#WeBecomeWhatWeBehold

On the unseen effects of raising awareness, some common cognitive biases, a word on The Algorithm and its impact in unfairly biasing our subsequent perspectives

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PART 1: On the Outcomes of Raising Awareness

Call for Change

Action and Activism

Discourse and Debate

Apathy and Ambivalence

Anger and Antagonism 

Diss and Divide

Vent and Vilify

Castigate and Cancel

Different stakeholders will typically act and express in different manners to achieve one of the above outcomes, even if they are not fully aware of their own intentions or unintended consequences of their actions. 

For example, some people might engage in sanctimonious argument online, in the false belief that their actions adequately constitute constructive activism, when in actuality they might have the actual intentions of just venting their anger, which might result in the unintended consequences of stoking division.

PART 2: On the Availability of Examples

In cognition, the availability bias describes the tendency to overestimate the frequency of an occurrence, only because more examples are easier called to mind. For example, we might overestimate the chances of getting into a plane crash than a car accident, because the former are typically higher profile incidents and are hence more visible.

This skews our perception of the representativeness of occurrences, which might lead us to falsely conclude about the character of a person or nature of an incident, by basing our assessment only on easily retrievable examples.

The confirmation bias describes the tendency to reinforce our existing beliefs by focusing only on observations that support our perspectives, and falsely disregarding or minimizing evidence to the contrary.

Coupled with availability bias, a deleterious feedback loop is completed, which might lead to radical conclusions or a myopic outlook, should we not be receptive to opposing points of view.

PART 3: The Algorithm

The Algorithm decides, in manners opaque, the majority of the content that you "chance upon". In general, this is influenced by identifying trends in the classes of content that you had engaged with prior. 

Since we naturally have stronger reactions towards "negative news stories" than we do positive ones, it may be possible that we will then continually be exposed to stories of such nature at an increasing frequency. This may be a problem because it can quickly lead to "echo chambering" and cloud our perception of the actual frequency of the occurrence of these events, hampering our holistic judgement.

Oftentimes, this leads us to conveniently ignore other arguably important but similarly controversial issues on the sole basis that they are less visible to us, though they might be the central topic of another "echo chamber". This also impairs our objective assessment of how important the subject of our discussion is in absolute terms, as well as from the perspective of the rest of society.

PART 4: "On the Plumage of Birds"

References for this section: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nicholas Taleb

Black Swan events are characterized by their extreme rarity, severe impact, and the widespread insistence that they were obvious in hindsight. 

Similarly, more available examples of a certain occurrence or behavior pointing to a certain conclusion might not necessarily admit said conclusion, for merely one example of the contrary would be sufficient to void it.

Suppose it was believed that all swans are white. One sighting of a black swan is enough to invalidate the aforementioned claim, even though the instances of sightings of white swans greatly outnumber that of black swans.

To further illustrate, the numerous observations of kind treatment of all stray cats by a neighbor would be invalidated by just one observation of their mistreatment of the wandering feline, for this one instance is “of severe impact”.

PART 5: Minimising Minimisation

When there are no witnesses to the incident, there is no other cat that can vouch for the experience of the Unfortunately Mistreated Cats.

However, this does not invalidate the experience of the UMcat, even if it does not affect other cats, as it has greatly affected the UMcat and should be recognized as such.

The other cats cannot fully understand the experience of the UMcat, for they have not gone through the experience themselves, and thus should refrain from minimizing it.

However, the UMcat must also be aware that its experience would be heavily biased, since itself is also not aware of the experiences of other cats, and should be aware to admit that its trauma might lead to heavily subjective judgment.

Therefore, within the bounds of reason, a reconciliation of all experiences of all or as many cats should be considered in discerning the fairness of treatment of different cats and the possible reasons behind this discrepancy, whilst making a weighted assessment to account for the aforementioned Black Swan impact of highly rare or seemingly improbable events and their disproportionately large impact (where it is usually impractical to account for the experiences of all cats, a representative sample should be obtained).

PRELIMINARY CONCLUSION

This piece seeks to bring to your attention some cognitive biases or unproductive behaviours often observed in any discussion or campaign that seeks to raise awareness. 

I believe that keeping in mind the aforementioned factors and habits of reasoning could benefit our engagement in actions driven by the correct motivations for raising awareness.

We have the ability to shape the discussion around us before the discussion shapes us entirely, for #WeBecomeWhatWeBehold. Hence, we should be careful to do so in a productive manner to benefit all stakeholders party to the process, in our efforts to reach desirable outcomes.