We DON'T See What We DON'T Want to See

We DON'T See What We DON'T Want to See

Happy Sunday folks but hey, is this true?  Yesirrrrrs very true indeed many times in our life.  Mea culpa, I'll admit that I'm guilty of this many times in my list when I DIDN'T See What I DIDN'T Want to See.  Be it a threat, a risk, an opportunity or even danger itself or even any person or event.  More often, We ONLY See What We WANT to See.  Oh, when and where I did get this idea to discuss today?  From that Netflix movie 'THE WEEKEND AWAY' wherein the Syrian taxi driver uttered these words to the first-time American tourist in Croatia.

Did we notice why 'infamous' personalities like North Korea's late dictator Kim Jong-il continue to wear those super-wide specs? Simple.  He DOESN'T See What He DOESN'T Want to See.  Too bad all of us have been guilty of this 'misbehavior' at some points in life.  So the dumbing question is: WHY OH WHY we have this tendency to DON'T See What We DON'T Want to See?  Well, for decades now, Psychological Researches have always ended with that phenomenon called MOTIVATED PERCEPTION.

Oh we have to accept the truth that the world we live in is NOT an accurate representation of what it truly is because our perception is often BIASED, SELECTIVE and MALLEABLE.  Even our desires can affect what we see by impacting the way we process visual information.  In a 1954 case study by A.H. Hastorf, when students from rival universities watched the same football game, controversy and disagreement ensued as each side of the rival teams saw more fouls committed by the opposing team.

WHY OH WHY are we prone to see what we want to see?  Consistent researches demonstrated how our MOTIVATIONS and DESIRES can give rise to two biases namely:  PERCEPTUAL BIAS [that's when our motivations have a top-down influence on our perceptions] and RESPONSE BIAS [that's when we report seeing WHAT WE WANT TO SEE]. But hey, why do we need to spend time on this thread on a placid Sunday ?  It's because a lot of our conflicts and turmoils are triggered because We ONLY See What We WANT to See.  

A missed answer in your school final exams sometimes leads to a failed final rating.  A one-off hiccup at work gets blown out of proportion.  A casual and petty disagreement between a couple ends in a huge major quarrel.  A business enterprise tilting diminishing coffers would miss out opportunities for its revenues to rebound because the top honcho ONLY Sees What He WANTED to See.  Time to serious ponder folks.  We got to wiggle out from both our PERCEPTUAL BIAS and RESPONSE BIAS. Time to be fair to ourselves, PLEASE ❗❗❗