Unconscious Bias
Our brain making judgements and assessments unknowingly- your brain making judgements on your behalf. An example could include the group of people we spend time with. Sometimes we like a stranger for no apparent reason. They’re in our good books from the moment they talk to us. Sometimes the opposite is true – we disagree with everything they say. We’re nervous around them. Why? Partly it’s evolution – we’ve survived as a species because of how quickly our brains have learned to process threat and make decisions. One way it does that is by taking shortcuts, reducing the massive amount of information we’re exposed to into manageable bites. One common shortcut our brains use in interacting with people is making us feel safer with people who look, think and act similarly to us (“birds of a feather…” as they say). This has a name: homophily. By the same token, we tend to avoid people who don’t seem anything like us. Automatic preferences like these are called ‘biases’. Oftentimes, we’re not aware of them at all – we just react because it comes easy to us. But unconscious biases affect our interactions with others and can make our work environments more homogenous. They create bubbles of sameness thinking. They make us wary of outsiders, whether they be people, ideas, or solutions.
Confirmation Bias
Where we look for, or interpret, a situation based on what we believe or what we are looking for. In the context of a paranormal investigation or ghost hunt the investigator is looking for ghosts and activity therefore if they see something out of the ordinary you are more likely to interpret this as a ghost. At an unconscious level confirmation bias can lead us to ignore information that doesn’t line up expectations, research or beliefs.
Understanding Bias In Our Investigating
When we understand bias and how it can affect us during a paranormal investigation it leads us to realise just how important it is to keep in mind all possibilities. Look at the situation from a natural perspective, a spiritual perspective, a scientific perspective, a religious perspective and all other angles. Recognising our unconscious biases is a bit like detective work: it’s about observing, not just seeing. Observing what’s really making us uncomfortable. Once we learn to observe, we’re empowered and when we know our unconscious biases we will have a better way of controlling them thus enabling us to explore and be open to other ideas and solutions, to collaborate and discuss.
