There is no proof that everyone sees everything the same way
A famous football game proved that two people could watch the same thing and ‘see’ completely different things. Why do they ‘see’ things entirely differently?
Scott Adam, the creator of Dilbert, has often used the phrase
"two movies on one screen" to describe the scenario that two people can watch the same piece of content and come away with entirely different interpretations. On the face of it, this shouldn't surprise us. I noticed the car the guy was driving, and you saw the countryside they were going through.
We not only can see different things entirely, but we interpret the same pieces of data in contradictory ways. What is fascinating is that this can work not only with individuals but with whole groups. This phenomenon is known as 'Selective Group Perception,' and the learning started with a football game (not soccer).
They saw a game
College sports are much more significant in the USA than most of the rest of the world. Where I live in Austin, Texas, the local team at UT (University of Texas) has a stadium that seats 100,000 people, more extensive than many professional soccer (football) stadiums around the world. Our story is, however, about a game between Dartmouth College and Princeton University that occurred on Saturday, November 23rd, 1951.
It was the last game of the season for both teams and of rather special significance because the Princeton team had won all its games that year. There was such a profound disagreement between the two schools about what happened during the match that psychologists Albert Hastorf and Hadley Cantril used the post-game analysis for their case study, "They saw a game: a case study."
The two psychologists surveyed the students from each university one week after two incidents in the game.
First, Princeton's All-American quarterback, in his last game for college, left the game in its second quarter with a broken nose and a mild concussion.
Secondly, Dartmouth's quarterback ended up with a broken leg after being tackled in the backfield.
The researchers then analyzed and interpreted the answers of those who had seen the game live or recorded. Of the incident, 36% of the Dartmouth students and 86% of the Princeton students said it was Dartmouth that started it. On the other hand, 53% of the Dartmouth students and 11% of the Princeton students said Princeton did.
The bottom line is that people see things as they expect them to be (or maybe want them to be).
What this means to us
“All lies and jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest.”
The Boxer, Simon & Garfunkel
With Selective Group Perception, we can both see and hear what we want to hear and disregard the rest. That is because we tend not to notice and more quickly forget stimuli that cause emotional discomfort. Even more importantly, we avoid thinking about things that contradict our beliefs.
Princeton students wanted to believe that the Dartmouth team had started it, so they did. And vice versa, Dartmouth supporters wished to think that Princeton Team began the troubles - so they did. Worse, we minimize those things that can, either individually or as a group, go against our beliefs. We ignore the bad behavior of intelligent people when they do such good work (i.e., the Brilliant Jerk), or we miss a blatant foul because our team won the game. After all, it plays into another narrative (i.e., Maradona and the Hand of God) for us.
So how do we deal with this?
There seem to be two techniques that people mention, both are obvious, and both can be hard to do.
The first requires us to remember that every story may have two or more sides and to ensure that we take time to consider both (and all). At that moment, as you consider what happened or how it should be interpreted, remember to see with your brain and eyes. That means what you saw (or heard) has been filtered and manipulated to bring meaning to it, and that will not be the same process that someone else goes through (see here).
Secondly, beware of certainty.
I confidently told someone something last week that, on reflection, I could neither prove nor back up. But I was pretty sure I was right. But how certain was I? Was it 90%, 50%, or less? Giving a percentage about something you remember or believe can open you up to both being wrong and learning from those around you.
And I am pretty sure about that.
Maybe 75%!
Or that could just be a story I am telling myself.