Latest / The Virtual Couch / Blinded by Belief: How Your Brain Defends Its Favorite Story - Even When It's Wrong!

Transcript

Blinded by Belief: How Your Brain Defends Its Favorite Story - Even When It's Wrong! · The Virtual Couch

• 0:06
  So picture this. It's 1987. I am a fair-skinned, fair-haired teenager in Utah,
• 0:11
  and I'm lying on a trampoline in my backyard, slathered head-to-toe in baby oil.
• 0:17
  Man, there's a ditty joke there. But my friends and I are convinced that we've
• 0:19
  discovered the secret to the perfect tan.
• 0:22
  We're literally cooking ourselves in the sun. And in the winter,
• 0:24
  we would drive up to the ski resorts in the canyons and create these makeshift
• 0:29
  reflective tanning beds in the snow because apparently we thought that year-round
• 0:32
  skin damage was the key to looking cool.
• 0:35
  And then fast forward to my early 30s, and I find myself sitting in a dermatologist's
• 0:41
  office, and he's explaining that all of these years of sun worship are about
• 0:45
  to haunt me for the rest of my life.
• 0:47
  Those scabs and these little scales that are covering my scalp,
• 0:51
  they're called actinic keratosis.
• 0:53
  They are these precancerous growths that develop when your skin has been damaged
• 0:59
  by ultraviolet radiation over the course of many, many years.
• 1:03
  So basically this teenage quest for a tan that I never actually really got,
• 1:07
  I was more of red and peel, had turned my scalp into a field of potential skin cancers.
• 1:13
  So for the next several years, I would go to the dermatologist's office twice
• 1:16
  a year and he would burn or freeze off the keratosis using liquid nitrogen.
• 1:21
  It would sting and it would scab and then they would go away and I would be
• 1:24
  good for a few more months when then more would appear in different places.
• 1:28
  So eventually, a doctor recommended a treatment that sounded almost worse than the problem.
• 1:33
  It was a topical chemotherapy cream called fluorouracil.
• 1:37
  And this medication works by targeting these
• 1:40
  rapidly dividing cells like cancer cells but
• 1:44
  it also affects any sun damaged skin cells at all the process is intense to
• 1:50
  say the least the cream essentially causes all the damaged skin to become inflamed
• 1:54
  and then scab over and then slough off and then eventually revealing new beautiful
• 1:59
  healthy skin underneath and if you are curious about what this looks like.
• 2:04
  You can actually Google my name, an actinic keratosis, but buckle up because
• 2:09
  the pictures are very, very dramatic.
• 2:10
  I chronicled the entire experience some 15 years ago, but for about three weeks,
• 2:16
  I looked like I'd been in some sort of accident.
• 2:19
  My entire head and my forehead were covered in these thick, crusty scabs,
• 2:23
  big ones, and I became a walking testament to the dangers of sun damage.
• 2:27
  Now, here's what was fascinating. The way the world treated me during those
• 2:31
  three weeks was completely different.
• 2:33
  People would honestly, it appeared to show some disgust.
• 2:37
  Some did show pity, but most people just avoided me and they looked away.
• 2:42
  Not like I'm getting people staring at me constantly, but there were people
• 2:47
  that were actively looking the other direction and they were avoiding eye contact.
• 2:51
  And it was like my appearance was somehow contagious or it was definitely offensive.
• 2:55
  Cashiers would look down at the register and waiters would seem to focus on
• 2:58
  their notepads and even my own friends seemed a little bit more uncomfortable
• 3:02
  and it was it seemed like normal conversations were much shorter and,
• 3:07
  So for three weeks, I experienced the world as somebody who looked different,
• 3:11
  less socially acceptable, and it changed everything about how I moved through the world.
• 3:16
  And I can still think about that now and I can feel the feelings because I started
• 3:21
  to become less social and a little less likely to go out.
• 3:24
  It wasn't as important to me, which led to a little less confidence in conversations.
• 3:30
  And even though I knew the scabs were temporary and people around me did as
• 3:34
  well, or at least that's what I had communicated to them.
• 3:36
  And I also knew that this was the right thing to do. It was going to lead to
• 3:39
  new skin, healthy new skin. But the way that people treated me made me feel
• 3:43
  fundamentally different about myself.
• 3:45
  So here we are almost 15 years later, and I just completed the treatment once again.
• 3:51
  Now, it was with a new formulation that's supposed to work faster, and it really did.
• 3:56
  And even though I'm generally a pretty secure person, I did notice a lot of
• 4:01
  familiar feelings that crept in.
• 4:04
  Anxiety about how I'll look, worry about how people will react.
• 4:06
  And a part of me wanted to just hide until it was over. I was still seeing clients in real time.
• 4:11
  And I had a copy and paste that just gave them a little bit of a heads up because
• 4:14
  I didn't want to take the time and therapy to explain what they were going to see.
• 4:18
  But there was about a week this time where it looked like I was just very,
• 4:22
  very red and puffy and burned.
• 4:24
  And now I think I've got that luxurious skin again for who knows how long until
• 4:29
  I have to go through it again.
• 4:30
  But that experience before and even the feelings of doing it again recently
• 4:36
  taught me something really profound about the relationship between how we look
• 4:40
  and how others treat us and how we feel about ourselves.
• 4:43
  Here's the crazy part. What if I told you that sometimes this relationship works
• 4:47
  in reverse? What if how we think we look is actually more powerful than how we actually look?
• 4:53
  Welcome to the virtual couch.
• 4:55
  Please take a seat for pillars, emotional maturity.
• 5:00
  Music.
• 5:14
  My name is Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist,
• 5:17
  certified mindful habit coach, writer, speaker, husband, father, and four.
• 5:20
  And today we are diving into one of the most fascinating experiments in psychology,
• 5:25
  the Dartmouth SCAR study.
• 5:27
  And this is where researchers discovered that believing you have a visible flaw
• 5:31
  can be more powerful than actually having one.
• 5:35
  So my experience with these actinic keratoses gave me a real world lesson in
• 5:39
  how visible differences affect our social interactions and how we feel about ourselves.
• 5:45
  But now imagine though, if the reactions that I experienced,
• 5:49
  the averted gazes, the discomfort,
• 5:51
  the change behavior of others that did happen, but imagine if that happened,
• 5:56
  even when there was nothing actually different or wrong with how I looked.
• 6:00
  What if that was just all in my head?
• 6:02
  Imagine if the scar was invisible to everyone but me, but I still experienced
• 6:08
  all of the discrimination and the judgment.
• 6:11
  That's exactly what happened in this groundbreaking 1980 study at Dartmouth College.
• 6:16
  And what it revealed about the human mind, you're not gonna be able to unhear
• 6:19
  what you are about to hear.
• 6:20
  And it will change the way of how you think about belief, perception.
• 6:24
  But more importantly, what we're going to dig so deep into today is why it is
• 6:29
  so incredibly difficult for us to change our own mind or why we try to change
• 6:35
  the minds of others about things that matter the most to us.
• 6:39
  So before we do that, I would just love for you to right now go to tonyoverbay.com
• 6:44
  and sign up for my newsletter.
• 6:45
  I got a newsletter out this week and I have some really, really cool things that are happening.
• 6:51
  And I want to let you all know about that. The quickest way is going to be through the newsletter.
• 6:56
  Go to tonyoverbay.com or follow me on Instagram at virtual.couch or TikTok at
• 7:02
  virtualcouch or on YouTube at the Virtual Couch Podcast Network or on Facebook,
• 7:08
  Tony Overbay Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.
• 7:10
  And some of you should have started hearing by now more information about the men's group.
• 7:16
  And if you haven't yet, it's coming. And if you still want to be a part of the
• 7:18
  men's emotional architects group, then reach out to me.
• 7:21
  And one of the most exciting things is a cruise that I am the,
• 7:27
  I don't, I just, I guessed with my friend, Julie de Jesus, and it's a ICU living
• 7:32
  mental health cruise, which means we're going to talk about positive things
• 7:37
  about mental health. I would love to answer all of your mental health questions.
• 7:40
  And that is sailing out of the port of Galveston. It is in, it is the end of
• 7:43
  January of next year, 2026.
• 7:46
  I will have all the information in a link in the show notes or shoot me an email.
• 7:50
  Come see me. If you find me on a boat and I have soft serve chocolate ice cream
• 7:55
  in my hand or in my bowl, I probably would rather put it in a bowl than carry it around in my hand.
• 7:59
  I will answer all your mental health questions and I love it.
• 8:02
  I love what I do. I would love to help you.
• 8:04
  If you are interested in working with me as a therapist, as a coach, then shoot me a note.
• 8:09
  Email me at contact at Tonyoverbay.com. I really enjoy working with people that
• 8:13
  are familiar with my work or the things that I work on, whether you're an individual or a couple.
• 8:18
  I am starting to create a little bit more space or availability for some new
• 8:22
  people, and that would either be virtual wherever you live, or I have offices
• 8:26
  in the Mesa, Arizona area or up around the Rockland, Roseville, California area.
• 8:31
  Let's get to the nuts and bolts of today's show.
• 8:35
  Here's the setup for the Dartmouth SCAR experiment. It's 1980.
• 8:39
  There's a psychologist named Dr. Robert Kleck and his colleague, Angelo Strinta.
• 8:44
  They conducted this experiment at Dartmouth College that would,
• 8:46
  I really think it fundamentally changes how we understand the relationship between
• 8:50
  our beliefs, our perceptions, and our reality.
• 8:53
  So here's how it worked. Students were told that they were participating in
• 8:56
  a study about how people with facial scars are treated in social interactions.
• 9:01
  The researchers brought in a professional makeup artist who applied a very realistic
• 9:05
  looking scar, a big one, to each participant's face.
• 9:09
  The participants were then shown their reflection in a mirror so they could
• 9:12
  see exactly what they look like with this prominent facial defect.
• 9:15
  Here's where it just gets so interesting the makeup artist then before
• 9:19
  they went out and interacted with others said hey
• 9:23
  i need to need to touch that up i need to add some
• 9:25
  setting powder to make sure that the scar looks realistic and wouldn't smudge
• 9:28
  during their upcoming social interactions now what the participants didn't know
• 9:32
  and i would imagine they're already thinking oh my gosh this is going to be
• 9:35
  something there maybe their heart rate's elevating a little bit that amygdala
• 9:37
  is about to get hijacked so not maybe paying complete attention because when
• 9:41
  the makeup artist did this touch-up what they actually did was they were able
• 9:45
  to remove the scar entirely.
• 9:47
  Now, participant did not know that. So they left the room believing I have this
• 9:51
  hideous scar on my face, this visible facial scar, when in reality now they
• 9:56
  appeared completely normal to everybody that they encountered.
• 9:59
  So they were, were fascinating, striking, heartbreaking, because the participants
• 10:04
  who believed that they had the scars reported that people treated them differently.
• 10:09
  But the ones that thought they had scars, they perceived stares,
• 10:14
  awkward interactions, and what they interpreted as very discriminatory behavior.
• 10:18
  They felt judged. They reported feeling marginalized. And they responded to
• 10:21
  what they saw as very clear evidence of others' negative reactions to their hideous appearance.
• 10:27
  Remember, there was no scar. The people that they interacted with saw completely normal faces.
• 10:32
  So this discrimination that they experienced, it existed entirely in their perception.
• 10:37
  And I think this experiment reveals something so profound about human behavior, psychology.
• 10:44
  Our beliefs about ourselves and our circumstances can be so powerful that they
• 10:48
  literally shape our reality.
• 10:49
  They change the inner landscape of our mind.
• 10:52
  The participants didn't just think that they were being treated differently.
• 10:55
  They genuinely experienced different treatment because their expectations influenced
• 10:59
  how they interpreted very neutral or ambiguous social cues.
• 11:04
  And we did a live Q&A episode that I released a few days ago with Sydney,
• 11:08
  and we covered the study in more detail and we interacted with a lot of the
• 11:11
  people that were there on the live.
• 11:13
  But we also discussed how to best navigate a faith journey. I talked in more
• 11:17
  detail about some additional details of this Dartmouth-Scar study.
• 11:20
  So if you want to hear more about this, we go into a completely different direction
• 11:24
  than where I'm going in today's episode.
• 11:27
  But think about this for a minute. These weren't people who were lying or making things up.
• 11:31
  These people who thought they went out into the world with this huge noticeable
• 11:36
  scar on their face they were experiencing their reality through the lens of
• 11:40
  their beliefs about what was happening to them in very real time i recently
• 11:44
  heard somebody say that your unconscious mind is always listening and it believes you.
• 11:50
  So be kind in how you talk to yourself. Basically, they were asking,
• 11:54
  would you talk to a friend the way that you're talking to yourself?
• 11:56
  Now, hopefully no, but if you say yes, then you might want to talk to a professional about that.
• 12:00
  And I think that this experiment shows a very similar version of this.
• 12:04
  If I believe it, it is. Or the cliche, your perception truly is your reality,
• 12:10
  even though if it's to your detriment or the detriment of a loved one.
• 12:14
  Now, let's go back into the world of emotional immaturity. One of my favorites.
• 12:19
  There's a concept there where I share, if I believe it, it must be true.
• 12:24
  You don't care about me, says a well-meaning but insecure or immature partner.
• 12:28
  So therefore, it is true. Even if your partner is putting on a masterclass of caring for you.
• 12:33
  But if you don't feel it, if that's not how you are perceiving their efforts,
• 12:38
  then what they are doing is wrong and bad, even though most likely you're not
• 12:42
  even sure what it would take to make you believe that they cared.
• 12:46
  But that's how powerful perception can be without the ability
• 12:49
  to think critically to self-confront to
• 12:52
  bring some personal responsibility into the mix with maybe even a dash of humility
• 12:56
  that i may actually not know what i don't know that i might actually not know
• 13:00
  how to get the help necessary to improve my situation okay but where was i your
• 13:04
  perception is your reality even if it is to your detriment or the detriment
• 13:08
  of a loved one a relationship an ideology a belief system a religious community,
• 13:11
  an experience, you name it.
• 13:14
  We are so hardwired to create meaning, to predict what comes next,
• 13:20
  to try and seek certainty.
• 13:22
  I want to know if this will work, if this person cares, because then I'll put
• 13:25
  forth effort and we want to avoid discomfort.
• 13:28
  And this shows how powerful that the mind can be, both in harmful ways and in helpful ones.
• 13:33
  I will never forget the day that I drove home in a mini Cooper.
• 13:37
  All of a sudden, they were everywhere.
• 13:40
  And you also have an awkward club nod that you nod or wave to other Mini Cooper owners.
• 13:44
  It's like when I had a Jeep at one point, all of a sudden though,
• 13:47
  these Mini Coopers were everywhere.
• 13:49
  Or I think about this often, if you buy your probably your 15th fancy new insulated
• 13:55
  water bottle over the last few years, now listen, you notice,
• 13:57
  oh my gosh, that everybody has this exact same one.
• 14:00
  Welcome to the world of confirmation bias, right?
• 14:03
  And I literally said the word right, because I promise that you will now hear
• 14:07
  that everywhere. People ending sentences with right.
• 14:09
  And if you don't really think it's right, it gets to be a little bit odd.
• 14:13
  As a couples therapist, I remember one of the first couples that just did this
• 14:18
  so much where the guy might, and I'm saying this purely humorously because he
• 14:24
  didn't say this, but it was as if he was saying, you know,
• 14:26
  how the guy is going to be the one who is the smartest in a relationship, right?
• 14:32
  And so it says it so casually that if I keep going along, then it says if I agreed.
• 14:37
  And I found myself wanting to say, I mean, not actually, tell me more about
• 14:40
  that. And he would say, okay, it was not that big of a deal.
• 14:42
  So it was this verbal tick that this person said. And now I hear it everywhere.
• 14:46
  I call this a verbal crutch.
• 14:48
  And it's one of the current verbal crutches being used. I don't know. Does that make sense?
• 14:53
  Which does that make sense is another one that I am beginning to hear everywhere.
• 14:58
  We are also very deep into the like generation, like the number of like times
• 15:03
  I like edit out the word like with a couple of the guests that I've like had
• 15:06
  on recently is like crazy, right? Does that make sense?
• 15:09
  You're welcome. Or I apologize for giving you that particular version of confirmation
• 15:13
  bias, because now I would imagine you are going to hear the word right and like.
• 15:18
  And does that make sense a lot today?
• 15:20
  As a matter of fact, someone please email me and let me know that validate me,
• 15:23
  please, that that is what happened.
• 15:25
  But what is confirmation bias? It's the psychological mechanism that makes the
• 15:29
  SCAR experiment even possible.
• 15:31
  Confirmation bias is our tendency to seek out, interpret, and remember information
• 15:36
  in ways that confirms our pre-existing beliefs.
• 15:40
  It's basically like having a very selective research assistant that is with
• 15:44
  you at all times, going around in your brain, who only brings you evidence that
• 15:48
  supports what you already think is true, because that does feel better.
• 15:51
  Now, this is not about being stubborn, necessarily. It's about how our minds
• 15:56
  fundamentally process information.
• 15:57
  When we encounter new information, we typically don't tend to evaluate it neutrally.
• 16:02
  We run it through the filter of what we already believe.
• 16:05
  And let me tell you about the experiment that really put confirmation bias on the map.
• 16:09
  In 1960s, there was a psychologist named Peter Wasson, and he wanted to understand
• 16:13
  how people test their beliefs and assumptions.
• 16:15
  And what he discovered was it just seems so simple when you hear this.
• 16:19
  And I would imagine with our own brain trying to make sense of things, here's how it worked.
• 16:23
  Wasson would give participants a sequence of three numbers, and it started with
• 16:27
  two, four, six, and tell them that this sequence followed a specific rule that he had in mind.
• 16:33
  Their job was to figure out what that rule was by proposing other sequences of three numbers.
• 16:38
  So for each sequence they suggested, Wasson would then tell them whether it
• 16:42
  followed his rule or it did not. So it sounds kind of simple, right?
• 16:46
  Does that make sense? Here's what almost everybody did. They looked at 2,
• 16:49
  4, 6 and immediately formed a hypothesis. Oh, okay.
• 16:53
  Must be even numbers increasing by two. Makes sense.
• 16:56
  So then they would start testing by letting them know, hey, I think is the sequence
• 17:00
  4, 8-10 or 6-8-12 or 20-22-24.
• 17:05
  And every time, Wasson would say, yeah, that follows the rule.
• 17:08
  So after getting several confirmations, most participants felt very confident
• 17:12
  and they announced their hypothesis.
• 17:14
  The rule is even numbers and it increases by two.
• 17:18
  So they started testing sequences like 8-10-12 or 12-14-16 or 20-22-24.
• 17:25
  And every time when they asked Wasson, he would say, yes, that follows the rule.
• 17:29
  So after getting several confirmations, then most participants felt very confident.
• 17:33
  They announced their hypothesis.
• 17:34
  The rule is even numbers increasing by two. And they were wrong.
• 17:39
  The actual rule was so much simpler. Any three numbers in ascending order. That's it.
• 17:44
  The sequence 1, 3, 17 would have worked. So would 5, 6, 100.
• 17:48
  But almost no one discovered this because they only tested the sequences that
• 17:51
  confirmed their initial assumption.
• 17:53
  And here's kind of the kicker. If they had tried just one sequence that challenged their hypothesis.
• 17:58
  So if they would have just said, let's do a rule out like 1, 3, 5 or 10, 11, 12,
• 18:03
  well, they would have also gotten a yes from Wasson and then realized,
• 18:07
  oh, my ascending number by two rule is far too narrow, but they didn't want to risk being wrong.
• 18:15
  It was if they thought they were going to get another experiment where they're
• 18:19
  going to get shocked for saying the wrong answer.
• 18:20
  So they only tested examples that they expected to work. This is confirmation bias in action.
• 18:24
  We don't naturally try to prove ourselves wrong. We try to prove ourselves right.
• 18:29
  And you know what? I get it because it is difficult to be wrong.
• 18:33
  It can feel really awkward if you're not good at being wrong.
• 18:36
  It doesn't always feel good to have your assumptions challenged.
• 18:39
  It causes us to react, not necessarily respond.
• 18:43
  We immediately go to fight or flight mode, but here's what makes this really
• 18:47
  relevant to our daily lives.
• 18:49
  We do the same thing with our beliefs about politics, religion,
• 18:52
  relationships, parenting, you name it.
• 18:54
  We look for evidence that confirms what we already think and we avoid information
• 18:58
  that might challenge us.
• 18:59
  So think about it. When was the last time that you actively sought out information
• 19:02
  that fully contradicted something that you believed in strongly?
• 19:05
  When did you last read an article or watch a video from somebody whose political
• 19:09
  view is opposed to yours?
• 19:10
  Not to argue with them, but to genuinely test your own assumptions and see what
• 19:15
  feelings came up for you.
• 19:16
  It's not that we're necessarily stupid or stubborn. We're human.
• 19:20
  Our brains are designed to protect our existing beliefs, especially when those
• 19:24
  beliefs are tied to our identity or our community or our sense of safety in
• 19:30
  the world, in our community, in our family system.
• 19:33
  And just like those participants in Watson's study who were so close to the
• 19:37
  truth, but missed it because they were afraid to test their own assumptions,
• 19:40
  we might be missing very important insights about ourselves and the world because
• 19:45
  we're more comfortable confirming what we already believe than discovering that
• 19:49
  we may actually not have the right information.
• 19:52
  The beautiful thing is once you understand this tendency, you can start to work
• 19:55
  with it. You do not need years to begin to think critically or look at yourself.
• 20:00
  You can begin to ask yourself, what would I need to see if changing my mind
• 20:05
  about this was even possible?
• 20:07
  What would I need to actually do? And I can seek that out to test my own belief system.
• 20:12
  Or what if the opposite of what I believe is true? What if it was? Just humor yourself.
• 20:17
  And they're not comfortable questions, but they're the kinds of questions that lead to growth.
• 20:21
  It might lead to a little more understanding and I would dare say wisdom.
• 20:26
  Today, I want to pepper you with a real world example. Imagine a husband whose
• 20:29
  wife says that she is feeling depressed and she wants to go back to work.
• 20:33
  She believes having a sense of purpose and adult interaction outside the home
• 20:36
  might help her mental health and make her a better mom when she's with the kids.
• 20:40
  Now, the husband's initial reaction is two, four, six. His hypothesis becomes
• 20:44
  stay-at-home moms are better for children and families, period.
• 20:47
  But here's what he's not even willing to admit, even to himself,
• 20:50
  that if his wife goes back to work, he'll more than likely need to do more around
• 20:56
  the house, pick up kids from daycare, help with dinner prep,
• 20:59
  maybe share the mental load of family management,
• 21:01
  help out a little bit more with the laundry at night and fold clothes together. And that scares him.
• 21:05
  But instead of examining that fear, he focuses on proving his hypothesis. So what does he do?
• 21:11
  Just like Watson's participants, he starts looking for evidence that confirms his belief.
• 21:14
  He goes around and he asks coworkers and friends, hey, did your mom stay at
• 21:17
  home when you were a kid? How'd that work out?
• 21:19
  When somebody says, oh yeah, my mom stayed at home and leave me. I turned out great.
• 21:23
  He mentally files that. Got it. There's a good example. I'll file that as confirmation.
• 21:27
  Now, when another colleague mentions, actually, my mom worked and it taught
• 21:31
  me more independence. Plus she was, seemed to be happier and more engaged when she was at home.
• 21:35
  And she seemed more interactive with my dad. He seemed genuinely curious for her work life.
• 21:40
  So when he heard that this person, he dismissed it. Well, I mean,
• 21:43
  every family is different. Or, I mean, I guess that worked for you guys,
• 21:46
  but that's not what I'm, that's not what I'm talking about.
• 21:48
  He starts Googling things like benefits of stay-at-home moms and children of
• 21:52
  working mothers' problems.
• 21:54
  Notice he's not searching effects of maternal employment on children or stay-at-home
• 21:58
  versus working mothers' research.
• 22:00
  He's searching for confirmation, not for information.
• 22:03
  He finds some blog posts from some very conservative parenting websites and
• 22:07
  a few studies that suggest children of stay-at-home mothers have slightly better
• 22:10
  outcomes in certain areas.
• 22:12
  And he screenshots these and he sends them to his wife as evidence.
• 22:15
  But when she shows him peer-reviewed research about how maternal employment
• 22:20
  can actually benefit children's development and how women with a sense of purpose
• 22:22
  outside the home often experience better mental health and relationship satisfaction,
• 22:27
  he immediately finds ways to dismiss it. We literally had these sessions in my office.
• 22:32
  He said things like, well, those studies are probably biased or they don't account
• 22:35
  for our specific situation or he doesn't really realize who you are as a mom
• 22:39
  and I'm worried that if you go out in the workforce, that's going to be really hard for you.
• 22:42
  He talks to his father who says, your mom stayed at home with you kids and you guys turned out fine.
• 22:47
  Confirmation. Talks to the guy at church who he talks to guys at church who
• 22:51
  praise their wives for sacrificing to stay home. More confirmation.
• 22:54
  But when his wife's friend mentions that going back to work actually saved her
• 22:57
  marriage because she felt more fulfilled and present when she was at home,
• 22:59
  he thinks, yeah, it's kind of different though.
• 23:01
  She probably wasn't as naturally maternal as my wife.
• 23:04
  Here's the kicker though. Now he never tested his hypothesis.
• 23:07
  He never asked, what would I need to see to believe that my wife working might
• 23:11
  actually be good for our family?
• 23:12
  He never genuinely explored, what if my wife being fulfilled and mentally healthy
• 23:16
  is more important for our children
• 23:17
  than having her physically present but depressed, really for my benefit?
• 23:21
  And I hope you're wanting me to say, or how about just ask her,
• 23:27
  which he did, but he was even asking her.
• 23:30
  I did an episode on curiosity a few weeks ago where he would ask her to check
• 23:34
  a box or ask her so that he could then get more data as an attack surface and
• 23:38
  then tell her where she's wrong, not with genuine curiosity.
• 23:41
  So just like Watson's participants who kept testing 8, 10, 12,
• 23:45
  and 12, 14, 16, instead of trying 1, 3, 5, this husband keeps seeking the same
• 23:50
  type of confirming evidence instead of genuinely testing whether his assumption might be wrong.
• 23:54
  And there are a lot of times where this air quote works because the person in
• 23:59
  the position that this husband is in is essentially showing that,
• 24:03
  hey, I'm going to grind you down until you do what I say.
• 24:06
  And then I will feel better. I will tell you that isn't this better.
• 24:10
  And by that time, because of the relationship dynamic we have,
• 24:12
  most likely you'll say, uh-huh, sure, because you just tried,
• 24:16
  again, to find your voice and express yourself, and it didn't work.
• 24:20
  And by the time, and if you make it to couples therapy, and you finally express
• 24:25
  that you haven't felt seen or heard or understood, and when he then says,
• 24:29
  well, why haven't you told me?
• 24:30
  This is the part where I love raising my hand and saying, I can take this one
• 24:34
  and laying out a scenario like this one. Back to this Watson study.
• 24:38
  So that real rule, the ascending numbers in this scenario that I'm talking about
• 24:41
  might be something like children thrive when their parents are mentally healthy,
• 24:44
  fulfilled and present when they're together, regardless of employment status.
• 24:47
  But he'll never discover that rule because he's afraid to test sequences that
• 24:50
  might disprove his hypothesis.
• 24:53
  And part of the narrative that they're bringing into couples therapy is their
• 24:56
  husband has felt like they don't do anything around the house,
• 24:59
  but the husband in those scenarios has not been curious. They are just projecting. They're just telling.
• 25:04
  And that's one of the saddest parts. In this scenario, his confirmation bias
• 25:08
  isn't just protecting his beliefs about parenting, it's protecting him from
• 25:11
  having to confront his own fears about increased responsibility and change.
• 25:15
  He is not wanting to even truly know who his wife is or explore why this is
• 25:20
  so uncomfortable for him.
• 25:22
  So instead of dealing with those fears directly, which could be an amazing opportunity
• 25:26
  for the two of them to connect,
• 25:27
  and those are the types of things that we can explore in therapy,
• 25:31
  Maybe he's unconsciously recruiting research to avoid the real conversation
• 25:36
  that he needs to have with himself and his wife.
• 25:39
  This is why simply presenting facts to somebody rarely works.
• 25:43
  And you will often hear so many versions of this. Well, I just need to tell
• 25:46
  them this or, and I told them what I thought and they did not magically change
• 25:50
  all of their beliefs and their mind.
• 25:52
  His wife in this scenario could and actually did show him a lot of studies.
• 25:57
  I was about to use narcissistic math and say dozens and dozens of studies,
• 26:00
  all the studies showing all the studies, but it was a couple of them about the
• 26:03
  benefits of maternal employment.
• 26:04
  But his brain has already decided those don't count.
• 26:07
  He is not looking for truth. He is looking for confirmation that his current
• 26:12
  belief system can stay intact and he can go to doing what he wants to do.
• 26:16
  And then she will leave defeated and wondering, can I even stay in this relationship?
• 26:21
  And I don't feel good about myself.
• 26:23
  And I look at this as almost this drive-by type of invalidation.
• 26:28
  She can put out an emotional bid. He can drive on by. Nope, don't like it. And then keep on going.
• 26:32
  And then she's left to deal with, wow, I don't know what to do now.
• 26:37
  So let's dig a little deeper into the world of confirmation bias because research
• 26:40
  in that area has identified a few different ways that confirmation bias then manifests.
• 26:45
  And I think these are important to understand so that you can now know what you didn't know.
• 26:49
  One is called selective search. We look for information that supports our beliefs
• 26:53
  and we avoid information that challenges it. Selective search.
• 26:58
  Another one is called biased interpretation. We interpret in ambiguous information
• 27:02
  in ways that will support our existing beliefs. So we will take this lump of
• 27:05
  clay of information and we can mold it to fit our belief system.
• 27:10
  There's selective memory. We remember information that confirms our beliefs
• 27:13
  better than information that contradicts them.
• 27:15
  We will go into a lot of detail about memory, selective memory,
• 27:19
  confabulated memory in an upcoming episode because memory is one of the most
• 27:23
  fascinating things ever.
• 27:24
  I can watch a couple not remember what somebody else said two minutes before,
• 27:28
  but yet they are committed to a narrative of something that happened 10 years
• 27:31
  ago and cannot believe that their partner doesn't remember it the exact same way.
• 27:35
  There's also a concept called discounting. We find ways to completely dismiss
• 27:38
  or minimize information that contradicts our beliefs.
• 27:41
  And let's talk about these different types of confirmation bias.
• 27:44
  And a quick side note, when I am working with couples, there are five what I
• 27:47
  call highly charged topics that people want to talk about, but don't have the
• 27:52
  tools to talk about them.
• 27:53
  So when they come into therapy, they don't quite put together the fact they
• 27:56
  typically want to talk about these very high charged topics.
• 27:59
  Things that they did not succeed in talking about out in the wild.
• 28:03
  They want to talk about these high charge topics without knowing how
• 28:06
  and this is why i think an unskilled couples therapist
• 28:09
  can easily get drawn into the role of referee or judge you
• 28:12
  have to slow your role you have to learn the right tools
• 28:15
  when talking about ordering food through
• 28:18
  the taco bell drive-thru or through a miscommunication of
• 28:21
  getting something from the grocery store because my five highly
• 28:24
  charged topics are drumroll please money parenting
• 28:28
  sex religion and politics so today
• 28:31
  it's time to work in the world of the high charge topics because well
• 28:34
  they're everywhere especially politics and in my
• 28:37
  world and in my practice currently religion so i'm going
• 28:40
  to pepper in what some might believe to be these controversial
• 28:43
  topics or high charge topics and of course your opinion or beliefs may and probably
• 28:48
  will differ from what i share and if they do then there is truly no better time
• 28:52
  to literally practice what i am preaching than in this very podcast episode
• 28:55
  if you run into contradictory information to what you believe so back to the
• 29:00
  different types of confirmation bias.
• 29:01
  Let's go into selective search and I'll give you some details and I'll give
• 29:04
  you some examples. Let's talk about a political example of selective search.
• 29:08
  A very conservative person will only read or watch Fox News.
• 29:12
  Wall Street Journal, editorial pages, and conservative blogs while actively
• 29:15
  avoiding things like CNN or NPR or any liberal source.
• 29:19
  Conversely, a liberal person only consumes CNN, MSNBC, New York Times opinion
• 29:24
  section, and progressive podcasts while avoiding all conservative media.
• 29:28
  In the health world, somebody who believes vaccines are dangerous only seeks
• 29:33
  out anti-vaccine websites, testimonials from parents who blame vaccines for
• 29:36
  their children's autism, and studies that suggest vaccine risks while avoiding CDC data,
• 29:42
  peer-reviewed medical journals, or pro-vaccine information.
• 29:45
  Or let's talk about a personal example. A person convinced their spouse does
• 29:48
  not appreciate them, only notices the times their partner seems distracted or
• 29:51
  doesn't say thank you, while unconsciously avoiding or not seeking out evidence
• 29:55
  of their partner's appreciation and love.
• 29:57
  I had a session recently where a husband has been accused of being on his phone
• 30:02
  a lot, and he has finally acknowledged that, okay, that has been the case.
• 30:06
  Fast forward a week in couples therapy. They had had a good week.
• 30:09
  They'd gone on a date. They had done some fun things.
• 30:12
  And she said, but he still pulled out his phone a couple of times.
• 30:15
  And he was very frustrated because he had worked very hard to be present.
• 30:20
  So she found the times or had hung on to those times when he pulled out his
• 30:23
  phone and did not look at that with genuine curiosity or appreciate the fact
• 30:27
  that he did not have his phone out as much. And I understand that too.
• 30:31
  And my beloved four pillars of a connected conversation, that pillar one of
• 30:35
  giving someone the benefit of the doubt, or no one wakes up in the morning and
• 30:38
  thinks, how am I going to hurt my partner?
• 30:39
  So this person had tried to do a lot of work on staying away from their phone,
• 30:44
  almost to their detriment.
• 30:45
  So it's hard because if someone is not assuming good intentions,
• 30:48
  then they are essentially looking for the things that will confirm what they're looking for.
• 30:54
  Seek and ye shall find. If you look hard enough, you are likely going to find
• 30:56
  what it is that you are looking for.
• 30:58
  In each of these cases, they are actually curating their information diet to
• 31:02
  only include sources that will tell them what they want to hear and systematically
• 31:05
  avoiding information that will challenge their existing beliefs.
• 31:08
  So the second type of confirmation bias called biased interpretation.
• 31:11
  Let me go down the political realm. Two people watch the same presidential debate.
• 31:15
  A supporter interprets that the candidates pause as thoughtful consideration
• 31:18
  while an opponent sees the exact same pause as not knowing the answer or being evasive.
• 31:24
  Or let's say that a presidential candidate runs on a platform of being open
• 31:27
  and transparent about some controversial information.
• 31:29
  But then And after he's elected, he says, I cannot believe the people are still
• 31:33
  talking about wanting him to release the information, despite the fact that
• 31:36
  there are several instances of him saying prior to being elected that he has
• 31:40
  no problem releasing the information.
• 31:42
  Maybe even take it further and somebody on his staff says that they have the
• 31:45
  information and they'll release it shortly, but then the information is no longer available.
• 31:49
  Somebody who is devoted to that candidate at all costs,
• 31:53
  even at the cost of their own personal values or integrity, is going to say
• 31:57
  he must have a good reason for not only completely changing his mind,
• 32:00
  not acknowledging that he had said that he would release the information,
• 32:02
  but even must have a good reason why turning on his own base for calling them stupid and foolish.
• 32:08
  He must be doing this 4D chess that I've heard of while somebody who doesn't
• 32:12
  support that candidate is going to say he lied.
• 32:14
  He misrepresented the facts yet again, or he must be trying to hide what is in the information.
• 32:21
  Let's go into the world of sports. I know this one far too well.
• 32:24
  A referee makes a close call against your favorite team. You interpret this
• 32:27
  as evidence, it's rigged.
• 32:29
  The ref is biased. The game is rigged against your team. Always is.
• 32:32
  While fans of the opposing team see it as not as a fair call or,
• 32:36
  well, it's about time they've been favoring your guys' team the whole time.
• 32:39
  There is no greater place to observe confirmation bias than with a fandom.
• 32:46
  Let's go relationships. Your partner comes home and says, hi, in a neutral tone.
• 32:51
  And if you're feeling insecure about yourself or the relationship,
• 32:54
  you might interpret this as coldness or distance.
• 32:56
  If you're good, if you're feeling secure, then you might interpret it as normal,
• 32:59
  or maybe they're tired, or maybe they were distracted by work.
• 33:02
  And I might jump in with a little more curiosity.
• 33:04
  Let's touch on the high charge topic of religion. A person of faith experiences
• 33:08
  a coincidence, like thinking of an old friend right before they call.
• 33:12
  As a believer might interpret this as divine intervention or a spiritual connection,
• 33:17
  while a skeptic sees it as simple probability playing out.
• 33:21
  So notice how the same exact information, a debate performance,
• 33:24
  a referee's call, a partner's greeting, gets filtered through the lens of what
• 33:27
  we already believe, and that leads us to see evidence for our existing beliefs,
• 33:30
  even in completely neutral events.
• 33:33
  Next up is selective memory. Let's go into the world of parenting.
• 33:35
  Parents often remember their children's successes and cute little moments far
• 33:38
  more vividly than tantrums and difficult phases.
• 33:41
  They might tell stories about how their toddler was such a good sleeper while
• 33:43
  forgetting months of sleep deprivation.
• 33:46
  Or I was working with a financial planner as a client at one point,
• 33:50
  and he would often just talk about their, his successful trades,
• 33:54
  the years that he made a whole lot of money so much more clearly than his losses.
• 33:58
  I hear gamblers often say that they win more than they lose,
• 34:01
  which I don't think that's a thing. The casinos aren't built that way.
• 34:06
  They might recall this one time that they bought Apple stock before it jumped
• 34:10
  while forgetting the multiple times they lost money on similar sure thing investments.
• 34:14
  Or the world of academics. A student who believes they are bad at math will
• 34:16
  more easily remember the times they got wrong answers or felt confused while
• 34:20
  forgetting or downplaying the
• 34:21
  problems that they solved correctly or the concepts that they understood.
• 34:24
  Well, after a breakup, people often remember either the mostly good times if
• 34:28
  they want to get back together or mostly the bad times that they want to move
• 34:31
  on while forgetting the more balanced, nuanced reality of the relationship.
• 34:34
  I have processed many a person who is going through divorce,
• 34:38
  and it turns out that they knew.
• 34:39
  They knew 30 years ago from the moment that they were heading to the wedding
• 34:42
  that everything since that time has been bad.
• 34:45
  Our brains act like these biased historians, carefully preserving memories that
• 34:49
  support our current beliefs while allowing contradictory memories to fade away
• 34:52
  into the distance, creating a personal archive that seems to prove we've always been right.
• 34:57
  And then another kind of confirmation bias discounting we'll
• 35:01
  talk about climate change somebody skeptical of climate
• 35:04
  change might dismiss any scientific study by saying yeah scientists are just
• 35:07
  trying to get grant money or the data has been manipulated rather than engaging
• 35:10
  with the actual evidence or a medical example a person who believes in alternative
• 35:13
  medicine might discount their doctor's advice about needing surgery by saying
• 35:17
  doctors just want to make money or western medicine only treats symptoms not
• 35:20
  the root causes and while there might be some truth in that,
• 35:23
  it's not that black or white or all or nothing.
• 35:27
  Let's talk about a personal growth example. Somebody receives feedback that
• 35:30
  they interrupt people frequently.
• 35:32
  Instead of considering if this might be true, they discount it by thinking,
• 35:35
  hey, you're just too sensitive. Or, hey, that's just the way I communicate.
• 35:38
  Or, they don't understand my passion for the topic.
• 35:41
  And we'll talk a lot more about this later in the episode, but let's go with
• 35:45
  a conspiracy theory example.
• 35:46
  When presented with evidence that contradicts a conspiracy theory,
• 35:51
  believers often discount it by saying the evidence itself is part of the conspiracy.
• 35:55
  Of course, the government would say that. Or, well, the media is going to cover
• 35:57
  everything up. That's what they don't want you to understand.
• 36:00
  Or an academic example, a student gets a poor grade and discounts it by saying,
• 36:03
  dad, the teacher didn't like me.
• 36:04
  Or this class is just about memorizing things. It's not really about learning.
• 36:07
  Rather than considering, they might actually need to study differently or even ask for help.
• 36:11
  When we can't avoid or reinterpret contradictory evidence, we attack the source itself.
• 36:15
  The messenger becomes the problem rather than the message. And that allows us
• 36:18
  to maintain our beliefs by questioning the credibility of anybody who challenges them.
• 36:22
  Let me share a client story. And again, these stories. I've always had details
• 36:27
  change to protect confidentiality.
• 36:29
  I worked with someone who I think perfectly illustrated how all of these types
• 36:33
  of confirmation bias can work together.
• 36:34
  He came to me and he wanted to grow and see his blind spots.
• 36:37
  I loved it. I was on board. He said, challenge me, Tony.
• 36:40
  He said, I really want to understand where I might be wrong about things.
• 36:42
  So I thought, okay, sure. Here's somebody who appears to be genuinely open to
• 36:46
  feedback and different perspectives.
• 36:48
  Not the normal job of the therapist. I'm right there beside him trying to help
• 36:52
  them find where they want to go. What are the problems and challenges in the way of that?
• 36:56
  He wanted a little bit more like a life coach. Just tell me,
• 36:58
  just let me know, give me the truth, tell me what it is.
• 37:00
  But what happened next was fascinating. And it actually was pretty exhausting
• 37:04
  when I would offer an alternative viewpoint or presented information that I
• 37:07
  felt very confident about that contradicted something that he believed.
• 37:10
  He immediately responded with my favorite, the yeah, but yeah,
• 37:14
  but followed by a reason why my perspective didn't actually apply to his situation.
• 37:18
  Yeah. But that research was probably done on a different type of people or yeah,
• 37:20
  but you don't understand my circumstances.
• 37:22
  I mean, I know you're just doing your job or yeah, but that might work for some
• 37:25
  people, but that's not what I'm looking for.
• 37:27
  So when I pointed out this pattern, something very interesting happened.
• 37:30
  He started to recognize that his yeah, but responses were actually a form of
• 37:33
  emotional immaturity, specifically the black and white thinking he had talked about earlier.
• 37:36
  He realized that whenever somebody expressed an opinion different from his,
• 37:40
  his brain automatically interpreted it as they think they are right and I am
• 37:43
  wrong, which felt like a threat to his intelligence and his competence.
• 37:46
  So instead of him being curious about the different perspective,
• 37:48
  he would then impulsively try to regain what is often referred to as the one-up position.
• 37:53
  He'd scramble to find counter arguments, sometimes even make up facts that he
• 37:56
  wasn't sure were true, but that he thought, I could probably find data to back
• 38:00
  it up just to avoid the feeling like he was losing the intellectual battle.
• 38:04
  Here's where it gets really interesting. When I would present what I thought
• 38:06
  was a valid piece of research or peer-reviewed data, he developed even more
• 38:12
  sophisticated ways to dismiss it.
• 38:14
  This was my favorite. He said to one particular thing that I felt very confident about, a healthy ego.
• 38:20
  I knew because I'd done the work to know, but he said, but do you really honestly
• 38:26
  know what you're saying is true?
• 38:28
  Which then is putting me on the defensive because the answer to that is yes.
• 38:31
  When I would explain my sources or my reasoning, he would say,
• 38:34
  well, you can actually find research to back up anything you want these days.
• 38:37
  So hopefully you can see what was happening. He had created a perfect system
• 38:40
  for getting out of any conversation without having to self-confront.
• 38:43
  He could even walk away from that saying, man, I really appreciate that session.
• 38:47
  I feel so much better about myself because I, turns out I was right about everything.
• 38:52
  So selective search. He only looked for information that supported his existing views.
• 38:56
  Biased interpretation. Any neutral information got filtered through his existing beliefs.
• 39:00
  Selective memory. He would remember the times that he felt right and forget
• 39:03
  the times that he might've been wrong.
• 39:05
  And then discounting. When faced with any kind of contradictory evidence,
• 39:08
  he would attack the credibility of the source and it
• 39:11
  was kind of brilliant to watch actually from a psychological protection standpoint
• 39:15
  because it was also causing him to isolate more
• 39:18
  and more and he found himself seeking out only people and online
• 39:21
  communities and groups who thought exactly the way he did because they
• 39:25
  were the only ones who didn't trigger his defensive responses now the problem
• 39:28
  was those relationships were ultimately unsatisfying he started to realize what
• 39:32
  so many people do well not enough people do that surrounding yourself with yes
• 39:36
  men with people who only agree with him wasn't actually validating. It was lonely.
• 39:41
  He wasn't just connecting with people. He was just collecting these yes men.
• 39:46
  So the breakthrough came when he recognized that his yeah, but wasn't actually
• 39:49
  protecting his intelligence. It was protecting his ego from the discomfort of
• 39:52
  potentially being wrong.
• 39:53
  And that discomfort, that cognitive dissonance was actually the information
• 39:57
  that he needed to start to pay attention to, not something to immediately resolve
• 40:01
  by dismissing other perspectives.
• 40:04
  And I think this so accurately shows how confirmation bias isn't just about being stubborn.
• 40:09
  It is about how our minds systematically process information in ways that protect our existing beliefs.
• 40:15
  And often, most often, we don't even realize it's happening.
• 40:18
  My client thought he was being intellectually rigorous, but he was actually
• 40:22
  being very intellectually defensive.
• 40:24
  So now let me show you how this pattern would play out in a more public context
• 40:28
  that I think most of us have probably witnessed or even experienced ourselves.
• 40:32
  And this does have to do with vaccines, vaccine hesitancy.
• 40:36
  And I am going to use this as our muse, whether you are pro vaccine,
• 40:40
  vaccine hesitant, or somewhere in between. mean, I think it's a very nice way
• 40:45
  to recognize these psychological patterns in action.
• 40:48
  If somebody has developed concerns about vaccines, they would most likely engage
• 40:53
  in exactly the same confirmation bias behaviors that my client was using,
• 40:57
  just applied to a different topic.
• 40:58
  So that selective search, they find themselves gravitating toward anti-vaccine
• 41:02
  websites, testimonials from parents who believe that vaccines harm their kids,
• 41:06
  and alternative health practitioners who then validate those concerns.
• 41:10
  Now, meanwhile, they most likely are avoiding mainstream medical websites or
• 41:14
  CDC information pro-vaccine content.
• 41:16
  Again, not necessarily because they're being deliberately closed-minded,
• 41:19
  but because that information creates that same uncomfortable cognitive dissonance
• 41:23
  that my client was trying to avoid.
• 41:25
  And then you've got biased interpretation. So when their kid gets a fever or
• 41:30
  seems really fussy, especially after a vaccination,
• 41:33
  then they interpret that as evidence that, see, vaccines are harmful,
• 41:37
  instead of considering it might be a normal immune response,
• 41:40
  it could be a coincidence, then that same parent might not care their child's
• 41:44
  good health to the diseases that they've been protected from.
• 41:48
  Selective memory. They vividly remember every story they've heard about people
• 41:52
  who were injured from vaccines or adverse reactions from vaccines,
• 41:56
  even if the statistics about life saved or epidemics prevented or children who
• 42:01
  have been protected seem less memorable or they aren't as emotionally compelling.
• 42:05
  And then you've got that concept of discounting. When presented with data,
• 42:09
  let's say CDC data showing vaccine safety, they immediately dismiss it as that's
• 42:13
  just government propaganda. What else are they going to say?
• 42:16
  When shown peer-reviewed studies, they counter that with, well,
• 42:19
  who pays for that? Big pharma? They fund all the research.
• 42:22
  And just like my client saying, you can find research to support anything.
• 42:25
  They've created a system where no contrary evidence can penetrate those beliefs.
• 42:31
  And just like this client I was talking about, this isn't about being stubborn
• 42:34
  or not necessarily about being unintelligent.
• 42:37
  It is about how our mind systematically processes information in ways that protect our existing beliefs.
• 42:43
  It's our default. Often without us, I would say most often without us realizing it's even happening.
• 42:48
  This is why it takes great patience to build in that pause, to come back into
• 42:53
  this present moment, to be able to
• 42:54
  recognize when I'm jumping into that confirmation bias or cognitive bias.
• 42:59
  If a parent has developed vaccine concerns genuinely and genuinely believes
• 43:04
  they are being a good parent by doing their own research and asking questions,
• 43:08
  they're not trying to be difficult.
• 43:09
  They are trying to protect their child based on what feels true to them.
• 43:13
  But the same psychological mechanisms that kept my client then isolated and
• 43:18
  defensive are at work here too.
• 43:20
  And in so many of the scenarios that we find ourselves in out in the wild,
• 43:24
  the more somebody's vaccine beliefs get challenged, then the more they might
• 43:29
  seek out only the like-minded communities and the more isolated they become
• 43:32
  from people who might offer these different perspectives.
• 43:35
  And I hope we're laying out a case today that most people are not going to self-confront
• 43:39
  and even question whether or not they might not be correct.
• 43:43
  This is why simply presenting facts about things like vaccine safety or any
• 43:48
  of these topics typically doesn't work and sometimes even backfires because
• 43:53
  the person's brain has already created a system for dismissing contradictory information.
• 43:58
  In that scenario, I was going to say they're not looking for truth,
• 44:01
  but to them, it can feel, and I'm sure, not even, I'm sure it is. I know I do this as well.
• 44:07
  I believe I am looking for truth. But are we doing that?
• 44:10
  Are we more looking for confirmation, validation that our protective instincts as a parent are correct?
• 44:16
  And think about how this plays out in our current information environment.
• 44:20
  We can curate our own news sources, our own social media feeds,
• 44:24
  even our own social circles to provide us with a steady stream of information,
• 44:28
  that confirms what we already believe.
• 44:30
  I can, here's my old man get off the lawn moment, but the doggone social media
• 44:34
  and that algorithm, I'll tell you what, right now, I think I'm afraid I'm gonna
• 44:38
  have to take some, I wanna say middle-aged, but I'm getting older in age dance
• 44:41
  class because I watched an old guy dance at his daughter's wedding.
• 44:45
  So now, and me even saying it right now, I'm sure that my phone,
• 44:49
  my iPad, everything's probably loading up even more.
• 44:51
  These ads of, look, this old guy can learn to dance and five minutes every afternoon.
• 44:56
  We can create our own reality bubble. So if we connect these two phenomena,
• 45:00
  we got this Dartmouth-SKAR study, and then we got confirmation bias research.
• 45:05
  And we're going to set the table here, revealing a little bit more information
• 45:08
  about how our minds work.
• 45:10
  Let's first look at these similarities
• 45:11
  between the two. Both involve these expectation driven perceptions.
• 45:15
  In the SKAR study, participants expected to be treated differently. So
• 45:19
  they interpreted even neutral behavior as discriminatory
• 45:23
  with confirmation bias we expect to find
• 45:26
  evidence for our beliefs that is how we are hardwired so we interpret even the
• 45:31
  most ambiguous information as okay i can make that fit into my narrative give
• 45:36
  me this clay and i will mold it into my very own belief and it will make me
• 45:40
  feel better about myself and the things that i am standing for.
• 45:44
  Both create self-reinforcing cycles. The scar study participant's behavior,
• 45:48
  maybe being more defensive or more withdrawn, might have actually then elicited
• 45:53
  different responses from the people that they were interacting with,
• 45:56
  kind of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• 45:58
  If the person just looks over at me and I think I've got a big scar on my forehead
• 46:01
  and I don't, and I say, what are you looking at?
• 46:04
  Okay, yeah, you want to, the old Pee Wee Herman bit, take a picture, it'll last longer.
• 46:10
  And the person just had literally glanced over. I mean, that person already
• 46:13
  is now, they're reacting in the moment thinking, okay, weirdo,
• 46:17
  I just literally like looked in that direction.
• 46:20
  Similarly, confirmation bias makes us more confident in our beliefs because,
• 46:24
  holy cow, we keep finding all kinds of evidence for them.
• 46:27
  Both operate largely in the unconscious mind. The participants didn't consciously
• 46:32
  decide to misinterpret social cues.
• 46:35
  People experiencing confirmation bias aren't usually aware they're filtering information.
• 46:39
  Both feel completely real to the person experiencing them. The participants
• 46:42
  genuinely experienced discrimination. It was what they felt and saw and acknowledged.
• 46:47
  People with strong confirmation bias genuinely believe they're being objective
• 46:51
  and just following the evidence, following the truth, recognizing the big differences.
• 46:56
  The SCAR study was a specific temporary belief in a very controlled setting.
• 47:01
  Now, confirmation bias, that
• 47:02
  affects our entire worldview, and it can be across all areas of our life.
• 47:07
  The SCAR study involved relatively low-stakes social interactions,
• 47:10
  but then confirmation bias can involve our most fundamental beliefs about reality,
• 47:16
  morality, religion, community, identity.
• 47:19
  And while the SCAR study lasted just a few hours, confirmation bias is happening
• 47:26
  in real time, I want to say all the time.
• 47:29
  It can shape our thinking for decades, for our lives. So you've got this emotional
• 47:34
  investment. The SCAR study did create some temporary discomfort.
• 47:37
  The reason I think these differences, these similarities are so powerful is
• 47:41
  because you can see these things on a small scale and you might walk away today
• 47:45
  and think, oh, that is interesting.
• 47:46
  But then this confirmation bias concept is something that is happening in real time at all times.
• 47:51
  So it does take more work to be more aware of it.
• 47:55
  Confirmation bias is going to protect your beliefs that are central to your
• 47:58
  identity and your sense of meaning.
• 48:01
  Another thing I find fascinating by this whole experience is in some ways,
• 48:04
  then our strongly held beliefs then function like invisible scars.
• 48:09
  They change how we perceive the world, how we interpret others' actions,
• 48:13
  and how we navigate social situations.
• 48:14
  But that difference is that those scars are often invisible to us,
• 48:18
  us too. We're operating off of this reactive way that we're trying to make sense
• 48:24
  of the world to make us feel better.
• 48:26
  And we're looking for ways to confirm the beliefs that we just have come upon.
• 48:31
  Or beliefs that were handed to us over time from our family,
• 48:36
  from our community, from our political beliefs, from our parents.
• 48:40
  There are so many variables that go into the default mode settings that we have
• 48:45
  with our beliefs, our values, our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions,
• 48:50
  and that's just to be accepted.
• 48:53
  Those are there. So now what do we do with them?
• 48:55
  Are we open to change, to self-confrontation, to critical thinking? Yeah.
• 49:01
  When somebody challenges our political beliefs, we don't just disagree with their argument.
• 49:05
  We might perceive them as attacking our intelligence, our values, or our identity.
• 49:10
  When somebody questions our religious
• 49:12
  beliefs, we might interpret that as persecution or discrimination.
• 49:16
  And just like the participants in the SCAR study, we're not making that up.
• 49:20
  It is our genuine experience.
• 49:21
  That's how we're seeing the world, through the lens of our beliefs.
• 49:24
  You don't know what you don't know, and that is powerful.
• 49:28
  The participants in the scar study didn't know that they didn't know that they had no scar.
• 49:34
  Similarly, just like we often don't know what we don't know about our own confirmation
• 49:37
  biases, our own invisible scars, our own ways of filtering reality.
• 49:41
  And this is why approaching belief change with humility is really important.
• 49:45
  We might be absolutely certain about something and still be wrong. And that's okay.
• 49:50
  It's part of being human. It's the very first time you are you going through
• 49:53
  life as you in the moment right now.
• 49:56
  You're listening to this. You are a combination of so many different variables,
• 50:00
  nature, nurture, birth order, DNA, abandonment, rejection, hope,
• 50:03
  fears, attachment wounds, experiences of loss, financial circumstances,
• 50:06
  everything else that makes you uniquely you.
• 50:09
  So why is it then so difficult for people to change their minds or look at things
• 50:14
  from a different perspective or try to understand someone else's experiences?
• 50:17
  Well, first, we have to acknowledge that we have a continually running psychological
• 50:22
  protection system in our brains at all times.
• 50:26
  At its core, our brain is a don't get killed device.
• 50:29
  It's designed for survival, not really for finding truth or being accurate about reality.
• 50:35
  It just wants to continue to exist.
• 50:39
  And so scary things may get it killed. So it wants to find comfort and safety
• 50:44
  and certainty and security.
• 50:47
  Think about that in the context of this SCAR study. Those participants weren't
• 50:50
  lying when they reported feeling discriminated against.
• 50:52
  Their brain was genuinely interpreting neutral social cues as threats because
• 50:57
  they believe they had this visible flaw.
• 51:00
  And that psychological protection system kicks in, scans the environment and
• 51:04
  says, hey, we're vulnerable here.
• 51:06
  People could reject us. This whole SCAR thing, they'll exclude us.
• 51:10
  They'll treat us as less than.
• 51:11
  Sounds pretty dangerous. Before you know it, we're going to be booted out of
• 51:14
  the group and where are those saber-toothed tigers? That's dangerous.
• 51:18
  Now, you may think, Tony, we are not living in the Stone Age anymore.
• 51:21
  Social rejection isn't life-threatening. But here's the thing.
• 51:24
  Our brain is this organ, this facilitator of lots of amazing things.
• 51:30
  But it's just trying to live.
• 51:32
  Our brains actually have not caught up with modern reality.
• 51:35
  For our ancestors, being rejected by the tribe meant death.
• 51:38
  If you were cast out from the group, you couldn't survive on your own.
• 51:41
  So our brains evolved to treat social threats like being seen as wrong or stupid
• 51:47
  or different as existential threats, life-threatening things that we must deal with.
• 51:52
  This is why confirmation bias exists in the first place. When somebody challenges
• 51:55
  those beliefs, especially the ones, again, that are core, our identity,
• 51:59
  our brain doesn't just hear, I disagree with your opinion.
• 52:02
  It hears, you're wrong, which means you're not smart, which means you don't
• 52:06
  belong, which means you're in danger and you're going to get kicked out of the
• 52:09
  group. And the next thing you know, and our pet's heads are falling off and
• 52:12
  everything's going bad.
• 52:14
  At its simplest level, any threat, even verbal disagreement,
• 52:17
  triggers the same ancient alarm system that once helped our ancestors survive
• 52:21
  actual physical dangers. That's why we're here today, why we're listening.
• 52:25
  The threat must be neutralized and attacked. And this is why we see people become
• 52:29
  so emotionally dysregulated when these beliefs, political, religious,
• 52:33
  et cetera, are challenged.
• 52:35
  Their brain is screaming. look old man
• 52:38
  this person is threatening our very survival so that
• 52:41
  client example earlier when that client responded with well yeah but
• 52:44
  everything he wasn't just being intellectually stubborn
• 52:47
  his psychological protection system was activated his brain was interpreting
• 52:52
  my alternative perspectives as threats to his competence his intelligence his
• 52:55
  sense of being right which to his unconscious mind felt like threats to his
• 52:59
  social standing and ultimately his survival the same thing happens when we're
• 53:03
  talking about vaccine hesitancy political beliefs or any deeply held conviction.
• 53:07
  When we present contradictory evidence, we're not just challenging somebody's
• 53:11
  ideas, we're inadvertently activating their threat detection system.
• 53:15
  We're telling them that they are wrong and we are right.
• 53:18
  Their brain says, if I'm wrong about this important thing, what does that say
• 53:21
  about my judgment, my intelligence, my ability to protect my family?
• 53:24
  All of a sudden, my spouse is going to leave, my kids are...
• 53:26
  You can see we just quickly just devolve.
• 53:30
  Let's get to one of my favorite concepts here. It's called the backfire effect.
• 53:34
  When the backfire effect happens, when the threat feels big enough,
• 53:39
  the brain doesn't just dismiss the contradictory information.
• 53:42
  Oh no, it now has to go double down on the original belief as a way of restoring
• 53:47
  the sense of safety and competence that it once felt.
• 53:50
  But understanding this changes everything about how we approach conversations
• 53:53
  with people who see the world differently than we do.
• 53:55
  We're not just dealing with different opinions. We're dealing with activated
• 53:58
  threat protection systems and adorable egos that are protecting and being the
• 54:03
  security guard of your own sense of self.
• 54:07
  And those are genuinely trying to keep people safe, even when the danger is
• 54:11
  just about being wrong about something or having a different opinion.
• 54:14
  It's fascinating if you think about it, of how our minds have evolved these
• 54:18
  elaborate systems to even protect our beliefs, especially the ones that are
• 54:22
  central to our identity.
• 54:23
  From an evolutionary perspective if our ancestors constantly
• 54:26
  question every belief and then change their minds at
• 54:29
  the first sign of contradictory evidence we would
• 54:32
  probably not be here listening because so often
• 54:35
  especially for them sticking with what you believe even if it's not perfectly
• 54:40
  accurate is safer than constantly changing your mind this is part of why we
• 54:45
  have an emotional immaturity epidemic and why the need to become more emotionally
• 54:50
  mature is there because there's so much information.
• 54:53
  Our brains are going crazy just trying to survive.
• 54:56
  Let me give a few examples to show how our minds evolved to protect beliefs for our survival.
• 55:02
  So if we look at this as a survival-based belief protection, predator avoidance.
• 55:07
  If your ancestor heard rustling in the bushes and believed, I think that's a predator.
• 55:11
  It was far better to stick with that belief and run, even if it was just the wind 99% of the time.
• 55:18
  If there was an ancestor who constantly questioned this belief and thought,
• 55:22
  you know what, maybe, maybe I should investigate that rustling in the grass
• 55:26
  just to be sure they would most likely eventually encounter the 1% where it
• 55:29
  actually was a predator and they would die.
• 55:32
  Better to be wrong and alive than right and dead. And if my daughter cuts that
• 55:36
  up for social media, I hope that we get the full context of that.
• 55:40
  Let's look at food safety. Somebody in your tribe got sick after eating certain
• 55:43
  berries. It was, it was evolutionary.
• 55:45
  It was evolutionarily advantageous to develop a strong belief that those berries
• 55:50
  are dangerous they made grog die,
• 55:53
  And so I do not want to be grog, so I will stay away from those berries.
• 55:58
  Now, if there was a person who constantly questioned that belief and thought,
• 56:02
  well, it's been a few weeks, maybe the berries are fine now,
• 56:06
  they would eventually eat the wrong ones and die. RIP grog.
• 56:11
  Tribal loyalty. Our ancestors who strongly believed their tribe was good and
• 56:17
  other tribes were dangerous were more likely to stick with their protective group and defend it.
• 56:20
  Those who constantly question whether their tribe was really the best one might
• 56:24
  have wandered off alone or even been less committed to group defense.
• 56:28
  And now let me bring this into the modern world. This belief protection still operates.
• 56:32
  Medical adherence. When somebody finds a doctor they trust, they tend to stick
• 56:36
  with that doctor and start to feel or maybe adopt their belief system,
• 56:40
  even if they are presented with contradictory medical advice at some point down the road.
• 56:45
  This is protective. that constantly switching medical philosophies could lead
• 56:48
  to inconsistent care and then eventually some dangerous interactions and you die.
• 56:53
  Parenting beliefs. Parents develop very strong beliefs about what's best for
• 56:56
  their kids. Breast versus bottle feeding, co-sleeping versus cribs, cry it out versus not.
• 57:02
  Constantly changing those beliefs based on every new study or every new reel
• 57:05
  would create chaos and inconsistency that could actually be a challenge to the child.
• 57:11
  And I want to say, don't get me started in the world of finances.
• 57:14
  That's a challenge in and of itself.
• 57:15
  But somebody who believes the stock market's a little too risky might stick
• 57:18
  with the conservative investments.
• 57:20
  While they might miss some gains, they also avoid potential devastating losses
• 57:23
  that could come from constantly changing investment strategies based on market news.
• 57:28
  There are times that this psychological protection system does become problematic.
• 57:34
  Let's talk political identity. One of these high charge topics,
• 57:36
  our ancestors needed very strong tribal loyalty for survival.
• 57:40
  But now the same mechanism, it can make us resist political information that
• 57:45
  challenges our party affiliation, even when changing our mind might lead to
• 57:49
  a better policy outcome.
• 57:51
  I work with people often that will talk about when they vote,
• 57:55
  it is the straight party line.
• 57:57
  And I will often just out of curiosity, ask if they're aware of the things that
• 58:01
  they're voting for other than the candidates.
• 58:04
  And I would say the number one answer is no, I haven't really had time,
• 58:07
  but I believe it's an all or nothing thing with my political party.
• 58:11
  If we look at religious beliefs, the certainty that helped our ancestors maintain
• 58:15
  social cohesion, a moral structure,
• 58:18
  they can now prevent us from updating our understanding when we're presented
• 58:22
  with new information or philosophical information, scientific information,
• 58:26
  historical data, health behaviors.
• 58:28
  Somebody might stick with the belief that I'm healthy enough and resist information
• 58:31
  about diet or exercise changes because constantly questioning our health status
• 58:35
  might create more anxiety and decision paralysis and yo-yo dieting and all kinds
• 58:40
  of things that would just.
• 58:42
  Potentially cause more anxiety. Look at professional identity.
• 58:47
  A doctor or a therapist who has practiced a certain way for 20 years might resist
• 58:51
  new treatment protocols because constantly questioning their expertise,
• 58:55
  they may feel that that would undermine their confidence or their effectiveness.
• 58:59
  And I recently had a client who I love, one of my favorites,
• 59:03
  ask me when I will figure things out because they've been with me for a long
• 59:08
  time and we've gone through four pillars of a connected conversation.
• 59:11
  They've been with me long enough where there are only three pillars and attachment
• 59:15
  theory and avoidant and anxious and needing validation and discomfort and safety and you name it.
• 59:22
  And she said, yeah, when are you going to figure it out so that I don't have
• 59:26
  to keep learning? I can lock in.
• 59:28
  And I just said, man, I so hear you.
• 59:31
  Never, I hope, because I want to continually learn and evolve as I am learning and evolving.
• 59:37
  There's a part of this that I refer to in my mind as the better safe than sorry principle.
• 59:43
  And I think that also plays into why it can be so difficult to change our mind
• 59:48
  or definitely somebody else's.
• 59:50
  Here's a few examples there. Let's look in the dating world.
• 59:52
  If somebody believes their partner might be cheating based on limited evidence,
• 59:56
  it might be safer to maintain suspicion than to completely trust and potentially
• 1:00:01
  be betrayed and heaven forbid, have an uncomfortable or difficult conversation.
• 1:00:06
  Or look at job security. An employee might believe their job is at risk and
• 1:00:09
  work extra hard, even if the evidence is ambiguous, because being wrong about
• 1:00:13
  job security is less costly than being wrong about job safety.
• 1:00:18
  If you look at home security, a lot of people maintain beliefs about neighborhood
• 1:00:21
  safety that maybe err on the side of caution.
• 1:00:25
  Better to believe your neighborhood is a little bit dangerous and take precautions
• 1:00:27
  than to believe it is safe and then become a victim.
• 1:00:30
  There's also a cost of constant belief or vision. It can be decision paralysis.
• 1:00:35
  Imagine if every morning you had to question whether or not am I brushing my
• 1:00:38
  teeth today or not? I got to figure this out.
• 1:00:40
  What am I going to do for breakfast? And what's the best thing for breakfast?
• 1:00:43
  And I don't want to get anything wrong for breakfast.
• 1:00:44
  And whether the route to work is actually optimal. Should I be looking at different routes to work?
• 1:00:50
  Constantly revising basic beliefs or activities would tend to make daily functioning difficult.
• 1:00:56
  It could cause anxiety. It might even develop into almost a ritualistic OCD-like
• 1:01:00
  behavior pattern that is there in hopes of avoiding anxiety.
• 1:01:04
  So, we're doing this even in areas we're not even aware of.
• 1:01:07
  So, rather than lean in and embrace the discomfort or learn more about psychological
• 1:01:12
  flexibility and begin to take pleasure in just being in the individual moment
• 1:01:16
  when the world then is a mystery right in front of you, ready to explore rather
• 1:01:20
  than to fear, and look at your social relationships.
• 1:01:22
  If you constantly question whether
• 1:01:24
  your friends really like you or whether your family cared about you.
• 1:01:27
  It would be really difficult to form a stable, trusting relationship because
• 1:01:30
  you're continually just wondering and ruminating and worrying and trying to
• 1:01:33
  read the room and figure things out.
• 1:01:35
  Or I look at this in the realm of professional competence. A surgeon who constantly
• 1:01:40
  questions their training and their abilities might hesitate during critical
• 1:01:43
  moments when things like confidence, petition, quick action are necessary for a patient survival.
• 1:01:49
  I will end part one here. There is so much more to cover. We're going to get
• 1:01:53
  into a little bit of a modern paradox about the systems that kept us alive,
• 1:01:58
  our ancestors alive, in maintaining useful beliefs.
• 1:02:03
  Now we're causing us to feel a little more stuck. We're going to cover that
• 1:02:05
  and a whole lot more on part two.
• 1:02:08
  But I'll end talking about this professional competence.
• 1:02:12
  I had my surgery follow-up, my four-month follow-up surgical appointment for
• 1:02:17
  my ACDF spinal surgery, which is doing amazing.
• 1:02:20
  It's pain-free back to running walking
• 1:02:23
  push-ups are a little more difficult than i thought but i
• 1:02:26
  feel a little something in my throat at
• 1:02:29
  times when i move certain ways and i even thought is this something that
• 1:02:32
  i was experiencing before and now i'm just aware of it and i'm trying to make
• 1:02:37
  meaning of it so i wasn't even at first going to ask my surgeon if it really
• 1:02:41
  was a thing i love this and i recorded it so that i could go back and see if
• 1:02:46
  my memory was accurate but i said I'm feeling this thing in my neck.
• 1:02:50
  It's probably my head. And he confidently said, Oh no, that is absolutely happening.
• 1:02:54
  He talked about scar tissue. We gave this analogy of in the neck or the throat
• 1:02:58
  that it's like a spider web.
• 1:03:00
  So it kind of moves and you can't really grasp it, but then to go in and try
• 1:03:03
  to address it would then cause more scar tissue. So it's there, accept it.
• 1:03:09
  And I just, I appreciated his confidence and I appreciated his competence and
• 1:03:15
  I'm creating a bit of a narrative,
• 1:03:16
  but I'm grateful that he has continued to learn and hone his craft and be aware
• 1:03:21
  of things that maybe he doesn't know that he doesn't know in order to show up
• 1:03:26
  with that kind of confidence and presence.
• 1:03:28
  All right. Thanks for joining me today. If you have thoughts or questions about
• 1:03:31
  part one, feel free to email me or go through my website, TonyOverbay.com.
• 1:03:35
  And I would love any of your own experiences of any of the concepts we're talking
• 1:03:40
  about today, trying to change somebody else's mind or how difficult maybe it
• 1:03:43
  has been to change your mind.
• 1:03:44
  I would really love an example or two or as many as
• 1:03:47
  you're willing to send of what was a major
• 1:03:50
  belief change for you and how did that come about so send those in and let me
• 1:03:56
  know if you're open to me sharing those on a future episode and going out as
• 1:04:00
  per usual the wonderful the talented aurora florence because i'm telling you
• 1:04:04
  it can be whatever it is have a great week we'll see you next week,
• 1:04:15
  of the day.
• 1:04:16
  Music.