How Can I Open Up My Filter Pitcher

20080813-filters

Whammo! You didn't see that coming, did y'all?

Why is it that, despite all our planning, we sometimes get caught past surprise, totally unprepared, with our pants downward as it were? I mean, nosotros're smart folks, right? How come up sometimes nosotros just don't see stuff coming?

The respond is, much of the time, that we don't come across everything conspicuously because we don't run into a lot of things at all. Nosotros process the raw stuff of experience through a variety of filters – and we human activity on the "processed" information, not the world as it is.

Those filters are engrained in us, often from nascence, and most of the fourth dimension they help u.s. to effectively function in our social and physical environments. For instance, one very unproblematic filter we have is how to isolate something interesting or of import from a cluttered groundwork – think finding your keys among the mess at the bottom of your handbag. Or identifying something good to eat – a ripe fruit, maybe – among the unripe fruits, leaves, and branches of a tree.

That's a pretty basic filtering ability (though the physiological mechanisms involved are quite complex) that humans everywhere rely on every day to survive, and so it's a good affair. Only at that place are many much more complex filters that we option up as part of our thinking repertoire, and as helpful as they might sometimes be, they tin besides get us into a lot of trouble.

Hither are some examples:

Linguistic communication

Language is a powerful forcefulness in shaping our behavior. Just ask a sanitation engineer! Employers have long recognized the mode that job titles tin can affect employee performance – which is why at that place are so few clerks and then many assembly at your local retail mega-outlet.

But language can lead us off-target, as well. Consider this example drawn from the annals of linguistics: a tanning factory discharges wastes, by and large creature affair, into a pond. The decomposing waste product creates flammable gasses. A "pond", though, is not flammable, right? I mean, right?! A human is working near the pond. Not taking any special precautions – why would you, side by side to a "swimming"? – he ignites a blow-torch. A canvas of flame engulfs the pond and spreads to the nearby mill, destroying it.

The linguistic communication we utilise to describe people tin can strongly influence our behavior towards them. Feminists recognized this when they started insisting on terms like "police officer" rather than "policeman". Or consider this: numerous studies have shown that people with "ethnic-sounding" names are less likely to become chore interviews every bit similarly-qualified people with "white-sounding" names.

Gender

Gender is a powerful filter in every civilisation – although the behaviors it shapes can be very unlike from culture to culture. What is considered men's work in 1 club – conveying heavy loads of bricks, for case – might exist considered women's work in another.

Gender leads u.s. off-target when information technology leads usa to look at a person's gender as an index of their abilities. For instance, in the US, information technology is common to hear people say things like "men are stronger than women". This is non true. Some men are stronger than virtually women, a scattering of men are stronger than all women, and most men are stronger than some women. Just knowing someone'due south gender does not tell y'all anything about how strong they are!

Assumptions well-nigh gender extend far beyond physical attributes. With few exceptions, women nonetheless are non promoted to peak-level corporate positions, despite the number of qualified women in the business concern earth. Men are assumed to have "leadership qualities" that women lack – and women'due south leadership qualities tend to exist dismissed equally signs of "manliness" or "bitchiness".

Race and Ethnicity

What is truthful of gender is likewise true of race and ethnicity. Knowing someone'due south race or ethnicity tells united states picayune nearly that particular person – yet nosotros human action as if it told us a lot. Here's an example: a black student of mine was accused of plagiarism in some other class when she handed in an excellent essay. This is a student that added immensely to every classroom discussion she took part in, and who wrote insightfully in every consignment she gave me (including "personal reflection" papers that cannot be plagiarized). The other professor did not take whatever examples of piece of work that the pupil had allegedly copied from; it was but "too good". Race may non have been the merely cistron, but it was clearly a cistron; I've never had a white student of like quality face a like accusation.

Here'due south some other example: Black and other minority athletes, performers, even war machine leaders and politicians are frequently described as "articulate", an describing word rarely practical to their white counterparts. People do non look clear speech from non-white persons, and are surprised when they hear intelligent dialogue from black speakers.

Personal Experience

An old joke claims, "All Indians walk single file. At to the lowest degree, the one I saw did."

Personal experience is a powerful learning tool, but it tin can lead united states of america astray when nosotros make false assumptions based on generalizations from limited experience. Childhood experience tin can make for peculiarly powerful filters, as they tend to be imbued with strong emotional resonance, just whatsoever experience can lead us to wrong conclusions.

Examining Your Filters

What is insidious most all of these factors is that virtually of the time they role without us even noticing them. Nosotros don't promote Chad over Wilma because Republic of chad'southward a man, just because he seems more than "leaderly", because he has that "certain something". And peradventure he does – or maybe our invisible assumptions about gender make weak signs of "certain somethingness" seem strong, while Wilma's powerful "sure somethingness" is filtered out.

It'southward unlikely that you lot will catch your filters at work in your 24-hour interval-to-day life, simply you can reflect on the mode you have interacted with other people and how you've handled diverse situations (perhaps in a weekly review?). You may well exist surprised to find that, in many cases, you tin't seem to put your finger on exactly why you acted the mode y'all did – a sure sign of a filter at work. Paying attention to those moments will bring you a long manner towards replacing the stock of experience and received wisdom with filters that allow you to more accurately and effectively human activity.

I've listed just a scattering of obvious filters hither. What are your filters? How could you lot bargain with them?