What impact does being a Christian have on one’s psyche and spiritual formation? How can faith shape experiences such as rejection and failure? Could an identity rooted in Christianity eliminate biased thinking? Erin E. Devers, a psychology professor at Indiana Wesleyan University, addresses such questions in her debut book, The Unbiased Self: The Psychology of Overcoming Cognitive Bias (IVP Academic, Mar.). Jon Boyd, editorial director for IVP Academic, cites Devers' efforts to bring evidence and insights from social psychology to "areas of Christian life and leadership that don't usually have such illumination.”
Devers talks with PW about how Christian concepts can reduce unfair and inaccurate thinking when, she says, "only God has complete information."
What are some of the ways bias or distorted thinking shows up in our lives?
In the book, I talk about the two major causes of bias: that we want to be right, and we want to feel good about ourselves. In wanting to be right, we’re just seeking information that confirms what we already think. And wanting to feel good about ourselves causes us to skew information to feel or seem better than we actually are. One of the ways this shows up is how our self-concept is organized.
How does that work?
I use the example that my husband is athletic; he thinks of himself as athletic, he goes to the gym—it is an important part of his self-concept. We were walking in a mall and 50 yards away, from the back, he recognized our friend Stuart. I asked, “How could you identify someone that far away?” He said he recognized Stuart’s “lats" (muscles of the back). I didn’t even know that was a category by which a person can be identified. We categorize by the dimensions that matter to us; we pay attention to those. This example makes it seem innocuous, but the harm is what it rules out. If we’re spending all our time categorizing based on athleticism or race or how interesting someone is, or something else, then we’re missing the more true thing about them—that is, that they’re a child of God and a sinner saved by grace. By activating my own self-concept, I am using it to categorize others, and I’m missing pieces. I’m biased.
How would a Christian identity bolster one's self-esteem and fend off fear of failure or embarrassment?
I encounter students who seem to be so afraid to fail that they won’t raise their hand or speak in class. They don’t want to say the wrong thing. I want to try to remove that barrier and say, it’s OK to be wrong, we’re all going to be wrong. If my self-esteem is so tied to being right or not being embarrassed, I don’t take the risk. I want us to take the risk, to recognize that (boosting our self esteem) should not be the dominating feature of our thought life. Our thought life ought to be much more secure. If I’m not going to fail in domains that really matter, I can take these risks. There is a base of security I can fall back on. I have a sense of what makes my life meaningful, and it doesn’t have to be tied to my performance.
What happens when we’re able to reduce our own biases?
First, we get to be more accurate, which is just a holier place to be. Also, it should cause us to be better prepared to see similarities across people, to look at each other with more love, more concern, and less need to prove ourselves, posture, compete, or compare. That should build connection and lead to a reduction in sexism and racism, if you’re connecting on the things that matter.
What is the #1 thing you want readers to learn from the book?
I want readers to recognize that we’re all connected, and that good thinking is something we can all be working toward.
