Leaders can use this approach to seek the data of those with divergent opinions and conduct a pre-mortem before accepting their stance or opinion. Only after an exhaustive search and not having found any data to disprove it can the scientist accept the hypothesis. As the leader becomes aware of his/her stance and opinion, confirmation bias is used to deliberately look for data that will disprove the opinion, much like the scientific approach where the researcher's only focus is on finding data that will disprove the hypothesis. Once again, this bias can increase one’s effectiveness if used to build stronger decision making and inclusion. As the person becomes more similar, what was once different will become familiar and even appreciated. Eventually, the out-group becomes the in-group.Īnother bias with significant consequences is confirmation bias, which is commonly defined as “the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's beliefs or hypotheses, while giving disproportionately less consideration to alternative possibilities.” The more the leader seeks similarities, the more likability will ensue. As the leader chooses to focus on what is shared, similarity bias will be triggered, creating some likability. These similarities indeed can be minuscule and even trivial. Using non-judgmental awareness, they can spot situations where individuals have different opinions and are diverse from the leader, then seek to identify similarities. Leaders can leverage bias to favor less entrenched in-group/out-group responses. The implications are significant, as the issue is not only about preferring those who are similar, but it extends to siding with those who might harass or harm those with different opinions. Not only that, but as the infant watched the puppet who had chosen the different cereal either be helped or harassed by two other puppets, over 80% of the infants chose the harasser over the helper puppet. When offered to choose between the puppets, infants would prefer the puppet who had selected the same cereal. Two puppets were then introduced, one picking the same cereal the baby had chosen and the other picking the other cereal. In an experiment conducted at Yale’s Infant Cognition Center, similarity bias was evident when infants were offered to choose one of two different bowls of cereal. Left unchecked, similarity bias is perhaps the most challenging, as it fosters inclusion and exclusion, an in-group and out-group, and is a trigger for forming entrenched camps of individuals with similar opinions who deeply mistrust those with different opinions, eventually leading to wishing them harm. With that in mind, let’s review four biases in which non-judgmental awareness can enhance inclusion, cooperation, fairness and harmony.
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