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Today our cognitive biases are the Availability Heuristic and Anchoring Bias.
Availability Heuristic is overestimating the importance of easily recalled information. This can be things which have happened a few times recently, or things given more weight than they should. For example, plane crashes are rare, but they get a lot of news time. Car accidents, which happen all the time, get far less attention from the media. So we might think flying is more dangerous than driving, or fail to understand how much safer flying is.
In marriage we’re better at recalling what we do than what our spouse does, so we give what we do too much weight. Or, if our spouse made a mistake once or twice recently, we see that rather than the many, many times they did it right before that. This one also tags our past; if a previous partner did something hurtful many times, that carries more weight than our new spouse doing it right every time but fewer times than our ex.
I have suggested in the past that a good way to track change is to mentally plot the high points. Doing that will help you overcome the availability heuristic.
Anchoring Bias is allowing an initial, strong impression to disproportionately influence current perceptions, ignoring more recent performance. The first time something happens anchors our understanding, belief, or expectation. This could be the first time we experienced something, or the first time we experienced it with a certain person, such as our spouse.
In marriage, this is one more block to seeing growth and change in your spouse. Or, we see the changes, but we fear they will return to what they did first, even if there is no evidence to support that. Or perhaps we want it done well as many times as it was done wrong before we accept the change is real. If we thought this through, we would realise it’s neither fair nor realistic. But the anchoring bias makes it feel right if we don’t work through it mentally.
Not seeing or acknowledging change leads to frustration. If your spouse works hard to improve, and you ignore it, they’ll wonder why they bothered. If they did it wrong for years, odds are they will not spend years doing it right without any change on your part.
Another way this plays out is unrealistic initial promises or expectations. If these become anchors, it can be difficult to come to a more reasonable agreement.
If you want to fight this bias, challenge your assumptions. When you think “He always does that” or “She never does such and such”, stop and ask if that is true. Was it once true, but is not now? Does it still happen, but not as often or as bad?
~ This is Paul, and acknowledging change is Doing Marriage Well.
Might rain
And it did!
Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with Nano Banana 2
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