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

Why is information technology that, despite all our planning, we sometimes go caught by surprise, totally unprepared, with our pants down as it were? I hateful, we're smart folks, correct? How come sometimes nosotros simply don't see stuff coming?

The answer is, much of the time, that we don't see everything clearly because we don't run into a lot of things at all. We process the raw stuff of experience through a variety of filters – and nosotros act on the "processed" information, not the world as it is.

Those filters are engrained in the states, often from birth, and most of the time they assistance us to effectively role in our social and physical environments. For example, one very simple filter we have is how to isolate something interesting or important from a cluttered background – think finding your keys among the mess at the bottom of your purse. Or identifying something good to consume – a ripe fruit, possibly – 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, so it's a good thing. Merely there are many much more complex filters that nosotros pick up equally part of our thinking repertoire, and as helpful as they might sometimes be, they can besides get the states into a lot of problem.

Here are some examples:

Language

Language is a powerful force in shaping our beliefs. Just ask a sanitation engineer! Employers take long recognized the style that job titles tin can affect employee functioning – which is why there are so few clerks and and so many associates at your local retail mega-outlet.

Just language can atomic number 82 the states astray, as well. Consider this example drawn from the annals of linguistics: a tanning factory discharges wastes, mostly animal matter, into a swimming. The decomposing waste creates flammable gasses. A "pond", though, is not flammable, right? I mean, right?! A man is working near the pond. Not taking any special precautions – why would you, next to a "swimming"? – he ignites a accident-torch. A sheet of flame engulfs the pond and spreads to the nearby manufactory, destroying it.

The linguistic communication we use 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 probable to get chore interviews equally similarly-qualified people with "white-sounding" names.

Gender

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

Gender leads us astray when it leads us to look at a person's gender equally an alphabetize of their abilities. For instance, in the U.s., information technology is mutual to hear people say things like "men are stronger than women". This is non true. Some men are stronger than most women, a scattering of men are stronger than all women, and most men are stronger than some women. Simply knowing someone'due south gender does non tell you anything about how stiff they are!

Assumptions almost gender extend far beyond physical attributes. With few exceptions, women even so are non promoted to superlative-level corporate positions, despite the number of qualified women in the business world. Men are assumed to accept "leadership qualities" that women lack – and women's leadership qualities tend to exist dismissed as signs of "manliness" or "bitchiness".

Race and Ethnicity

What is true of gender is also true of race and ethnicity. Knowing someone'southward race or ethnicity tells us niggling most that particular person – nonetheless we act every bit if it told us a lot. Hither's an case: a blackness student of mine was defendant of plagiarism in another class when she handed in an first-class essay. This is a student that added immensely to every classroom discussion she took office in, and who wrote insightfully in every assignment she gave me (including "personal reflection" papers that cannot be plagiarized). The other professor did not accept any examples of work that the student had allegedly copied from; it was simply "too skilful". Race may not have been the only factor, but it was clearly a factor; I've never had a white pupil of like quality face a similar accusation.

Here's some other example: Black and other minority athletes, performers, even military leaders and politicians are ofttimes described as "clear", an adjective rarely applied to their white counterparts. People practice not expect articulate speech from non-white persons, and are surprised when they hear intelligent dialogue from black speakers.

Personal Feel

An old joke claims, "All Indians walk unmarried file. At least, the ane I saw did."

Personal experience is a powerful learning tool, merely it tin lead us astray when we make imitation assumptions based on generalizations from express experience. Childhood experience can make for especially powerful filters, as they tend to be imbued with potent emotional resonance, but any feel can lead united states to wrong conclusions.

Examining Your Filters

What is insidious nigh all of these factors is that most of the time they office without united states of america even noticing them. We don't promote Republic of chad over Wilma because Chad'due south a man, but because he seems more "leaderly", because he has that "certain something". And maybe he does – or maybe our invisible assumptions about gender make weak signs of "certain somethingness" seem strong, while Wilma'south powerful "certain somethingness" is filtered out.

It's unlikely that you will catch your filters at piece of work in your 24-hour interval-to-24-hour interval life, but you can reflect on the way yous have interacted with other people and how you've handled various situations (perhaps in a weekly review?). You lot may well be surprised to find that, in many cases, you tin't seem to put your finger on exactly why you acted the way you did – a sure sign of a filter at work. Paying attention to those moments will bring you a long style towards replacing the stock of feel and received wisdom with filters that allow you to more accurately and effectively act.

I've listed but a handful of obvious filters here. What are your filters? How could you deal with them?