Mind Matters — The underlying bias of perceptions

Posted by Dr. Kayta Gajdos on April 4, 2012

Did
you know that holding a gun in your hand makes you more prone to think that
others are holding a gun also?

Did
you know that our belief in a just world may bias us to ignore the injustices
in it?

These
two points are related in terms of how we form perceptions about the world.
Regarding guns, psychologist James Brockmole of the University of Notre Dame,
performed research that showed that wielding a gun produces a bias of
perception: when you hold a gun in your hand, you are more likely to think you “see” a gun in another’s hand,
no matter what they may be holding. In these studies, subjects held either a
toy gun or a neutral object such as a foam ball. When the subjects held the toy
gun, their reports were overwhelmingly “gun present” to the various computer
images of individuals displayed on the screen, no matter what race or what garb
warn. Simply by holding gun in hand, a person’s perception becomes biased to
see a gun and therefore might more readily engage in “threat-induced behavior,
perhaps even to the point of shooting.” (See al.nd.edu/news/29722.)

Professor
Brockmole notes, “Beliefs, expectations, and emotions can all influence an
observer’s ability to detect and to categorize objects as guns. … A person’s
ability to act in certain ways can bias their recognition of objects as well,
and in dramatic ways. It seems that people have a hard time separating their
thoughts about what they perceive and their thoughts about how they can or
should act.”

But
our biases of perception do not end with gun in hand. We also appear to hold on
to the notion that justice prevails — even when it clearly does not. Professor
of Psychology Danny Oppenheimer says, “people are strongly motivated to believe
that the world is just—that people get what they deserve. … So people want to
believe that a victim deserved it, or brought it on him/herself.” (Also see the
literature about the Just World Hypothesis—for example, http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2009/09/a-just-world/196991/.)

Perhaps
we victimize the victim to separate ourselves from the possibility of an
injustice happening to us. “He wore a hoodie,” “Well, she wore a mini-skirt.”
When we put down the victim in this way, we maintain the illusion of a just
world by rationalizing that the victim was somehow to blame.

I
remember my aunt tsk-tsk-ing when I was a young teen and the Civil Rights
Movement was beginning to make the news: A white woman, mother of five children
was hunted down and killed on the road because of her activism. My aunt’s
reaction wasn’t horror at the killers, but damning of the woman for being there
in the first place.

In the
grief group I facilitate, one parent told the story of how mean comments
appeared on the Internet when her son died. Her son was bicycling and was hit
by a motorist. The commentators blamed the parents for allowing their 12-year-old
to ride his bike. Another case of blaming the victim.

In
lieu of compassion, when we rationalize a way to make a tragedy a “just and
deserved” event, we suffer the bias of misperception just as much as we can
delude ourselves that another holds a gun simply because we do.

Breaking
News: Just as I think I have finished this column, I hear on NPR that the
Supreme Court, 5-4, has allowed for strip searches when persons enter jails,
even for minor violations, such as breaking a leash law. Consider this: next
time, upon hearing a person was unnecessarily strip-searched, will you assume
the “just world hypothesis” and brush away this affront to an individual as he
or she must have “deserved” it?

* Kayta
Curzie Gajdos holds a doctorate in counseling psychology and is in private
practice in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. She welcomes comments atMindMatters@DrGajdos.com or 610-388-2888. Past columns are posted towww.drgajdos.com.

About Kayta Gajdos

Dr. Kathleen Curzie Gajdos ("Kayta") is a licensed psychologist (Pennsylvania and Delaware) who has worked with individuals, couples, and families with a spectrum of problems. She has experience and training in the fields of alcohol and drug addictions, hypnosis, family therapy, Jungian theory, Gestalt therapy, EMDR, and bereavement. Dr. Gajdos developed a private practice in the Pittsburgh area, and was affiliated with the Family Therapy Institute of Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, having written numerous articles for the Family Therapy Newsletter there. She has published in the American Psychological Association Bulletin, the Family Psychologist, and in the Swedenborgian publications, Chrysalis and The Messenger. Dr. Gajdos has taught at the college level, most recently for West Chester University and Wilmington College, and has served as field faculty for Vermont College of Norwich University the Union Institute's Center for Distance Learning, Cincinnati, Ohio. She has also served as consulting psychologist to the Irene Stacy Community MH/MR Center in Western Pennsylvania where she supervised psychologists in training. Currently active in disaster relief, Dr. Gajdos serves with the American Red Cross and participated in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts as a member of teams from the Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.Now living in Chadds Ford, in the Brandywine Valley of eastern Pennsylvania, Dr. Gajdos combines her private practice working with individuals, couples and families, with leading workshops on such topics as grief and healing, the impact of multigenerational grief and trauma shame, the shadow and self, Women Who Run with the Wolves, motherless daughters, and mediation and relaxation. Each year at Temenos Retreat Center in West Chester, PA she leads a griefs of birthing ritual for those who have suffered losses of procreation (abortions, miscarriages, infertility, etc.); she also holds yearly A Day of Re-Collection at Temenos.Dr. Gajdos holds Master's degrees in both philosophy and clinical psychology and received her Ph.D. in counseling at the University of Pittsburgh. Among her professional affiliations, she includes having been a founding member and board member of the C.G. Jung Educational Center of Pittsburgh, as well as being listed in Who's Who of American Women. Currently, she is a member of the American Psychological Association, The Pennsylvania Psychological Association, the Delaware Psychological Association, the American Family Therapy Academy, The Association for Death Education and Counseling, and the Delaware County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Board. Woven into her professional career are Dr. Gajdos' pursuits of dancing, singing, and writing poetry.