Ever wonder how bias is affecting your decisions? It’s hard to make healthy decisions, especially these days. We have access to a ton of information. We also have access to a ton of disinformation. Bias enters the picture to add further complication.
We can carefully vet our sources, but even information from credible sources may be biased. And once we absorb information, it is subject to our own bias.
All of us are biased. Our brains use prior experience as a shortcut to form a perception of reality in the moment. If bullets have pelleted my home in a drive-by, my perception of the sound of gunfire may be quite different from someone who has only heard that sound at a gun range. Or, if I’ve only heard gunshots on TV, I may perceive a gunshot outside my home as a car backfiring.
We often remain unaware of our biases or those that have long persisted within our culture. This is as true in healthcare as it is in other areas of life.
For example, you may have had a health professional recommend a low-fat diet to improve heart health. This sounds logical, reasonable, and is a widely issued recommendation. It is easy to assume that research backs up this advice. And yet, that’s not the case.
According to a study published in 2015, a relationship of causation between fat consumption and coronary heart disease was never established. In spite of that, guidelines for fat consumption were established as if causation had been established. The guidelines were included in the 1977 McGovern report and persist in many doctors’ practices today.
Bias in policy and decision making has been on daily display during the pandemic, resulting in a mishmash of barely discernible pieces of fact-based guidance. In fact, public health guidance has been such a nightmare to navigate that I’m not going to try to decipher it here.
Instead, let’s focus on personal bias. Here are a few things to watch for when attempting to determine whether bias is influencing a decision:
Judging Yourself – Judging yourself may prevent you from recognizing bias. It can be difficult to isolate personal bias if you judge all bias as bad. Remember, bias assists your brain with processing information quickly. We are wired for this. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t interrupt the circuit. Some bias creates real harm. Still, having bias is not, in and of itself, inherently evil.
Feelings of Danger – There is no real danger in questioning beliefs. Questioning is how we progress and grow, but when we hold a belief so closely it feels like part of our internal workings – part of what makes us, us – it can feel dangerous to question that belief. If we look too closely, we may find our sense of reality shaken. It can feel better in the moment to turn away from danger rather than face potential bias.
Lack of Perspective – Without perspective, we may not be able to turn an issue around to observe whether our view is informed, balanced, fact-based, or reasonable and whether it affects us in a positive or negative way. Further, we may not be able to see the effect our position on an issue has on others. It is hard to gain perspective from the middle of something. That’s why we have the cliché – you can’t see the forest for the trees. We must sometimes invent a way to increase distance from an issue so we can see it more clearly.
Defending the Status Quo – Discovering personal bias requires internal examination. Sometimes when we feel uncertain, we ask for another person’s opinion. External observations may be helpful when exploring the layers of a belief but substituting another’s opinion for your own assessment won’t necessarily result in ferreting out bias. In fact, relying on someone else’s opinion of your process or position may tempt you to defend the status quo.
Allowing the Past to Prevent Progress – Bias is often defended overtly and tacitly by explaining that we do things according to tradition or the way they’ve always been done. Using the past to determine the future can feel grounding and safe. And there’s no denying it’s important to learn from the past. But holding onto beliefs just because they’ve been around a long time and are widely accepted can perpetuate unhealthy bias and prevent progress.
Human nature urges us to present ourselves in the best light. Discovering bias in our beliefs and/or actions may require some detective work. It can also help us determine whether bias is influencing our decisions.
Ultimately, recognizing and eliminating bias can lead to healthier life.
