21. Spoiler Alert- Perception ≠ Reality

The power of the mind is that you see exactly what you’re looking for…

True story-

In the book Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior (now, think about that title!), Ori & Rom Brafman write about the effects of pre-existing beliefs and how they effect our ongoing belief patterns- even when confronted with new information to the contrary.

They write about a visiting lecturer, a guest teacher at MIT. As an experiment, the teacher lectured 70 economics students at the prestigious university. Now, you've gotta think- if anyone is not going to be irrationally swayed by something, it's going to be this bunch of smarties. Right?

Well, all 70 students were given a bio on the visiting professor. The bio was a page long and detailed the profs accomplishments. The students were instructed to review it before listening to the lecture.

The only difference was this:

*Half of the students had a bio that said the guest teacher was "a very warm person.”

*The other half had a bio that said the prof was "rather cold.”

That's it. No differences otherwise. The students all listened to the same lecture, and then were asked to grade the professor.

The results were amazing!

*The half that received the "warm person" bio wrote how great the teacher was. He was funny. He made them laugh. He told great stories and made things applicable. He actually made economics exciting!

*The half that received the "rather cold" bio said the teacher was aloof. He was self-centered. He was rigid, inflexible, and boring. Oh, and he was formal. Stiff. Lifeless.

Did they not sit through the same lecture at the exact same time? Of course they did. What happened?

Quite simply this: the students saw what they already believed to be true.