How To Filter Dirty Gasoline

20080813-filters

Whammo! You didn't see that coming, did you lot?

Why is it that, despite all our planning, we sometimes get caught by surprise, totally unprepared, with our pants down every bit it were? I mean, we're smart folks, right? How come up sometimes we just don't see stuff coming?

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

Those filters are engrained in united states, often from birth, and almost of the time they help us to effectively function in our social and physical environments. For case, one very simple filter we have is how to isolate something interesting or important from a chaotic background – think finding your keys among the mess at the bottom of your purse. Or identifying something adept to eat – a ripe fruit, perhaps – amongst the unripe fruits, leaves, and branches of a tree.

That'due south a pretty basic filtering ability (though the physiological mechanisms involved are quite complex) that humans everywhere rely on every 24-hour interval to survive, so it's a good thing. But there are many much more than complex filters that we selection up as function of our thinking repertoire, and equally helpful as they might sometimes be, they tin can too get us into a lot of trouble.

Here are some examples:

Language

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

Only language can lead united states of america astray, as well. Consider this example fatigued from the register of linguistics: a tanning factory discharges wastes, generally animal affair, into a pond. The decomposing waste creates flammable gasses. A "swimming", though, is non flammable, right? I mean, right?! A human is working near the pond. Not taking any special precautions – why would y'all, next to a "pond"? – he ignites a blow-torch. A canvas of flame engulfs the pond and spreads to the nearby manufactory, destroying it.

The language we use to draw people tin can strongly influence our behavior towards them. Feminists recognized this when they started insisting on terms like "police force officeholder" rather than "policeman". Or consider this: numerous studies accept shown that people with "indigenous-sounding" names are less probable to get job interviews equally similarly-qualified people with "white-sounding" names.

Gender

Gender is a powerful filter in every culture – although the behaviors it shapes tin be very different from culture to civilization. What is considered men's work in one social club – carrying heavy loads of bricks, for case – might be considered women's work in some other.

Gender leads us astray when it leads us to look at a person's gender as an index of their abilities. For case, in the United states, it is common to hear people say things like "men are stronger than women". This is not true. Some men are stronger than most women, a handful of men are stronger than all women, and most men are stronger than some women. But knowing someone's gender does not tell y'all anything about how stiff they are!

Assumptions about gender extend far beyond physical attributes. With few exceptions, women nevertheless are not promoted to elevation-level corporate positions, despite the number of qualified women in the business world. Men are assumed to have "leadership qualities" that women lack – and women'due south leadership qualities tend to exist dismissed as signs of "manliness" or "bitchiness".

Race and Ethnicity

What is truthful of gender is besides truthful of race and ethnicity. Knowing someone'south race or ethnicity tells us lilliputian about that particular person – yet we act every bit if it told the states a lot. Here's an example: a black educatee of mine was accused of plagiarism in some other class when she handed in an excellent essay. This is a student that added immensely to every classroom give-and-take she took function in, and who wrote insightfully in every consignment she gave me (including "personal reflection" papers that cannot be plagiarized). The other professor did not take whatsoever examples of work that the student had allegedly copied from; it was merely "also practiced". Race may non accept been the merely factor, only it was clearly a factor; I've never had a white student of similar quality face up a similar allegation.

Here'southward another case: Blackness and other minority athletes, performers, even military leaders and politicians are ofttimes described every bit "clear", an adjective rarely practical to their white counterparts. People do not wait 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 single file. At least, the 1 I saw did."

Personal experience is a powerful learning tool, only it can lead u.s. astray when we brand faux assumptions based on generalizations from limited experience. Childhood experience can make for peculiarly powerful filters, equally they tend to be imbued with strong emotional resonance, but whatsoever experience can atomic number 82 us to wrong conclusions.

Examining Your Filters

What is insidious about all of these factors is that most of the time they part without us even noticing them. Nosotros don't promote Republic of chad over Wilma because Chad's a homo, but because he seems more "leaderly", because he has that "certain something". And maybe he does – or peradventure our invisible assumptions about gender make weak signs of "certain somethingness" seem strong, while Wilma's powerful "certain somethingness" is filtered out.

It's unlikely that yous volition catch your filters at work in your solar day-to-day life, merely you tin can reverberate on the way you have interacted with other people and how you've handled various situations (perhaps in a weekly review?). You may well be surprised to notice that, in many cases, you can't seem to put your finger on exactly why yous acted the mode you lot did – a certain sign of a filter at work. Paying attention to those moments will bring you lot a long way towards replacing the stock of experience and received wisdom with filters that let yous to more accurately and effectively act.

I've listed only a handful of obvious filters here. What are your filters? How could y'all bargain with them?