Daily Excerpt: Typhoon Honey (Girrell & Sjogren) - Perception Is Not Reality

 



Perception Is Not Reality

In nearly every liberal arts college offering psychology as a major, you can find an advanced course labeled something like “Sensation and Perception.” This course studies how the brain reads information sent to it from the five senses and how these data are recognized and converted into thoughts, sensations, images, sounds, and memories. To make the point that it is the brain that sees and hears and then interprets the information it receives, the instructor will often show a video of a famous video experiment[1] wherein a student is given a pair of glasses fitted with a prism in front of each eye, functionally inverting the image that is sent to the brain. Through the inverting prism glasses the world looks upside down. At first the student has difficulty knowing up and down, but then she successfully pours milk into a tea cup. After a day, the student walks about quite a bit more easily but still at times reaches up for something that is low down. However, by the third day she is riding a bicycle and functioning normally.

 

The experimenter at that point has the student remove the inverting glasses and she almost freaks out because, without the glasses on, her brain is now seeing everything upside down! Yet, in only a matter of a few minutes the brain readjusts the image and she can see normally once again. To the astonished participant’s mind, the message is clear: The brain did all of that changing and adapting. The brain knows what is up and down and what gravity and heat cause things to do (water pours down and flames rise up). So, it eventually reorients the information it is getting to fit what normal should be—what it knows to be true. 

 

For those of you who believe, here is another example of the power of the brain. If you wear glasses or lenses, you know that the two eyes are often not equal in their visual strength. What normally happens is the fuzzier image of the one eye will be matched into the clear image of the other eye to provide a clear, binocular (3D) image. Often contact lens wearers who need bifocal lenses will be given one lens corrected for reading close images and another for seeing at distance. Anyone who has done this can tell you that the three-dimensional, binocular image they see is clear, and that they do not notice the fuzzy image as part of the picture. The brain does all the work by creating clear perception out of two different images. This is how powerful the brain is.

 

So, what does that mean for the purpose of our discussion? Simply this: Seeing is not “out there” as some objective reality. Two of us can stand on the same street corner and witness an accident. We can touch the same bent fenders and still, as long as we do not discuss it, we will file different accident reports. Your mind makes sense out of the things you perceive and that sense-making process is inside your brain. That means what you see and what you perceive as a reality may not in fact be what I see because our brains are loaded with different events, education, socialization, and vocabularies. And it is that stuff inside the brain that makes sense out of the data that comes in through our eyes and ears. Let’s dig into this a bit more.

 

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Blink, he talks about “thin slicing.” Thin slicing is noticing that we have an initial judgment in the first split second of each encounter, judgments that are based on our biases which we call our unconscious biases. The issue is that we come to trust our unconscious biases as the truth in our perceptions. Gladwell has a particularly informative exercise which we suggest you try right now.

 

Write down five or six words you associate with dark (perhaps dark colors or things like nighttime, alleyways, and shadows.). Then write down five or six words you associate with light (sunshine, colors, or windows). Duplicate the list so that you have two lists of the dark words and two lists of the light words. Then time yourself on the following: 

 

Beside each of the dark words in the first list, write a G for good or a B for bad. Do the same thing for the light list – G for good and B for bad. Note the time it took. Go back to the second two lists and place a G beside all of the dark words and then a B beside all of the light words. When Gladwell timed people on this process it typically took twice as long to do the second part of the exercise, demonstrating that as powerful as our logical minds are, we still are operating with biases that affect our processing and our understanding of the world of events around us.

 

What you see and hear is filtered and interpreted inside your brain.  But, wait, there’s more!

 

You never get the full story anyway

It is one thing to note  that the information we perceive is filtered, altered, and made sense of by our brains, and another to note that when that information is communicated by another person, we will not likely get the full picture. What others tell us about what happened has already been filtered once by their brains, as they perceived it. Then that message gets altered again as they attempt to find the “right” words to describe what they saw, heard, or experienced. This is even further reduced when we live in a social structure where the hard and less appealing information is not spoken (like in some families and in many work environments). We simply don’t like giving what we think is bad news or negative feedback.

 

Many leaders don’t receive the full story, partly because those informing them want to tell only about the successes in an effort to look good or fear their boss won’t want to hear the negative information or learn that something is not working. In one company we know of, scientists were working on a new drug that seemed on the surface to have great potential. The researchers discovered however that part of the compound that goes to the brain is not eliminated. It builds up and has the potential to become toxic—a fact that the senior leadership did not want to hear. As a result, the compound got all the way to clinical trials in humans before the FDA shut it down. The company lost millions and was eventually bought by a competitor.

 

Take a good look around you. Are you surrounded by a family that doesn’t like disruption or negativity? Did you grow up in a family that would avoid conflict in the name of family harmony? What about your friends? Do you have the type of good friend that will tell you when you have a piece of broccoli stuck in your teeth or you have bad breath or your zipper is open? Or do you have really “nice” friends who tell you you’re great and they have your back? We have the kind of relationship where we actually look forward to soliciting feedback on each other’s experience of what we do. We have the depth of a relationship that is based on love and mutual respect. For example, when  one of us says to the other person that our experience was of them waiting to say the next thought while the first was speaking (as opposed to listening), that feedback is designed to build the depth and quality of our relationship so that it gets stronger.

 

Friends will be friends and coworkers and employees are well intentioned. You just will be getting filtered information—either because of their selective mindset or because of the filtering their mind does when choosing the words to say. Both the input filtering and the output filtering are what we call context. Contextualizing information is filtering it through the sense-making process, either when receiving input or when selecting our words as output.

 

But not seeing or hearing the full story goes a lot further than just the feedback you do or don’t get from your friends and associates. What you see in the world is only a thin slice of reality as it fully exists. You can’t know everything for two reasons. One is that you have only two eyes and two ears and one brain and are therefore only one seven-billionth of the human experience, which we would have to conclude is quite tiny! But, two, the nature of the universe is chaotic and unpredictable. As much as our minds would like to create some semblance of order out of that chaos, it has very little capacity to overrule chaos itself.

 

One example of not knowing or being able to control chaos comes from my honeymoon. Andrew and I were taking a trek in Nepal not long after the great earthquake in 2015. Our guide was Kumar, a man who lived west of Kathmandu and in the epicenter of the quake. Kumar’s entire village had been destroyed. But Kumar was a man of his word, and he had contracted with us as a guide, so he took us up-country for our adventure. Kumar told me that the government had given each family a sheet of metal which they had folded to make a makeshift metal teepee for temporary protection. He smiled as he said it was all right, except when it rained, because then the snakes would also seek shelter under the metal roof.

 

While we were out, Kumar got word that the Nepalese government had decided to give each family six hundred dollars with which to rebuild their houses (believe it or not, that was enough to build a small house in Nepal at the time). All of the men of the village were taking a bus to Kathmandu to get their money, but Kumar could not because our location was nowhere near the village. On the way to Kathmandu the bus swerved off the narrow mountain dirt road and all the men of the village—except Kumar—were tragically killed. When Kumar returned to the village, he was the only adult male. What really impressed Andrew and me was how he simply stepped in to help all the other families rebuild. He had not considered himself unfortunate that he could not go with the other men, nor fortunate that he was not killed in the accident. He just accepted that life was unpredictable like that.

 

 

Deconstructing your beliefs

When we are confronted with this evidence that what we see is filtered and tainted by our belief system, we suddenly are faced with the task of trying to deconstruct our beliefs. Where do they come from and how do we unearth them? We suggest starting from a place of acceptance: That the very best we get will be to realize that no matter how much we work on deconstructing our belief system, we will always have one. We refer to this as your default context, a topic we will explain later in the book. But for now, let’s address having a context that is made up of our collected lessons, education, life experiences, socialization, and heritage. These lessons are the pool in which we swim as children and eventually become the ocean in which we swim as adults. We are steeped in it so completely that we are often not even aware that it exists.

 

Having a lived experience simply means that our mental memories are shaped by what we have learned when things happen (when we experience them). Our lived experience is not right or wrong, per se, but we get to decide as adults whether those interpretations serve us. As children, things just seem to happen to us and with help from our parents, teachers and friends, we “put them into context.” Perhaps a fire truck blew past you as a little child and the siren frightened you. Parents calm you down and tell you about first responders and heroes and one of those bricks was put in place. You were told not to stand outside or go swimming during a thunderstorm, and another was put in place. These are easily seen.

 

But what is far less visible is how we form beliefs about who we are, what our ethnicity means, what it means to be male or female. Our parents didn’t tell us what to think if that information does not line up with what our actual experience is, if it is not one of those binary choices that our parents were afforded. Somewhere we learn to identify our tribe or group and identify who is not in our tribe. 

 

Depending on where you grew up, you may have been taught that those who look different, or whose religion is not your tribe’s, are to be feared or held as suspect. You may have learned that your future is yours for the taking, that you are entitled to “get ahead” and become “someone,” even president, if you so desire. But you may have grown up in a pool that told you repeatedly that you were nothing and would amount to nothing. You may have been taught either explicitly or surreptitiously that your skin color, gender, or sexual orientation makes you a target.

 

All of these—literally everything that you think or from which you react—has been learned. And faced with the prospect that some or most of those learned beliefs no longer serve you and the values that you are living, we get to figure out how to deconstruct them. This may not be easy, both because it is so difficult to separate out what is the source of our behaviors, and because they are so deeply ingrained in our mind.

 

Systemic racism

Allow us to take this on by addressing a very large elephant in the room: systemic racism in our world and in the United States. America was founded on a precept of religious freedom and human equality—at least those were the spoken words. But in truth, our nation was founded during a time when slavery was a widely held belief, often substantiated by the misinterpretation and misuse of Biblical passages (also written in times when slavery was popular). Slaves were considered as not human or subhuman and as a result when our founders penned the line “all men [sic] are created equal” that did not include the rights of slaves (or women for that matter). Woven into the fabric of our society as a new world was the age-old principle that certain people, specifically in this country, those of darker skin color, were not entitled to the type of respect that was afforded the White ruling class. It was not written in our founding documents; it was not articulated in our churches; it simply was the understanding that was implicit in everything we did. 

 

Our society has matured over the last 250 years and we would like to believe that as a more mature society, those racist views no longer exist. But it is terrifically clear, even as we are writing these words, that the unspoken beliefs of racial inequality are still operating quite powerfully and, in fact, have become built into our systems of government, law enforcement and “justice.” Skin color is seen as a symbol of criminal propensity. African-American men are incarcerated at more than five times the rate of whites, and African-American women at double the rate of white women, according to the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). But those figures do not include Hispanics and other nonwhite groups. Research shows that a nonwhite “sounding” name on a resume is less likely to be selected by recruiters and HR professionals than one with a more traditionally white sounding name—despite having identical resumes. And, conversely, changing the name to “whiten” its sound more than doubled the likelihood of being called in for an interview.[2] 

 

During the writing of this chapter, in the first week of June 2020, our nation watched, with horror, a viral recording of a police officer holding George Floyd on the ground by pressing his knee on George’s neck, while bystanders pleaded with him and the other officers to stop. George was lying on the ground face down with his hands tied behind his back. He was not resisting nor fighting and repeatedly said, “I can’t breathe,” until he lost consciousness and died. While the gravity of this explicit killing swept through the country, it was not an isolated event. We have read so many examples of how deeply flawed our law enforcement system is that we have almost become immune to their occurrence, until one so clear and evident catches our attention.

 

We bring this up not in an attempt to sensationalize the event but to take on the difficulty of dismantling deeply rooted misbeliefs. Irrespective of where you stand on the issues of racism and irrespective of the color of your skin, we all must face the fact that systemic racism exists and shapes our country’s behavior. So rather than just taking on the hypothetical belief that you or I might hold, we will use the clear reality of a systemic injustice based on racial beliefs as our example. How we do it is the issue here. 

 

The first step in changing a belief is to recognize that it exists and is having an adverse effect in our lives. Whatever your position in life, we all own the responsibility of learning what is happening and the length and breadth of its current effect. We must recognize it and name it in no uncertain terms. It is called racism. It does no service for us (nor for anyone, actually) to claim that we are not racist when we live in a racist society. If we are not recognizing the impact it is having on a daily basis, we are in denial of its reality and have no ability to deconstruct it. And by the way if you, the reader, are Black, Indigenous, brown or even a white-passing person of color, you already know this truth and have seen more examples that you would ever care to.

 

Secondly, we are to find where it is impacting our lives most. How is racism (in this case) impacting the functioning of the society? How is racism affecting you? What are you not able to understand and learn because the books you read, the classes you took in high school and college were written from a skewed perspective? Do you want to know the truth? Does it cause you pain that you have been sold a package of lies about our history, about our legal system, about your neighbors, and about the atrocities committed against the people native to this country? Take inventory of the real costs of racism on your life—and please fight the urge to say “none.” One way many of us have done this is by reading and journaling along with the book Me and White Supremacy,[3] which we highly recommend.

 

The third step in deconstructing our beliefs is to identify what the replacement belief is for you. Throughout this book we will be talking about your vision and your values. “Visions and values are responsibility, integrity, authenticity,” says our friend and trainer, Michael Strasner in his book Mastering Leadership. No doubt your vision is one that includes such ideals as peace, harmony, love and acceptance—the exact opposites of what we  see when witnessing a murder such as George Floyd’s. What this step equates to is changing the headlines we read in the news. It means changing the concept of a White woman calling 911 on a Black man in Central Park in New York City and falsely reporting that he was threatening her (an actual event the same week as the George Floyd murder).  That might read as “woman accepting a Black man for reminding her to keep her dog on a leash”—or loving him and expressing gratitude. If that sounds silly, then start inspecting your own beliefs more deeply. What are the headlines you have and how might you change the story they feed your mind?

 

Which brings us to the fourth step in deconstructing our beliefs: dialogue. When we were children, we went through a phase (at about eighteen months) where we were fearful of new and strange people called stranger anxiety. But we should have outgrown that many years ago. If we are still uncomfortable with the presence of things and people we don’t understand, it is time to begin learning more about them. Ask questions and learn about who those “other” people are. Why do they do what they do? Who are they as individuals? Or just shut up and listen! Understanding is the key to dismantling beliefs that skew our actions, whether our reaction is one of racism or fear of the unknown. What builds a system is the wholesale acceptance of conditions or beliefs without questioning them. It is only through the hard work of dialogue and outreach that we can begin to dismantle a system of mistaken and misinformed beliefs.

 

The fifth step is to begin changing the actions (ours and those of others around us) each time we catch it happening. When people are uncomfortable and project their discomfort on to others because of the perception they have of that other person, that action is racist (though we could say sexist or classist, xenophobic, or homophobic as well). When we change the action, we alter the interpretation and story about the situation and begin to alter the system. But the very thought of calling an emergency number (911) because you are uncomfortable with a situation in itself is a ludicrous action and furthers the amplification of the racist discomfort. It sets in action a response of sending armed personnel to resolve a situation that might easily be resolved by other means and other social services.

 

All five of these steps form a foundation for committed action. We each must work to alter the existing narrative that permits covert and systemic racism to exist. This final step in deconstructing our beliefs is to take repeated actions consistent with the values we espouse as part of our vision. When we continually act in this new way, we habituate the desired belief of equality, humanity, compassion, acceptance, or whatever we hope to be living as our values. 

 


Deconstructing Your Beliefs

Try the following exercise to apply these steps for deconstructing your beliefs:

  1. Notice where you are not seeing the whole picture when someone points out that there might be another way of seeing things. Write down two or three beliefs that might be operating instead. Give that belief a name (for example: “Money doesn’t grow on trees”). Call it out as a whole system of related beliefs (for example around finances or career potentials or marital relationships).
  2. Expand your list by noticing where else this (these) belief(s) has (have) an impact on your life. In what other arenas might you be impacted by this set of beliefs?
  3. For each belief or sub-belief, write out an alternative that counters the logic or thought in the belief. For example, you may have a set of beliefs about financial scarcity (as in, you don’t have a lot of money and don’t see a way to make more). One subset belief might be “Money doesn’t grow on trees!” That being the case, your replacement might be “Money is flowing everywhere.”
  4. Start by listening to others and the beliefs that they hold. Listen to people that are good with money and know how to manage it well. Ask what they do and how you could apply it in your life. But the key is to really listen. Don’t listen to see where they are wrong (your belief will want you to do that). Listen with what the masters call “Beginner’s mind.” 
  5. Identify the action that you will take that is consistent with the new belief. If your new belief is “Money is flowing everywhere,” then perhaps you need to be part of the flow by giving a gift of money to someone more needy than you are. How much will you give and how often will you give it?
  6. Do it! Practice it and live it as your reality. Until you have done it enough times to produce a mental “muscle memory,” you have the possibility of slipping back to the old belief. Keep practicing.

 

“To truly communicate your vision masterfully, you must bring your intention alive in the listener. You must bring it alive in such a way that the listener is so connected and empowered by the vision, the message, or the possibilities you’re communicating, that they take hold of it as if it is their own.” (Strasner, Mastering Leadership, 2018).




[1] “Inverted Vision Experiment Clip,” R.C. Hartman, YouTube, July 25, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHMvEMy7B9k.

[2] Dina Gerdeman, “Minorities Who ‘Whiten’ Resumes Get More Interviews,” Harvard Business School, May 17, 2017, https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes-get-more-interviews.

[3] Layla F. Saad, Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor (Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2020).

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For posts about perception, click HERE.

For more posts about racism, click HERE.

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