Can Awe Help You Overcome Bias and Form Better Connections?

We’re all predisposed to bias. In prehistoric times, bias allowed early humans to process information rapidly and make quick judgments. This biological advantage helped people identify potential threats and avoid danger, ultimately helping our species to survive, adapt, and evolve.

Today, we live in a very different world, and this once-helpful mental reflex is causing a lot of damage—particularly when it comes to forming connections. Despite our innate desire to belong, bias often drives us to form inaccurate conclusions about people and ideas, distorting our thinking until we alienate ourselves and each other.

Unconscious bias pushes us to seek information that supports our beliefs and opinions while dismissing facts or data that challenge them. It leads to stereotyping, discrimination, and prejudice, limiting our ability to form meaningful connections with anyone who doesn’t look or think like us.

But, fortunately, bias isn’t fixed. While we are all prone to cognitive biases, we can work to become aware of and even bust these biases. And, by doing so, we could have stronger connections with our fellow human beings.

The Deepening Divide: How Bias Prevents Us From Connecting

In my book Tracking Wonder, I refer to unconscious bias as the bias box—the mind’s automatic categorizer that confines people and ideas into neat containers rather than recognizing all their nuances and complexities.

The brain’s amygdala lights up when we feel threatened by discomfort or difference and triggers our fight-or-flight response regardless of whether we’re facing actual physical danger or just someone presenting an idea we vehemently disagree with. The brain prefers sameness because, in prehistory, familiarity usually meant safety. So, our minds—often unknown to our conscious mind—tend to box people into categories like “friend” or “foe” based on very little information.

Thus, our bias boxes often drive us to write off people and ideas, sabotaging opportunities to build connections—largely because bias distorts objectivity and limits our ability to approach controversial ideas rationally. And this can be especially dangerous in our age of rampant misinformation.

A recent University of Cambridge study found that myside bias, which occurs when people favor information that aligns with their preconceptions, is strongly correlated with susceptibility to misinformation. In other words, we may reject hard facts simply because they do not align with our ideologies.

This type of bias is so powerful it can even affect our memory of events and ability to recall facts. In a study published by Political Psychology, researchers provided participants with a series of vignettes with a mix of fabricated and real political events, then asked them if they remembered each event. Nearly one-third of respondents reported remembering fabricated events.

Furthermore, respondents were more likely to recall fabricated events aligned with their political preferences. For example, Republicans were more likely to falsely remember events that portrayed Democrats negatively, while Democrats were more likely to recall events that portrayed Republicans negatively.

Additionally, a study published by PLOS One concluded that we’re more likely to see others as biased but not ourselves, showing that we’re even biased toward our own biases. This sort of thinking serves to create more divisiveness, making it challenging to increase our capacity for empathy, work together to solve problems, and form meaningful connections.

How Wonder and Awe Can Help Dismantle Bias

Dr. Lani Shiota, associate professor of social psychology at Arizona State University, has extensively researched how awe affects the brain. She argues that when we are in a state of awe, we are more open to new information and experiences.

According to her presentation at the Greater Good Science Center, when we feel awe after, say, seeing a beautiful panoramic view, we are more likely to believe we’re in the presence of something greater than ourselves, become unaware of daily concerns, and feel more connected with the world around us.

Her research concluded that, when compared with people in a positive or neutral mood, those in an awe state are more likely to recall information accurately, more vigilant of the quality of the information they’re presented, and less likely to filter current experiences through what they think they already know about the world.

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Habits That Help Us Break Down Our Bias Boxes

Shirking bias can help us connect with the people around us, and awe can help. But you don’t have to climb Machu Picchu or watch the sunset over the Taj Mahal to form meaningful connections.

Here are three things you can do to begin busting open your Bias Box:

1. Observe your invisible armor signals.

Since bias can trigger the fight-or-flight response, it’s helpful to identify when you begin feeling those somatic signals that indicate your body is preparing for battle and closing your mind.

In the future, when you’re presented with an opposing viewpoint or information that challenges your beliefs or assumptions, take note of what you feel. For example, you might experience tension in the neck and shoulders or a change in your stance.

2. Hone your empathic curiosity.

Empathic curiosity, or the desire to understand another person’s thoughts and feelings, can help you set aside assumptions and open yourself to learning about new ideas.

When conversing with someone different from you, resist the urge to fill in the blanks about who they are or what they believe. Instead, follow your innate curiosity and actively listen to what they have to say.

3. Challenge the information you consume.

Since we often seek information that reinforces our existing ideas about the world and reject information that challenges them, many of us consume news that supports our political beliefs.

The next time you read something that quickly aligns with your ideological biases, don’t simply accept it as fact. Instead, approach the topic with a healthy curiosity and do some fact-checking using more objective sources. Or, if it’s an opinion piece, take time to explore how the “other side” approaches the same issue.

4. Be open to experiences of wonder amidst differences.

It takes practice, but when faced with views seemingly different from yours, simply attempt to hear the idea without any attachment. It can help to pause, step outside, gaze at the sky, and remember how small we are in the larger scheme of things.

Amid this era marked by cultural divisiveness and loneliness, it’s vital that we learn and relearn how to connect with those who seem different from us. And understanding how bias originates and actively working to dismantle it is one key to unlocking those connections.