Strategic Thinking - 3 Ways To Combat Your Prejudice & Bias

As a constant learner and strategic thinker, you are likely looking for ways to increase your accuracy when taking in new observational inputs and processing information. You want to be a strong learner and by the end of this blog, you will have 3 additional tips to help you do just that.

Wait, I'm not prejudice

"Combat Your Prejudice & Bias? I don't have those qualities" you may think. To a degree, you may actually control your biases extremely well. But just to test yourself, see if any of these scenarios sound familiar. Your friend asks you if you want to try the new ramen shop that just opened up and you respond, "I don't know, I didn't really like the last ramen place we went to." Your girlfriend asks you if you want to go see the latest comedy that just hit theaters and you respond, "I saw the previews for that movie and it looked kind of boring." These scenarios highlight a truth about us, we like to make snap judgments about things we don't know about. A lot of our daily decisions are based on pre-defined assumptions that have been cultivated by our previous experiences. That and our brain loves high efficiency, so waisting a lot of mental resources to watching a movie that you may not like may not be worth your time.

Without knowing it, we have the potential to display bias and prejudice on a pretty regular basis. Whether that bias is social, educational, entertainment, etc...is largely based on your upbringing. Is there anything wrong with this form of thinking? What can we do to combat it? First let's discuss the types of prejudice.