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The Thinking Trap of Similarity

By | David Klaasen | Helping You Create Clarity, Inspire Your People & Drive Performance | Retain your best people | Changing Management Mindsets and Behaviour | Practical Behaviour Analytics

What media do you consume? Who do you listen to? Whose opinions do you agree or disagree with? One of the key skills of living in the 21st century is being able to filter the vast amount of data, information, opinion and highly sophisticated marketing that are bombarding us almost every waking hour. In order to make any sense of it all we are constantly making choices about what we pay heed to. 

While you may think that you answer the above questions consciously you are in fact heavily influenced by your unconscious biases or ‘Thinking Traps’. If you think, you are biased. It’s part of being human. If you think you are not biased you are just deluding yourself and that can create some unintended consequences. The key to overcoming your biases is to accept that they exist and to acknowledge that they have a powerful influence on your thinking based on your cultural background, life experiences and the people you are closest to.  

This is the second in a series of mini-articles about the SEEDS® Model developed by David Rock which groups the dozens of biases that have been identified into five categories. For a brief overview of the model, click here.

S is for ‘Similarity’

The first S in the model is ‘Similarity’. This is about thinking that people like me are better. The feeling of similarity may be obvious like family or team, or it may stem from a variety of other distinctions like country or city of origin, educational or professional experience, ethnicity or socio-economic background.

Click here to read the full article

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