Confirmation bias: When self-confirming becomes self-righteousness or self-loathing.

I previously wrote a post that touched upon what I refer to as negative narcissism (Positive narcissist vs. negative narcissist vs. balanced view).  Anyway, the upshot of it was that what people see as narcissism is someone who believes his or herself as beyond real criticism.  They are so focused on presenting a positive image of themselves to themselves and others that they cannot engage in legitimate self-reflection.   The idea of a 'negative narcissist' is someone who is so stuck on the idea that they are a bad person or devoid of positive value that they cannot or will not be able to legitimately be able to self-reflect either.

I decided to take this a step further based on another concept: confirmation bias.   I understand that to be taking events or circumstances and using them to further or confirm your point of view, even if it is not an accurate reflection.   Most of the time, I think it is used to confirm our thoughts on others.   That is, we have an opinion or take on someone(s) and something happens surrounding or involving them and that just confirms what we already 'know'.  For example, say we had a conversation with a friend that doesn't end on a good note (or at least that's what our perception is).   Say we don't hear from the friend for a few days, we might take the lack of communication as our friend being mad at us.  The reality might be a little different.  The friend might have just been venting and had to get off the phone abruptly.   In the meantime, he or she might legitimately be overwhelmed with work or family.

However, I thought about it the other day and realized we confirm our biases about ourselves too.   If we are a classical narcissist we notice an investment of ours is doing well.  We might already think of ourselves as very smart and savvy, warranted or otherwise.   Our observation that our investment is doing well is just a further confirmation to us how brilliant we are.   The reality might be that it is an up market and most everyone is doing well, but why bother us with the pesky facts.   Effectively we would be using confirmation bias to support our self-righteousness or self-praise.  Likewise, with a 'negative narcissist', a person thinks so little of his or herself and isn't inclined to entertain any positive feedback or point of view about themselves, that her or she will use circumstances or situations to 'confirm' how awful or irredeemable they are.  For example, we may be involved in an accident and the evidence points to the other driver being largely at fault, but we may have such a negative view of ourselves that we may decide independent of the evidence if we had just left earlier when we 'should have', the accident would have never happened.  In a way, we are blaming ourselves for the accident.   Effectively we are using confirmation bias to support our self-loathing.

My takeaways are the following:

• Confirmation bias is not always directed outward, though most of the time I believe people think of it as such
• Confirmation bias, whether directed inward or outward, is never a good substitute for proper reflection on circumstances.

Just my thoughts.  As always, if someone or someone(s) can get something from my posts, I feel like I've accomplished my role.

- Rich

Surviving before thriving

Thursday at work I was talking to one of my coworkers about the book and movie, "The Shack".  I haven't made it through the book fully, but anyone who knows that book or movie knows it's a story of a man's struggle with himself and God as he comes to terms with the abduction and death of his young daughter on his watch.  As a father of a young girl, that book kind of got to me.

Anyway, the takeaway from our discussion was survival.  Life deals us blows from time to time and usually we can absorb them, process them, shrug them off and move forward pretty quickly.  However, on a few occasions the blow are so deep and profound that we can't just do that. Sometimes, it is just enough to survive them, never mind trying to process them.

So, it occurred to me, what do we do in the process of surviving.

• We consider the basics of what we need.  Depending on the loss, this could include
• Planning and burying a relative.
• Working on maintaining/recovering our health.
• Making sure the needs of our children are met.
• Making sure our basic needs are met including a roof over our head.
• We process what we need to at the time.  Depending on the loss, this could include:
• Understanding our loved one isn't there & will no longer be there.
• Taking the steps necessary to deal with our illness or recovery.
• Understanding that our house has been destroyed or taken away from us and that we will no longer be able to stay there.
• We push aside the things that either don't matter or that can be deferred until later.  This can involve.
• Delaying a major purchases.
• Delaying or altering a vacation.
• Cutting back on all but necessary spending.
• Focusing on taking care of our (and our family's) own needs rather than trying to help everyone else.
• Allowing other to do things for us while we recover.
• We take the daily steps that we need to.   Depending on the loss, these could include:
• Focusing on our recovery.
• Pay the bills we need to.
• Getting ready for the day.
• Going to work, school or whatever the day demands.
• Eating when we need to.
• Making sure the kids or pets have what they need.
• Process a little, vent/cry a little.

--


All that being said, it occurred to me what is surviving?  To me surviving is like the necessary taking steps to keep an old car running until you've have the means or have saved up enough for a new car.  The sub points are how it relates to life.

• You put what you need to into the old car.  Your focus is expending only on keeping it running.
• You energies are invested what you need to do to survive.  Not much more.
• You limit driving in the old car to extend the life of it.
• You limit your focus daily to making it through another day.
• All the while, you are trying to save enough and/or make enough to make the purchase of a new car more feasible.  
• Little by little survival mode yields to processing the blow and all that it means.
• Gradually you get out of survival mode and you start to 'thrive again'.
• Opening up and seeing people again after a loved one dies.
• Recovering from or learning to live with health issues.
• Financially recovering enough to make major purchases again.

--

Anyone who has been through a major blow, a major life change, a major loss and survived to tell the tale, will tell you half the battle is survival.  It may seem like forever until we are in a better place, but somewhere, somehow we know that there can be a better place for us.  There can be a place where we can thrive again.  Just like Job, when everything was taken away from him and he was suffering, he stayed firm in his faith.  Because of his faith, he was blessed with a larger family and a twofold inheritance (Job 42:8-17)   Now I don't expect everyone who keeps survives the bad times, keeps strong and keeps the faith will be reward so handsomely.  However, I do think there is an object lesson there.  Know that if you work on surviving the bad times when you need to, work on processing them along the way and work on getting to a better place you can, you can go from surviving to thriving or at least coming to a place of serenity.

In short, SURVIVE UNTIL YOU CAN THRIVE.


Now for some music to encourage everyone to keep on moving in the face of adversary.