Our Biggest Blind Spot

“The one who gets wisdom loves life; the one who cherishes understanding will soon prosper.” Proverbs 19:8 NIV

Cognitive psychologists have made it abundantly clear that we are prone to a multitude of biases, blind spots, and other failures of rationality. We have a tendency, for instance, to keep fighting losing battles because of the “sunk cost” bias, which makes us reluctant to give up on projects or investments in which we have already invested heavily, in time or money. Another common bias is that we notice flaws in others more readily than we notice them in ourselves. We also tend to project our current mindset and feelings into both the past and the future. We are drawn to details which confirm our existing beliefs, a bias which we often see in political disputes. Perhaps the largest and most surprising blind spot is that which is created by our own knowledge. When we know something, especially when we know it well, we have trouble remembering what it was like to not know it. Even teachers, whose job it is to remedy our ignorance, will sometimes say things like “how do you not know that?” to which the answer might be “how do you not know that I don’t know that?” After all, we are born knowing almost nothing, and so we have to learn virtually everything. Being aware of all the ways our thinking can go wrong should make us more empathetic, humble and understanding. Try to remember what it was like to not know what you know and keep in mind all of the ways our thinking can go awry.

–Christopher Simon