On the same day a video was released of a man being killed by the hands of my hometown police for a non-violent infraction (public drunkenness), a detective called me to provide a reference for a former client applying for a law enforcement position. The timing was surreal.

As the detective mused about whether the applicant had the “right stuff”, namely aggressive reactions, I felt I was in an alternate reality. Of course, I politely (not aggressively) told the detective that I had a different perspective in that I believed the question should be: Are veteran officers too aggressive and should that not be the focus?  We were speaking different languages.

This is not the first time I’ve felt like a stranger in a strange land and I’d wage a bet that you have felt similarly. Lately, presumably intelligent people talk about vaccines being infused with tracking devices or altering one’s DNA. Half of us clamored to get our jabs while the other half smugly believed that vaccination is the short road to succumbing to alien forces.

Similarly, some of us believe police are too aggressive, while others believe they’re not aggressive enough. (Remember our last president’s remark to police: “Don’t be too nice”?)

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias has been observed by psychologists and philosophers for many decades. Simply put, it is the tendency to only consider information that supports one’s beliefs. Perhaps you’ve heard the term information silos, meaning we listen or read information and news that reinforces the views we already hold. That is confirmation bias.

Rather than viewing such a bias as completely dysfunctional, confirmation bias is an efficient way to process a lot of information. It’s also a way to preserve one’s self-esteem. Once we make a judgment, we look for evidence to support that decision. In this way, we prevent doubting our intelligence.

The downsides of confirmation bias are evident. From the courtroom to the examination room, life and death decisions have been made through the lens of confirmation bias. No one is immune.

COS Explained

As an antidote to such biases, psychologists have conducted numerous studies on the effects of a remedy called the consider the opposite strategy, or COS. Here’s how it works in a laboratory setting.

In 1979, researcher Charles Lord and his associates conducted a seminal study on confirmation bias and the effectiveness of COS.  Two groups with opposite views on the death penalty were given evidence that either supported or refuted their positions. Regardless of what they read, the participants on both sides maintained their attitudes.

In the next phase of the study, one group (comprised of those with opposing views) was asked to read their report imagining the opposite conclusion. For example, if the report claimed that the death penalty had no impact on reducing murder rates, they were asked to consider that the report said it had a significant impact on reducing murder rates. If a report claimed that the death penalty had a significant impact on reducing murder rates, they were asked to consider that the report said the death penalty had no impact on reducing murder rates.

The second group (again comprised of participants with opposing views) was simply asked to be objective and unbiased as they read the reports. No specific instructions were given on how to do this. The researchers discovered that with specific COS instructions, participants were more likely to alter their beliefs.

Applying COS

As I read the results of this study and others that followed, my takeaway is not that I must change my stance on vaccine efficacy or policing but that I might be able to keep an open mind and an open heart when interacting with those with differing views if I consider the opposite.

For example, if I were to consider a report that claimed far fewer people were protected after vaccination and more people had serious adverse effects (even if that report was factually incorrect), I might feel more empathy toward those who refuse vaccination. 

Pandemics aside, I have changed my view on matters when I was willing to consider the opposite. Recently, I stopped taking a sleep aid when I found evidence of its addictive nature and other negative side effects. Up until that point, I was unwilling to consider information that was contrary to my perception that the drug was benign.

When the jurors in the trial of Derek Chauvin were asked to decide on the charges against Chauvin, they were asked to consider the opposite of what our society has long held: Police are justified in using force against suspects regardless of circumstances.

Like those jurors, we all have a duty to resist the impulse to blindly defend our biases and to, at least, consider other points of view as uncomfortable as this can be. I wonder how my conversation would have evolved had I asked the detective, who called me, to explain why police need to be more aggressive. Instead of considering the opposite, we both ended the conversation feeling unheard and unmoved.       

“We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are.”

—Anais Nin