Michael B. Mefford

I am amazed at how often this little thorn pops up. Bias: it’s one word that basically means the prejudice of a person or entity toward a particular subject. I actually like the word “prejudice” better because the word itself explains what I’m talking about: pre-judgment. The point here is that everyone will have certain opinions, including corporations, government, etc., that are based on what they have seen as truth. These opinions arise directly from the experiences they’ve had.

Humans seem to gain knowledge in levels. The first kind of knowledge is academic—someone teaches it to you or you read it in a book. The second kind of knowledge is called experiential, meaning knowledge gained through experience. This is the most powerful knowledge human beings have. It’s like the difference between knowing it’s painful to be physically abused because you’ve read about it in books versus knowing its painful because you were thrown around the house like a rag doll.

The problem is everyone has different experiences. Everyone’s experiential knowledge is different, at least to some degree. So if, for example, you’re reading something by a former athlete turned physician turned psychiatrist turned writer, it might sound a lot like this blog. But if your reading a self help book written by someone who survived the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp, it will sound different (read the extraordinary Victor Frankl book, Man’s Search for Meaning, and you’ll see what I mean).

In psychiatry, we are encouraged to go into psychoanalysis for the primary purpose of being able to recognize our own bias and how we might interject that into therapy with others. The goal, of course, is to keep our own psychological garbage to ourselves and not pass it on to some unwitting patient. And though the analysis definitely helps in this process, it is still very difficult not to let your own bias creep in.

You will likely hear advice from many people over the course of a lifetime. Always remember that, though the words may be well intentioned, they are passing through the filter of another person’s bias. In other words, another person’s advice or opinion will always be colored by their experiences in life.

Am I saying to reject whatever anyone else says if you don’t like the sound of it? No. I’m saying always remember where the information is coming from. And if someone has massive amounts of experience in an area, and it’s experience that comes not only from them, but from many others, then you can be pretty sure they’re going to be pretty close to the truth.

This issue hits home particularly hard with anyone who is trying to sell something. When you invest a large amount of time and energy into learning about a specific product and why it is better than everything else, it becomes very hard to see that product objectively. When you need money based on the sale of that product, your ability to talk about it objectively is almost impossible.

It never hurts to listen to pitches or opinions, but always consider bias. You can always do further research on a matter to find out the truth, but when in question, you can always fall back to the old proverb: “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”