You are a kid.
You hear about Santa on the news, you see Santa in the mall, you are told about Santa by your friends and your parents. All of these data points combine in your head and you develop a theory that Santa is real.
Assuming you celebrate secular Christmas, you likely woke up on a Christmas morning, ran downstairs, and noticed some type of gift from Santa. For sure Santa is real. So you set out to prove your theory.
You set out cookies for the guy (how is he not diabetic?).
You set out traps hoping he’ll get caught up in them.
You are deceitful and trick your parents into thinking you’re asleep so you can bum rush the guy when he makes his entrance.
You do everything possible to prove your theory true - Santa is real.
What you might not realize is that we humans love to confirm our beliefs. Ever had/heard conversations like these:
“See, they didn’t give me that raise, it just proves how little they value me…” Does it? .
”Oh my god, we hit traffic again, see, I told you that if you didn’t get ready 30 seconds earlier we would hit traffic.”
”That’s exactly what they want me to do, give in, but I’m not going to…”
And in confirming our beliefs we are reinforcing theories that may or may not be true - Santa is real. So what to do?
We must actively prove our theories false.
I see Santa, I hear about Santa, I receive gifts from Santa, and therefore Santa is real… I will now set out to prove Santa does not exist before I accept that he does.
Think about the three conversations mentioned above, here’s how we might set out to prove those Ideas false:
I will set out to prove that my employer does value me before I accept the theory that they don’t.
I will prove that leaving 30 seconds earlier doesn’t make any difference at all.
I will validate what “they” want me to do before I give in.
A genuine way to test if our theories and beliefs are real is to attempt to prove them wrong. If we do that, we work against our natural tendency to say, “see, this is exactly what I told you it was…”
People managers: this is a useful tip when managing employees who believe that the company is “out to get them.” Get your team member to disprove their belief before accepting it.