How Free Will, Cognitive Bias & Gut Instinct Magnify the 'Us' and 'Them' Illusion
This is how to pop that unreality bubble
These are difficult times. Not only are we dealing with an unfolding pandemic, it’s happening against a backdrop of polarised views and beliefs. This polarisation of views & information affects whether you see other people’s actions as wilful & deliberate (free will) or as doing their best under difficult circumstances (no choice). Whichever side of whichever argument you find yourself on, it’s an anxiety-provoking dilemma. By looking at the concept of free will, (actively & consciously deciding what to do) and it’s opposite determinism (reacting to circumstances in a preprogrammed way), I’m going to give you a tool that sees through the fog & reduces the anxiety.
The issue from a mental health point of view isn’t whether your viewpoint is right or wrong, good or bad. It’s that the ‘us’ and ‘them’ division plays into fundamental cognitive biases which amplify differences & make them seem dangerous.
‘Free will’ isn’t just about whether our own actions are a matter of choice or circumstance. More importantly, it impacts on how we think about other people. Do other people do what they do because they choose to or because circumstances demand it?
And it gets even more complicated when you build in a couple of common cognitive biases.
The ‘self-serving’ bias assumes that our successes are down to our skills & talents but our failures happen because of external influences.
The ‘actor/observer’ bias takes this further by assuming that others' successes are down to circumstances (i.e. they were ‘lucky’) and their failures are because of their faults & shortcomings, (e.g. they’re ‘lazy’).
Being aware of this natural bias is especially important at the moment. We’re being fed different narratives on a lot of what’s going on in the world right now. The pandemic is either being handled well against all the odds or we’re being led by blithering idiots who’s appalling leadership is killing thousands unnecessarily. Brexit is either the best thing to happen in decades or a horrendous experiment that’s going to ruin lives. Trump is, well, Trump.
Anyways, how’s all this going to help reduce the anxiety that comes along with polarised politics and people who just don’t do what they’re supposed to…? Let me show you.
Here we go:
Does free will even exist?
The short answer is no-one really knows for sure.
Psychology research tends to portray free will as a phenomenon that appears to exist but is a consequence of external stimuli & pre-programmed responses. ‘Free will’ is the story we tell ourselves about why we did it.
Experiments show that brain activity begins well before we think we’re making a decision. This brain activity can even be used to accurately predict decisions which in theory haven’t been made yet.
What we don’t seem to know yet is whether this pre-decision brain activity is a preprogrammed stimulus/response or is it the unconscious part of free will in action? Just because some of our decision-making happens unconsciously, before a conscious decision, does that mean it’s not a free decision?
Several seminal studies, for instance, have demonstrated that brain activity increases several seconds before a person becomes consciously aware of a decision. Some argue that this is an indication that people don’t have true free will. Others argue, however, that a freely made choice simply triggers the brain’s activity before an individual is consciously aware of it.
I guess it depends on whether your definition of ‘free will’ means it must all be an entirely conscious process or simply that there is a choice being made (whether consciously or unconsciously).
Cognitive biases exist.
As we looked at the start of this, we know for certain that we humans use cognitive biases all the time. They’re vital shortcuts to help us see through the masses of data our brains strive to make sense of every second of every day.
So if our world view is filtered in such a broad way, can our resulting decisions actually be free? There’s even a bias that says if new information matches something we already believe to be true, we automatically believe the new information. Anything that doesn’t match what we already believe is designated as background rubbish & is filtered out with the trash (often without us even noticing it). It’s like having your own personal spam filter that only lets through ‘things I already agree with’.
Is gut instinct real?
Sometimes, you just know that something’s right or wrong, don’t you? You don’t know how you know but you just know, you know? This is that so-called ‘gut-instinct’ in action. Some call it a sixth sense. Malcolm Gladwell thinks of it as an internal supercomputer that pulls together all of your accumulated knowledge & experience, distilling it into a ‘reaction’ that gives you a hyper-fast Yes/No answer without you having to spend hours working your way through a problem.
We tend to trust gut instinct. It’s an evolutionary development that helps assess safety or danger in an instant. And when there’s danger, an instant might be all there is between having lunch or being lunch.
The problem comes when part of the input to our gut-instinct computer is already pre-biased. The tendency to believe the ‘us & ‘them’ division as we’ve discussed, is a case in point.
How does all this help?
When you find yourself in an ‘us & them’ situation, consider this. ‘They’ think they’re acting in everyone’s best interest & you’re the one who’s misguided. All these biases, free will illusions and gut feel conspire to hide the fact that there are always right-thinking people on both sides of the divide. Morally sound, intelligent people who happen to come to different conclusions because of their different experiences & knowledge.
It feels counterintuitive but it helps to actively try to understand how someone can legitimately hold the views they do. To you, it’s obvious that you’re right. The point is, it isn’t obvious to the other person, (or they’d already hold the same views as you, wouldn't they?)
Assuming that your viewpoint is right perpetuates the division.
Assuming that the other person’s views might be valid to them, removes the division. It takes away the ‘us’ and ‘them’ and replaces it with different understanding & interpretation. It’s just different, not dangerous.
Try this meditation exercise to help connect with people who are like you and with people who are like you but hold different views…(see what I did there?)
Meditation exercise
Sit somewhere quietly & let your awareness expand to take in your immediate surroundings (like noticing the room that you’re sitting in).
Close your eyes.
Let your imagination expand outside the room, as if you’re a camera panning back from the scene.
Keep on going until your mind’s-eye is looking down at your neighbourhood.
Imagine a colour that represents your knowledge & experience & beliefs.
Let that colour drift up from where you are, like a mist.
Notice all those other houses, flats, buildings around you where a similar colour mist rises up too.
All those people who are like you, supporting each other as the mists intertwine.
Let other coloured mists rise up from other buildings for the people who’s experience, knowledge or beliefs are different from yours. Different colours for different beliefs or experiences.
Notice how all these different colours somehow go together, like colours in a rainbow. All different but somehow part of a larger whole.
Drift along with the rainbow colours until it’s time to come back to where you’re sitting
Gently open your eyes.
This meditation helps your mind to remember that we’re all human & feel more connected than separated. We’re part of the mix of ideas, beliefs & experience that make up humanity.
Focussing on what brings us together gives a gentle counterbalance to the constant drip of ‘us’ & ‘them’ that finds it’s way into our news, social media, reinforced as it is by our very own cognitive biases.
Our differences combine to make up a greater whole.
People, for the most part, are just people. Trying to get to the end of the day unscathed.
Just like you & me.
See you again soon.
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