We don’t always see what is right before our eyes, though we tend to think we do.
A few years ago a group of Harvard psychologists conducted a study to explore the ways our agendas influence what we actually see. They had research subjects view a videotape of six people basketball players passing the ball and asked them to count the number of passes made by one of the teams. In one video of the basketball game, a tall woman with an open umbrella walked through the center of the action, clearly visible for about five seconds. In a second video, a shorter woman in a gorilla costume walked through the action, also for about five seconds.
Participants in the study were asked if they’d seen anything odd. Thirty-five percent of the observers didn’t notice the woman at all. Even more surprising, fifty-six percent of the observers didn’t notice the gorilla. How do you miss a gorilla walking through the middle of a basketball game?
Essentially, a sizable portion of these research subjects saw only what they were asked to see, the number of passes being made. But a control group of people were asked to watch the video without any particular instruction and they readily noticed the odd visitors walking through the action. So, those assigned the task of counting missed information that was extraneous to that task-their brains filtered it out. Those with no assignment to look for something specific, and thus more open to what might cross the screen, didn’t miss the gorilla. In addition to "selective looking," other researchers have also identified similar "inattentional deafness."
While conflict resolution wasn’t the purpose of the research, and so we want to be careful about extrapolating beyond the researchers’ intent, it seems to me it’s not a difficult leap to see the application to navigating conflict more effectively.
When in conflict with someone, we are often predisposed to thinking or feeling about them in a certain way, based on past experience: She’s so passive-aggressive. He’s manipulative. She lies. He’s too controlling. When we do this, we’re essentially counting passes-we’re filtering out information that challenges our beliefs about the other person and instead we’re looking for, albeit unconsciously, information that supports our conclusions. It’s a trap for us to do this, because we miss information about and from them that might unlock the conflict. And as we become more and more certain that what we see is "the truth," that kind of judgmental certainty sets up the other person to have to defend themselves. So, we get locked in a cycle of blame and defend that sidetracks us from the real issues.
Broadening our attention, bringing an attitude of openness and curiosity is a much more effective strategy-though admittedly difficult to pull off if we’ve got a long history with the other person, department, organization, etc. Next time you find yourself in a difficult conversation or negotiation, try asking yourself, "How can I try to stay open to new data about this person or situation? What do I need to do to make that possible?"
This article was originally published in my regular column for The Monadnock Ledger.
