirmation bias research and we're gonna 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 scar study, participants expected to be treated differently,
so they interpreted even neutral behavior as discriminatory.
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, oh, okay, I
can make that fit into my narrative.
Gimme 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.
Scar study participant's behavior.
Maybe being more defensive or myth 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 what 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 'em.
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.
They, it was what they felt and saw and acknowledged.
People with strong confirmation bias, genuinely believed 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, it was just a few hours, the 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 may 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 gonna 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 to.
to.
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?
, And 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, DN, a, 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?
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 kill 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 believed 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 gonna be booted out of the group and
wear those saber-tooth 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 just this organ, this facilitator of lots of
amazing things, but it's just.
This is 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 to our identity, our brain doesn't just hear, I disagree with your opinion.
Here's you are wrong, which means you're not smart, which means you don't belong,
which means you are in danger and you're gonna get kicked outta 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.
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 'em 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 gonna 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, 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 coming
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.
If somebody in your tribe got sick after eating certain berries.
It was evolutionary.
It was evolutionarily advantageous to develop a strong belief that
those berries are dangerous.
They made grogg die, and so I do not want to be grogg, 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, 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 questioned whether their tribe was really the best one
might have wandered off alone or even been less committed to group defense.
And now lemme bring this into the modern world, belief protection
still operates a 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 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 cried 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 wanna 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 outta 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 gonna figure it out so that
I don't have to keep learning?
I can lock in.
And I just said, man, no, that I so hear you.
Um, never, I hope.
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 a neighborhood, 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 gotta figure this out.
What am I gonna do for breakfast and what's the best thing for breakfast?
And I don't wanna 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 ooc d 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 and 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.
Repetition, quick action are necessary for a patient's survival.
I will end part one here.
There is so much more to cover.
We're gonna 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 gonna 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 A CDF spinal surgery, which is doing amazing.
It's pain-free.
In fact, to running, walking pushups are a little more difficult than I thought.
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 gonna ask my surgeon if it really was a thing.
And 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 in my head.
And he just.
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 spiderweb.
So it kinda 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 may, maybe he doesn't know, that
he doesn't know in order to show up with that kind of confidence and presence.
Alright, thanks for joining me today.
If you have thoughts or questions about part one, feel free to
email me or go through my website.
Tony over bay.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 with her song.
It's wonderful because I'm telling you it can be whatever it is.
Have a great week.
We'll see you next week on the podcast.