Mind-set, the mother of all biases

The Star Wars movies are the greatest series of movies of all time! You know immediately what I am talking about, right? Even if someone doesn’t agree on the subject, most can still comprehend my declaration.

Pick a polarizing topic, examine your comprehensive feelings on it and you will find your mind-set on the subject. We unconsciously acquire mind-sets about everything from friends, politics, foods, religion, sports, and of course movies. I watched the first Star Wars trilogy in the theaters, grew up playing with the toys and reading the books, and continued to watch most of the movies multiple times. So you can understand why I have a certain opinion about Star Wars. A mind-set is the perspective developed from the collection of our accumulated knowledge and experiences about a subject into a single framework. It becomes the lens or filter that is used to evaluate related information. Therefore it is the consolidation of all our biases on a particular subject. Mind-sets enable us to function effectively while quickly interpreting the deluge of information and events thrust at us every day. Our mind-sets represent giant shortcuts of the mind so we can put new information immediately into context without having to rifle through our memory for all the relevant experiences. If I ask, “What do you think about the race riots?” You know instantly what I am talking about, right? When people watch a new program and have completely opposite takes on what they see, it is their mind-sets governing their interpretation. In trying to practice Critical Thinking, we should understand that rooted mind-sets are extremely difficult to dislodge. To even determine full awareness of a particular mind-set requires one to carefully analyze their thinking. Awareness is on the first step in protecting oneself from the negative effects. The only way to change undesirable biases and mind-sets is to continually expose ourselves to new information and let our mind do the rest. Over time continual new information that differs from the original bias will change it. As biases change, the over mind-set will evolve gradually. That’s why die-hard fans of Star Wars still enjoy the series, even if the latest movies were not to their liking. Their opinions can be much different from those younger viewers than only have seen the latest movies.

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