Should I Replace My Transmission Filter

20080813-filters

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

Why is it that, despite all our planning, we sometimes get caught past surprise, totally unprepared, with our pants down equally information technology were? I mean, we're smart folks, right? How come sometimes we just don't encounter stuff coming?

The answer is, much of the time, that we don't see everything clearly because we don't see a lot of things at all. Nosotros process the raw stuff of experience through a diversity of filters – and we act on the "processed" data, not the world every bit information technology is.

Those filters are engrained in usa, often from birth, and most of the time they help us to effectively office in our social and physical environments. For example, ane very elementary filter nosotros accept is how to isolate something interesting or important from a cluttered background – recall finding your keys amid the mess at the bottom of your purse. Or identifying something skillful to swallow – a ripe fruit, perhaps – amongst the unripe fruits, leaves, and branches of a tree.

That's a pretty basic filtering ability (though the physiological mechanisms involved are quite complex) that humans everywhere rely on every day to survive, so it'south a good thing. Just at that place are many much more than complex filters that we choice up as function of our thinking repertoire, and equally helpful as they might sometimes exist, they can also get us into a lot of trouble.

Here are some examples:

Language

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

But linguistic communication can pb us astray, as well. Consider this instance drawn from the register of linguistics: a tanning manufactory discharges wastes, generally fauna matter, into a swimming. The decomposing waste creates flammable gasses. A "pond", though, is not combustible, right? I mean, right?! A man is working nearly the pond. Not taking any special precautions – why would you, next to a "pond"? – he ignites a blow-torch. A sheet of flame engulfs the swimming and spreads to the nearby manufactory, destroying it.

The language we use to draw people tin strongly influence our beliefs towards them. Feminists recognized this when they started insisting on terms similar "constabulary officeholder" rather than "policeman". Or consider this: numerous studies have shown that people with "ethnic-sounding" names are less likely to get job interviews as similarly-qualified people with "white-sounding" names.

Gender

Gender is a powerful filter in every civilization – although the behaviors information technology shapes can be very unlike from culture to culture. What is considered men'due south work in one society – carrying heavy loads of bricks, for instance – might be considered women's work in another.

Gender leads united states astray when it leads united states to await at a person's gender as an index of their abilities. For instance, in the U.s.a., it is common to hear people say things like "men are stronger than women". This is not true. Some men are stronger than nearly women, a scattering of men are stronger than all women, and nearly men are stronger than some women. But knowing someone'southward gender does not tell you annihilation near how stiff they are!

Assumptions about gender extend far beyond concrete attributes. With few exceptions, women still are not promoted to superlative-level corporate positions, despite the number of qualified women in the business organization globe. Men are assumed to have "leadership qualities" that women lack – and women's leadership qualities tend to be dismissed every bit signs of "manliness" or "bitchiness".

Race and Ethnicity

What is true of gender is as well true of race and ethnicity. Knowing someone's race or ethnicity tells us picayune about that particular person – notwithstanding nosotros act as if it told u.s. a lot. Hither's an example: a blackness pupil of mine was accused of plagiarism in another grade when she handed in an excellent essay. This is a student that added immensely to every classroom discussion she took function in, and who wrote insightfully in every assignment she gave me (including "personal reflection" papers that cannot exist plagiarized). The other professor did not accept whatever examples of work that the educatee had allegedly copied from; it was only "besides good". Race may not have been the just gene, but it was clearly a gene; I've never had a white student of similar quality confront a similar accusation.

Here's some other example: Black and other minority athletes, performers, even military leaders and politicians are frequently described as "clear", an adjective rarely practical to their white counterparts. People do not expect clear spoken communication from non-white persons, and are surprised when they hear intelligent dialogue from black speakers.

Personal Experience

An old joke claims, "All Indians walk single file. At least, the ane I saw did."

Personal experience is a powerful learning tool, but it can atomic number 82 u.s.a. off-target when we make imitation assumptions based on generalizations from limited experience. Childhood feel can make for peculiarly powerful filters, every bit they tend to be imbued with strong emotional resonance, just any feel tin lead us to wrong conclusions.

Examining Your Filters

What is insidious about all of these factors is that about of the time they office without usa fifty-fifty noticing them. We don't promote Republic of chad over Wilma because Chad's a man, but because he seems more "leaderly", because he has that "sure something". And maybe he does – or perchance our invisible assumptions about gender make weak signs of "sure somethingness" seem potent, while Wilma's powerful "certain somethingness" is filtered out.

It'due south unlikely that y'all volition take hold of your filters at work in your twenty-four hour period-to-solar day life, but you can reflect on the way you have interacted with other people and how you lot've handled various situations (perhaps in a weekly review?). You may well exist surprised to find that, in many cases, you can't seem to put your finger on exactly why you acted the mode you lot did – a sure sign of a filter at work. Paying attention to those moments will bring you a long mode towards replacing the stock of feel and received wisdom with filters that let you to more than accurately and effectively human activity.

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