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Transcript

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Everybody has prejudices — they’re part of being human. But that doesn’t make them any less damaging. Tania breaks down our most common political misperceptions. 

Pema: Welcome to Ready to Be Strong, a podcast where we’re learning how to stay connected with ourselves and each other. 

Tania: I’m Tania Israel, professor of counseling, psychology, and author of two books about dealing with political division facing the Fracture and Beyond your bubble. 

Pema: And I’m Pema Rocker. A creative coach and author, I write about connection and collective healing.

Tania: In each episode of Ready to Be Strong, we unpack what’s making us feel so polarized because we’re actually not as divided as we think we are. 

Pema: Together, we’ll broaden our minds. Open our hearts and strengthen connections in a politically charged election season and beyond. 

Tania: With Pema’s curiosity and storytelling, 

Pema: And Tania’s expertise on bridging divides.

Tania: We want you to feel informed, empowered, and optimistic. 

Pema:We want you to feel ready to be strong.

Tania: In this episode, we’re talking about correcting distorted perceptions. Another way to say that is we’re talking about prejudice, which is a very human quality. We’ve all experienced prejudice against us, and we’ve all harbored prejudice,

Pema: So Tania, as I was preparing today for our conversation, I thought about a high school story, this thing that happened in high school. I was probably 16. There was a really nice girl who would wait for me before class and she would say hi to me and invite me to just kind of hang around and invite me to chat on the way to class and walk to class together.

But to me, this girl was super popular.she hung out with the mean girls. That’s not to say that she was mean herself, I didn’t know, but I also wouldn’t know because when she would wait for me to talk and walk to class together, I would kind of recoil.

So, I ended up not really walking to class with her. And she made an effort at this for a couple of weeks and then stopped. And it was years later when I, it hit me so hard and I realized, oh my God, I was rebuffing her.

I think about that now and I think of a friendship I could have made, or at least a softness in that particular moment. 

And, I just blocked her, accidentally. But we could have had something, or we could have just had a bridge in that moment.

Tania: Oh, what a hard thing to realize about yourself that you had a way of viewing her that, you know, then caused you to act in a certain way toward her that you really regret.

Pema: Yeah, I wish I could find her on Facebook, but she’s nowhere to be found.

Tania: Oh,

Pema: I wish we could walk to class together again. I could make it right.

Tania: I am sure she’s listening to this and she’ll know. She’ll know then. So that makes me think about, okay, this is a very personal experience, but it’s somebody who was in what you saw as a different group that you were in, maybe a different tribe. So, let’s maybe try a thought experiment for all of the listeners.

If I ask you to picture a Democrat, what comes to mind? notice the image that forms in your mind. Any associations you have with that person. what kind of car do they drive? What kinds of activities are they involved in? What kinds of words come out of their mouth? Think about that and then think about what sight and sounds come to mind when you think of a Republican. So just take a moment to reflect on those images.

Pema: Right. 

Tania: Yeah. What, what’s, what’s coming up for you? Pema?

Pema: Well, I, I’ve got Bernie Sanders for the Democrat. I’ve got Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, like, uh, right out there in front with these, uh, progressive, you know, hand waving. And then I’ve got Donald Trump for the Republican. So everyone’s a Donald Trump, or everyone’s a Bernie Sanders.

Tania: Oh yeah, I, you are not alone in that. I think so many people, when they imagine people in this political party, think of the elected officials who are the leaders, the spokespeople. Who are maybe the most extreme of those elected officials or spokespeople in that party? And just sort of imagine that like every Democrat is a socialist who wants to defund the police, who speaks with a, you know, very forceful language around that and rallies the troops, and talks about politics all the time. And similarly, you know, people think every Republican is like Donald Trump, uh, in terms of the way they talk about other people in terms of the kinds of policies they would support. And so, yeah, we absolutely have these prejudices where we kind of just imagine like, you know, mini Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump’s, uh, comprising everybody in those parties.

Pema: I mean, that sounds pretty two-dimensional. That’s not how we live. So what do we, what do we do with that when it comes to our distorted perceptions. 

Tania: You know, when we think about how our minds work, prejudice is a very human kind of characteristic. We are taking in so much sensory input constantly, and there’s no way that we can possibly process it all in every single moment. So, you know, I might be like, oh, there’s this rectangle sitting here that has, um, colorful features on it and, and a shiny cover, and it’s like, oh, oh, that’s that’s my phone. 

You know, like I can’t every single time look at all of the different characteristics of something. I need a mental shortcut to tell me what something is, so I know how to respond to it. It’s like, oh, I could pick that up and use it for something. So, this is basically what prejudice does, is it gives us mental shortcuts where we’re gonna pay attention to familiar cues to give us an idea of what something is or what somebody is.

And then we’re gonna fill in the gaps with things from our experience or the what we see in the media or social media, and that creates these kinds of prejudices that we have.

Pema: So, you know, if I’ve been pretty invested in my social media or watching the news on a particular topic, or even just like talking with family and friends, I’m probably gonna think that I know really well what that other side is like.

Tania: Yeah, and you might not even, you know, it occurs to me, you might not even be thinking about the leaders. You might be thinking about the people who are attending a rally for them, you know, and think, okay, well this is what all Republicans are like, or this is what all Democrats are like. It’s actually a very small slice of what they’re like. Um, because also, you know, most people, frankly, are not political junkies. I know that the people who are all talking about politics, the commentators, uh, you know, they, they are all political junkies. Uh, but most people don’t wanna talk about politics all the time and are not gonna, you know, take the energy to attend a rally.

So we, so we have these ideas. It, it’s also that, um just who we are individually. Like I said, prejudice is a very human quality, but not everybody has it to the same extent. And people who are more prejudiced are also, uh, people who have. A high need for what we call cognitive closure. Like, they don’t like ambiguity. They want to be able to come to an answer, um, more quickly and interestingly, you know, because that sounds like, oh, well that could be a real negative quality. But those people are also really good at things like pattern recognition and computational speed, like cognitive closure, super good for those things and timed tests, they’re, they’re really good at that. 

And so when we’re trying to make sense of a world with too much information, we’re gonna distill it in these ways, but it can also skew our perception. So it’s good to know if you’re the kind of person who wants to get it to that answer really quickly and who’s good with patterns.

You know, alternatively, you might be a kind of person who has what we call attribution complexity, and maybe you are looking to really understand the root of people’s behavior, you wanna look at a whole lot of different causes for it and hold all of these possibilities in mind.

And so if you’re that kind of person, you’re not as prone to prejudice. And so it’s helpful just to understand what kind of person you are to begin with.

Pema: So I have been spending a lot of time — also, I feel like I’m telling on myself every time we’re having these podcast conversations, they’re like, oh, I’m, I’m, I’m such a terrible person, I do all of this terrible thing all the time, like have prejudice. Um, so if anyone else is feeling that, I’m feeling you — but I’m thinking about how I kind of live for connection. So if I am holding a prejudice, it’s going to get in the way of me connecting with someone and hearing what they believe it’s gonna get in the way of my work.

I’m a coach. It’s not gonna help me or my client if my prejudice is in the way. Um, it’s not gonna help me in my social life if I’m connecting with folks. Um, but I’m refusing to connect with somebody that I imagine is all of those descriptors of somebody on the other side.

Tania: Yeah. So you’re really seeing the downside to prejudice, like you’re saying, okay, I recognize that I have this and thank you for being open about that because we, as humans, like I said, it’s a very human characteristic. It’s something that we, that we need to be able to survive in this world, but it does have a downside.

It gets in the way of our relationships with other people. But even a step before that. Because before we can even decide if we’re gonna relate to other people, there’s the image that we have of who these other people are. And that’s really where I think we can work with this topic. It, it’s pretty juicy in terms of thinking about, okay, if we’re not even interacting with those other people outside of our bubble, how are we thinking about them?

How are we imagining them and how does that affect us?

Pema: Absolutely. It feels really important, especially right now when this black and white thinking really gets going and they’re that way, and we are this way and we’re all gonna die. Our democracy is going to explode unless we do something about it. And yet, I can’t go over there and do something about it. You’re not gonna come over here and talk to me because of the prejudices that we have about each other.

Tania: Yeah. And those fears that we have about what’s gonna happen, you know, a lot of that has to do with, uh, with our cognitive biases. So, maybe let me talk about a couple of those biases that I think are really relevant in terms of the political division.

I think we talked about confirmation bias probably when we were talking about the media, but just to review confirmation bias is where we focus on information that supports what we already believe to be true and we ignore or dismiss information that conflicts with our existing beliefs.

In terms of prejudice, like, we’re gonna focus on things that support our prejudice. We’re gonna look for examples of people who fit that idea that we have of what people on the left or the right are like, and we’re gonna ignore or dismiss those contradictory examples that, um, you know, that don’t fit.

So that’s, um, confirmation bias. Another one is naive realism. And naive realism is where we think that we are logical and rational, and we think that the other side is irrational and, and is just, um, driven by their sort of partisan, um, commitments and not really thinking through things very well. 

But the thing that I think is most corrosive is motive attribution asymmetry. And that’s where we think that our own motivations are for caring and protection. And we think that the other side is aggressive and hostile and hateful.All of these biases really play into the prejudices that we have about people who are on the other side of the political spectrum.

We think that they are ignorant, uh, misinformed or ill-informed. Uh, we think that they’re illogical or irrational, and we think that they are hateful and aggressive, and especially that they’re hateful toward us.

Pema: Aren’t they? I mean, I mean, you know how, you know how it’s so easy to get wrapped up, I don’t necessarily believe what I just asked, but I can hear the question in some people’s minds.

Tania: Oh yeah, absolutely. Because you know, you’re imagining like, well, but wait, aren’t they? I know that I’ve seen footage of people who are, who are violent, um, on the other side, and they’re violent toward people like me or they’re violent toward the institutions of our democracy. And so we’re like, how can you say they’re not hateful and violent?

Well, the interesting thing is like, yes, of course you can find examples on either side of people who are hostile and who are violent. Uh, and, and I will just emphasize on both sides, like you can see this and. We’re gonna focus on those examples and not on all the other people who are not hostile, who are not violent, and most people are not.

Pema: Most people, those are the people that we live with and go to work with and see when we walk our dog around the neighborhood. Those are the most people.

Tania: Yeah.

Pema: Um, okay, so how do we do this? How do we start? I don’t know, it feels like a suspension of belief in some cases it feels like, um, like a softening of belief. How do we start correcting others’ sort of, perceptions? How do we face our prejudice?

Tania: Well, I think the first thing is we actually have to want to, um, because there’s a lot of things that make prejudice, um, really attractive to us, I think. And so, so this, this creates some sort of resistance to correcting our misperceptions. So for example, these cognitive biases were like, well, I don’t want to change the way I think about these other people because I think that it’s accurate. I think I’m right in seeing them as being hateful and seeing them as being ignorant. Um, and so that’s where, you know, teasing apart our cognitive biases can be really helpful to notice how all of those things we’re thinking about those people really fit into these biases. But it’s not just how we think about them.

It’s how we like to think about ourselves. Like, we want to think that we are right and that we are just, and that, um, and therefore people who disagree with us are not any of those things. So, so that’s part of it too. We wanna see ourselves as caring, and so if we’re protecting people, you know, who other folks are trying to harm, that really helps us to justify our vision of ourselves.

And outrage is something that’s very hard for people to give up. You know, like we wanna be outraged about what the other side is doing. And so our prejudices help us to support our own outrage. And it also, you know, when we talk with other people on our own side about our outrage, when we’re like, oh my gosh, those terrible people who are trying to take away our freedoms, which is, you know, what people on both sides are saying.

But, when we talk with people on our own side about that. We actually have this bonding experience where we sort of have these tribal bonds with other people that are strengthened through that, so. So I just want to acknowledge that there are a lot of things that are gonna get in the way of people wanting to shift their perceptions and correct their cognitive distortions.

And I don’t know if any of those resonate for you or what you think about those.

Pema: Yeah, I’m, I am thinking that we’re more given to wanting to correct other people’s distorted perceptions than we are wanting to correct our own.

Tania: Oh, a hundred percent.

Pema: Do you wanna talk about that at all?

Tania: Well, um, sure, because I mean that’s, you know, some of that is this idea that, uh, of who we think they are and we’re like, oh, well we think that they’re wrong about this and so we should correct them and give them accurate information. They’re not thinking about this logically ’cause they’re not thinking about it the way that I am, and so I wanna like lay out this clear argument where they will obviously get to the same conclusion that I will, anyone’s who’s tried to do that knows that it’s not actually very effective. Um, so, trying to correct other people is just not a very, um, useful endeavor. But what, what if we try to actually, um, correct ourselves and why would we wanna do that?

I mean, you know, the basic reason that I think we would wanna do it is because we’re wrong. Like we’re inaccurate about who those other people are. And we’ve talked about that in an earlier episode, just when we look at the facts about polarization we’re not as far apart as we think they are demographically, we’re not as different from each other as we think we are.

And so it’s just having an accurate understanding. If you wanna be right, then go with the data.

Pema: It reminds me of a conversation we had in an earlier episode around optimism and had the media in this case focused on optimism, the vaccination rates might have shown up differently, or the struggle around who’s gonna get vaccinated and who isn’t down party lines, uh, how’s that going to affect health or not?

It reminds me that the more we focus on optimism, the more. I don’t know, optimistic or positive feeling, uh, the outcome becomes, whereas something else that you talk about in your book is the more willing we are to breach the norms to advantage our own party, the more the other side is willing to breach the norms, and it kind of goes in this downward spiral. Does that fit in here?

Tania: Sure. I mean, when we think about, one of the reasons to correct our misperceptions when we perceive the other side is, you know, when we think, oh, the other side’s willing to, um, to undermine democratic norms, then we think, oh, well then we better do that too. And when you look at the data, um, we’re wrong about the other side.

That, that both sides are wrong. Both sides think that the other side’s more willing to undermine democratic principles and practices, um, to get power. and neither side is nearly as willing to do that as we perceive. 

So to take it really personally to back into my story about high school, if I had just let that kind girl be kind and not like imagined that I shouldn’t talk to that mean girl because she’s a mean girl and she does mean things when really, you know, those are other voices in my head either generated by me that I’m not good enough or generated by others because she’s breathing a different air than we are, you know, whoever the we, is it just what you’re saying, I can hear it from a political perspective and how it affects our democracy, and I can bring it right back down to the neighborhood.

Tania: Yeah. Yeah. The thing that happened to you years later when you were like, oh, wait a minute. I was seeing her in this particular way. I saw her as part of this group and attributed all of these qualities to her and I didn’t trust her because of this — that awareness, if, if we can notice what’s going on more in the moment.

If we can be like, wait a minute, am I looking at people, um, through this distorted lens, then you can correct for it. You know? And so the sooner you’re able to see that — so awareness is really an important thing. You got to it a long time later, but at least you got to it — so that’s great. It’s a good model.

And then you say, oh, okay, well how do I keep from doing that again? Like, how can I bring that into my regular thinking. So, um, so first, you know, that awareness of what’s going on, just knowing that our perceptions are probably distorted is a, is a helpful baseline. 

And then also, as I said, recognizing the kind of person we are. Are we somebody who’s gonna kind of quickly try to make a judgment about who that person is? Or are we the kind of person who’s going to like, want to think about all of the different possibilities. And you know, that does take a lot longer and leave us in some ambiguity, which can feel vulnerable.

But also people who are more like that tend to be seen as empathic, tend to be viewed as socially wise. So pausing can be really helpful. Pausing, having that awareness, um, is a, is a great place to start. 

Pema: Is now too early in our conversation to ask you about the driving metaphor.

Tania: Oh, let’s talk about the driving metaphor.

Pema: I love how you talk about the driving metaphor in relation to correcting distorted perceptions.

Tania: Yeah, well many of us drive and recognize that, you know, when you are driving, uh, there are blind spots or I, I looked this up ’cause I was like, is blind spots an ableist term? So some people call them dead angles. So, um, so there are things you can’t see going on around you when you’re in a car and.

Similarly, you know, when we are experiencing this prejudice in the context of political division, there’s something outside of our perception that may lead to negative consequences. You know, it may not be dangerous, you know, physically in the same way, but, um, yeah, absolutely. So being aware of that, first of all, knowing that there are blind spots when you’re driving is a very important baseline to have. That’s what we were talking about. 

But then there’s all kinds of other things we do when we get in the car, we adjust our mirrors so that we can try to, you know, see those things. People who have newer cars than I do have a little, uh, screen that shows when you’re backing up, you can actually see that much better now.

So that’s great. Sometimes there are things that can be built in that you can be like, okay, now this is gonna help me, um, to do this. And so, this is where, you know, we sort of do some prevention, uh, in terms of adjusting the mirrors and stuff. 

Prevention that we can do when it comes to prejudice, has to do with things like exposing yourself to accurate information. If you’re like, okay, I have the awareness that I might be wrong, where can I get accurate information? Like, go back and listen to the first episode of this podcast where we talk about the facts about polarization. 

You can try mental techniques like debating yourself. So you might think, okay, that person is a Republican. I should, um, you know, avoid them or I think that they, you know, have these kinds of values. Then maybe stop yourself and say, Hmm. How would I respond to that if I were gonna argue with that perspective that I have on that person? And you can engage yourself in a kind of debate.

Some of that takes noticing when you’re jumping to conclusions. So if you notice when you’re jumping to conclusions, then you can try to broaden your understanding of, of that person in that situation. And Adam Grant, um, in his book recommends. A process called, um, a challenge network where you actually have people who you know, will provide a different perspective, who will challenge the kinds of views that you have.

So if it’s not so much an in the moment thing, but something that you’re recognizing about yourself, you might say, gosh, you know, I. I sort of feel like, you know, all, uh, Democrats are trying to cancel me, you know? And so it’s like, all right, well maybe that’s an opportunity to go out there and, and check that out with people who will, um, challenge either by their experience or by, um, or, or, or by who they are, what it is that you’re thinking.

Pema: I love the idea of a challenge network. One of the things I like about it, um, it’s like an added layer to me, there’s something in the connection that says, I’m listening to you. I’m, I’m hearing what you’re saying. And I like that I can both benefit from my ideas being broadened, listening to those folks in my challenge network, and that even if I’m not expecting them to change their minds, um, or to even get more information from me, like I’m getting from them, at least the listening and the witness is offering connection and kind of like a respectful, like a value of, I don’t know. I keep saying the word connection, but it’s really hitting me.

Tania: You know, one of the things that both sides might think about the other side is the other side doesn’t wanna do this, doesn’t wanna connect, doesn’t wanna try to see things more broadly. And so, absolutely through our own actions of being, you know, the not-hostile, um, rational, open-minded people, then we can help to change those perspectives that other people have. But first, we have to actually be willing to interact with them, which we’re less likely to be willing to do if we hold those prejudices.

I’m gonna share one more prejudice that people tend to have. This isn’t specific to the left or the right. This is a prejudice that people have about anybody who belongs to a political party. Is that we think anybody who belongs to a political party is really political, is somebody who wants to talk about politics all the time, who’s going to talk about it in a very forceful tone and people are like.

You know, most people don’t wanna be around that, like most people are not interested in that experience. So one thing that it’s important to know is just because somebody is a Democrat or a Republican doesn’t mean that they’re gonna talk your ear off about politics all the time. 

Pema: So these, this driving metaphor and these different ways to kind of check our awareness check, like check into prevention, um, they’re so, so helpful. And you talked about the resistance to changing our misperceptions.

I got excited listening to a New York Times interview the other day. The megastar singer songwriter Jelly Roll was quoting data on the perception gap and saying, yeah, we’re not as divided as we think we are. And I like stopped in the kitchen where I was standing and lept and Yelp like, oh my gosh!

He is talking about this thing that we’re talking about! Like we’re not as divided as we think we are! So I’m just wondering like if folks resist, uh, learning to correct our misperceptions. How do we make this conversation cool?

Tania: Yeah, because, you know, everybody’s not naturally motivated to reduce their own prejudices. I, I think that sharing — well, I mean, first of all, when. You know, when you’re hearing something like that, like click on that, share that. You know, when, when we’re noticing something in the media that, uh, reveals a more accurate perspective on of people on the left and the right and, and of what political polarization is like, that’s a great thing to share because it really runs counter to so much of the distorting media that we see.

So we can reinforce it in that way, and we can share it.We can also share a little bit of our own journeys of recognizing our prejudice and overcoming it. So where we can say, you know what, for a lot of years I avoided people who were pro-life because I thought, you know, they’re, they’re just trying to, um, you know, take away women’s freedoms. And so as a feminist, I just thought, I’ve got nothing in common with these people. And then when I, you know, like this is my own history, back in the nineties, started this group to bring together pro-choice and pro-life people to have dialogue with each other. And I’m like, oh, hey, I, I like these people and I find what they’re saying really interesting.

I think sharing our own journey, sharing our stories about how we overcame our prejudices, how we challenged our own prejudices, uh, can be a really valuable path to be able to articulate for other people to hear.

Pema: So when I think of a takeaway for me from this conversation, I think of something that came directly out of your book Facing the Fracture. I’m gonna read it, it’s three lines:

Since prejudice is activated by a sense of being threatened, it may be helpful to increase awareness of our underlying feelings of vulnerability if we’re able to attend to our fears more directly, perhaps we can diminish our reliance on prejudice as a way to comfort ourselves.

I’m thinking about my 16-year-old self walking across campus and seeing this lovely person smiling at me and not being able to attend to my fears more directly and just closing out the possibility of talking to her rather than feeling threatened by what is happening here. If I had had that understanding, this may be this paragraph, then, I might have had a different outcome.

Tania: Oh, I’m so glad that you highlighted that piece. It’s, it’s actually the perfect segue to what our next conversation’s gonna be about, which is about resilience, uh, because that’s really gonna help us look at how do we actually attend more directly to our fears and our feelings of vulnerability. And so that may then be able to help us to short circuit our natural prejudices. And that’ll be our next episode on Ready to Be Strong. 

Tania: I’m Tania Israel, professor, psychologist, and author of Facing the Fracture.

Pema: And I am Pamela Rocker, creative coach and author of Ash and Spirit.

Tania: Make your choice.

Pema: Are you ready to be strong?

Ready To Be Strong was created by me, Tania Israel, and me, Pema Rocker, and produced by Haley Gray. Our theme music is Jeff Mercel at Premium Beat. Bring this conversation into your circles. Rate and review wherever you’re listening, and most importantly, share this episode with a friend.