It's December, and I'm visiting family for our seasonal reunion, staying at my mother's home. As every year, we'll be celebrating the holidays and my niece's birthday. This visit has some interesting family dynamics, like all such visits, but that's another story. The lesson for me this year is about perceptions.
It's a cold winter day, and I decide to buy a birthday gift for my niece. My mother lives near three shopping malls, and my destination is the mall furthest away. You can't quite see it from the front window, but it isn't very far, so I decide to walk.
This choice astounds my mother, who insists that I drive. I don't know how long the walk will be, but I'm guessing maybe a little more than an hour. With assurances to my mother about my physical abilities, I bundle up and set off.
Cutting across parking lots and shopping mall landscaping, I arrive at the store, make my purchase, and return in just under 30 minutes. My mother is surprised, but even I am shocked. How could my time estimate have been so far off?
I suddenly realize that I haven't walked much around here — it's an automobile world, with highways, red lights, and heavy traffic. My perceptions of distances are really perceptions of the time it takes to drive. I had been using a driving filter to project a walking experience.
It's a common mistake. We think we're making valid extrapolations when we aren't. Here are some of the filters that distort our perceptions.
- This is just like that
- Sometimes we believe that the situation we face is familiar when it actually isn't. This is the mistake I made.
- How We often think
that we're seeing
things as they are
when we aren'tdoes this situation differ from the situations you know? How is it similar? Are the differences and similarities important? - Bias and preference
- Especially if they're very strong, our biases and preferences affect our judgment.
- Our biases sometimes arise from our investments. What's at stake? Is there much to gain or lose?
- Illusions of independence
- If someone who commands us with authority requires a certain course of action, then our judgment about its feasibility is possibly suspect. And the same is true if the contemplated action is fashionable.
- To accept that authority or fashion influences our perceptions is to accept our limitations — a difficult thing to do.
- I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date
- If urgent action is required, we sometimes decide that we have no more time to think; no more time for caution.
- Usually the opposite is true: with urgency comes enhanced need for thought and caution.
One common filter many of us share is a belief that we, personally, always see things as they are — unclouded by bias, authority, habit, urgency, or fashion. This "no-filter" filter is perhaps the most dangerous filter of all.
Notice those times when you accept your own filtered perceptions as real. What's your favorite filter? Top Next Issue
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Related articles
More articles on Emotions at Work:
- Are You Taking on the Full Load?
- Taking on the full load is what we do when we feel fully responsible for either the success or the failure
of some organizational activity. Instead of asking for help, we take extreme measures to execute responsibilities
that might not even be ours.
- Conflict Haiku
- When tempers flare, or tension fills the air, many of us contribute to the stew, often without realizing
that we do. Here are some haiku that describe some of the many stances we choose that can lead groups
into tangles, or let those tangles persist once they form.
- Coping with Problems
- How we cope with problems is a choice. When we choose our coping style, we help determine our ability
to address the problems we face. Of eight styles we can identify, only one is universally constructive,
and we rarely use it.
- Hot and Cold Running People
- Do you consider yourself a body linguist? Can you tell what people are thinking just by looking at gestures
and postures? Think again. Body language is much more complex and ambiguous than many would have us believe.
- Fooling Ourselves
- Humans have impressive abilities to convince themselves of things that are false. One explanation for
this behavior is the theory of cognitive dissonance.
See also Emotions at Work and Critical Thinking at Work for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
- Coming April 24: Antipatterns for Time-Constrained Communication: 1
- Knowing how to recognize just a few patterns that can lead to miscommunication can be helpful in reducing the incidence of problems. Here is Part 1 of a collection of communication antipatterns that arise in technical communication under time pressure. Available here and by RSS on April 24.
- And on May 1: Antipatterns for Time-Constrained Communication: 2
- Recognizing just a few patterns that can lead to miscommunication can reduce the incidence of problems. Here is Part 2 of a collection of antipatterns that arise in technical communication under time pressure, emphasizing those that depend on content. Available here and by RSS on May 1.
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