Psychology of Belief: Self-serving Bias
[10:39]
WHO CAN OBSERVE THEMSELVES HONESTLY?…. I MEAN REALLY HONESTLY?
As a whole world population many stumble across belief and non-belief and justify their flow via an ego identity. ‘Stumble’, as thousands of bits of information thrown at us each day, the brain reacts accordingly and not necessarily with a complete rational process guided by reason although we live in a paradox assuming that we are rational beings. Justification biases will always find a way to uphold this assumption of full control but it’s easier to hold on to a greasy pole than observe our choices honestly and admit to what’s really going on inside our heads which has nothing to do with careful analysis and comparison.
It’s part of a messy human mind where conformity stemming from innocent ignorance is not really anyone’s fault or even a fault at that but a by-product of a brain that just wants to get on with it and survive… It has no time to stop, think, compare, evaluate with so much information to deal with on a daily basis, the brain did not evolve to be like that, so that’s why I use the word innocent to describe the ignorance. It will only do the mindful and rational on rare occasions for a grand scheme of things outlook. It sets appropriate individual patterns of though in context with what its immediate environment will allow / accept in order to create safe and comfortable surroundings. Chunks of rational may be thrown in for sure, but not an all the way fully blown version, as people are most of the time calmly desperate to defend their individual > cultural identities… and so consumed by this, cannot be seen for this ‘normality’ created as the process dissolves like seasoning in the rich chunky soup of appropriateness.
The brain/mind in this autopilot mode does not get it ‘right’ as such by stumbling along, but it has a way of knowing what to do that then gives itself a better chance of survival by learning to CONFORM rather than thinking ‘properly’, rationally about everything. If the ‘proper’ approach was used it may just cause a variety of clashes and harm due to probably creating friction from differing and potentially threatening ideas to other members in the group, thus decreasing the chance of SURVIVING within that group.
This ironic autopilot rhythm of thought and belief patterns has very little to do with conscious awareness… Time passes by and these patterns just seem to form and if we manage to reflect back in a reasonable manner many would notice that very little rational, carefully thought out processes helped form the various belief and opinion patterns we uphold… IF people could honestly reflect, many contradictions would be observed during an ongoing erratic process instead… Most of the time the foundations laid inside a child’s mind and developed / enhanced from their initial early influences and indoctrination’s… the magnets to justify early comfort zone biases becoming stronger and stronger as time goes on…The adult rarely able to see that beliefs are most probably an extension to what began in an immature young mind much earlier.
A PARADOX FORMED THEREFORE… THE BRAIN ‘INTELLIGENTLY’ FINDS A WAY TO AVOID ‘INTELLIGENT’ THOUGHT PROCESSES. It’s more than likely it will conform within parameters set by culture, family, peers and circumstances instead as it figured out that’s the best way to survive…. Individuality – yes, but many similarities with the group due to being inside set high walls of do’s and don’t of ethics and morality accordingly.
Within the group, individuality noticed much easier, but externally, strangers looking in will see very similar people, tone’s of voices, mannerisms, thought processes and majority spiritual beliefs as various contexts of perception form appropriately in a defend and attack, soft and hard ongoing looping mindsets, interlinking and just free flowing but hardly ever observed for what they are… stumbling, erratic and messy.
One of the messy appropriations I notice is that non-believers of faith based religions are not all of a sudden the worlds finest, rational minds because they found irrationality in just one topic. I am an atheist myself but nowhere near perfect, many contradictions, so much to improve upon, but I’m aware that there is a pull for me to be critical of other opposing groups and brush under the carpet blindly, unable to observe my own misgivings at the time of unleashing my negative thoughts on these other groups soft or hard, be it in my private mind chatter or verbally expressed to others…My brain/mind process is a constant bias forming machine, built to help me justify all the appropriateness I stumble upon, otherwise it would ‘explode’ from trying to compute perfectly rational thoughts all the time for a moral greater good.
Atheists can fall into the trap where we confirm ourselves into a more overall ‘advanced / rational’ higher status realm compared to religious believers. It’s not so easy to keep sight that we are only human too and susceptible to many irrational choices and decisions within various other aspects of life away from religion. We are all bias machines, which gives rise also to being contradiction machines also.
This video highlights how self-serving bias helps create and maintain religious belief, but I would go one step further and suggest that self-serving bias is part of every human being on the planet, faith based believer or not. I don’t want to be an angry atheist feeling powerful due to assuming I’m ‘smarter’ than so called ‘believing idiots’ which is often a theme created among atheists. I want to be a human being moving forward with the intentions for the greater good instead.
Let’s all at least try and consider this actual reality… If we can find that small space of awareness away from a brain that is simply geared to be automatic, appropriate and ultimately then conveniently survive… Maybe then we can then start thinking about thinking and make that the new autopilot. Both religious and the non-religious can then truly begin making this world a better place and stop hiding behind status anxiety laced with zillions of contradictions. Anything less is just ‘accidental, egotistical complex hard to grasp why they happened thought patterns’ that mainly happen to us without realizing where we mold a multitude of narratives around the core of delusional realities blindly, ignorantly forming identity we generally end up being proud of… I have a feeling things can be so much better if we could observe ourselves more honestly…
A new paradigm, a new approach we are capable of as a collective. The paradox of mind mentioned earlier will not allow this any time soon though.
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