If you are a people manager, it is important to understand The Blue Dot Effect aka Prevalence Induced Concept Change. It is important to empathise with each team member's prior stimuli when you inherit your teams.
In a set of experiments led by Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist, and his student David Levari in 2018, the researchers asked participants to identify blue dots amongst thousands ranging from very blue to very purple. In the experiment, dots flashed on a computer screen, one after the other; blue, purple, and shades in between.
During the first 200 trials, participants accurately identified the roughly equal proportion of blue and purple dots. As the experiment progressed, researchers reduced the number of blue dots, replacing them with various shades of purple. Interestingly, participants began to select the more prevalent purple dots as blue.
The experiment was extended to identify threatening faces and neutral faces. Participants accurately identified in the beginning of the study. As the study progressed they identified neutral faces as threatening faces.
The researchers found that when a problem becomes less common, people tend to broaden their definition of the problem. In other words mind has a tendency towards finding problems, even where none exist. We tend to look for threats and issues regardless of the safety or comfort of our environment.
The human brain doesn't make decisions based on rules, but rather on prior stimuli. The blue dot effect narrows our perception and makes us view life through a distorted perspective. A distorted vision creates biases on our ability to make logical decisions. The tendency extends beyond dots on a screen to real-life situations. No wonder we are naturally inclined towards pessimism.
A new manager is seen as too good to be true and the team member continues to live in the distorted vision of the old world 🤷♀️
https://dtg.sites.fas.harvard.edu/LEVARI2018COMPLETE.pdf?trk=public_post_comment-text
H/T: Mark Manson
