September 2024

Greetings brothers and sisters. It is finally our favorite season; political season! Now, of course, I am being facetious. I am sure, between the endless mailers, phone calls and texts, many are ready to go off-grid until after November 5th. When I write my articles, I try to write very common tongue articles that relate to situations in our lives and I want to thank all of you who call and reach out thanking me for this style of writing. I have decided to try and write about a technical problem as plainly as I feel possible. The topic is bias, now we all know, or think we know, about bias but I will try and highlight how they can lead us astray subconsciously.

The first of these is identified as the confirmation bias. This is the most natural mental road that most of us travel. Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek out and recognize only information that supports what we already believe or feel.

The second of these biases’ is the Halo effect. This cognitive bias causes people to form an overall positive impression of someone or something based on a single favorable characteristic, ignoring all others, which can lead to poor decision-making.

The last of these is the horn or devil effect. This is the reverse of the halo effect. This bias tends to highlight a single disliked or negative aspect of a person or thing to form an overall negative impression. This again provides us the opportunity for poor decision-making.

Now that I’ve explained these biases, I would ask that you take a moment to reflect on them as they relate to this political season. Let us attempt to inform ourselves without falling into the trap of only seeking what we hope to find to confirm what we feel to be true. This year let us seek out only facts for the sake of finding the truth, whether it is what we want to find or not. If we do this, I believe, we can truly begin the process of making more informed decisions.

When we investigate the facts of a matter, or in this case, our candidates, we must then try and shed the last two biases to make fully informed decisions. We must avoid scenarios like these; If we fall prey to the halo effect, maybe we fall into supporting only candidates who are veterans. Even though their legislative and voting record is against nearly everything we support. If we fall into the horn or devil bias, then we don’t vote for a person we’ve only heard was weak although they have a proven track record of legislation and voting to support what will help middle-class America. What if we take all biases and prejudices and hide them, only reviewing factual data about the candidates? Let’s say we ignore age, sex, race, personality and political party and only look at proven accomplishments, legislation and voting records. Couldn’t we make better and more informed decisions for ourselves? I believe so, and this is what our goal must be in this political cycle. Let’s stop the self-confirming biases and stop listening to other potentially biased opinions on television and social media to form our beliefs. Voting records and legislation are public information to which we all have access. We need only to take the time and research the truth and history of our candidates. I hope that after reading this, some of you decide to look a little deeper and gain a stronger understanding of who deserves our votes. Efforts like these can only help us pick what we believe to be the best choices for our beliefs. Thanks for reading and we will see you next edition.

Great sites for research:

https://www.legislature.mi.gov

https://www.house.mi.gov/

https://www.congress.gov/roll-call-votes

https://www.senate.gov/legislative/votes_new.htm

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes