setting expectations
Managing ones’ expectations in some instances can be healthy. Kind of like if you expect nothing then you can’t be disappointed. Another way to think about it is when you have the expectation that an employee, acquaintance, significant other or child behaves in the manner that fits the situation. No one gets embarrassed, they have your back when it is needed, the product that you purchased lasts as long as you thought it should.
You can also have unrealistic expectations. Demanding more of an individual, machine then can possibly be produced logistically. All of these things could be said to fall under “managing ones’ expectations”.
wearing blinders
In the upcoming weeks I will be posting about (and comparing) the terms Racism, prejudice and bias. Today I want to talk specifically about bias. More importantly, expectation bias.
“An overweight person has no self control”. “He’s the CEO of his own company so he must be a great guy”. “She went to an Ivy league school so she must be smart”.
All of these things and more can be attributed to expectation bias. A preconceived idea of what a persons basic ingredients are made of simply by the outer trappings and/or physical appearance.
In truth, they may just enjoy good food (or have a thyroid condition), that CEO may beat his wife or the Ivy leaguer had parents that donated money beyond tuition. This is one example of expectation bias. Preconception based on what you think is happening.
a horse of a different color
Expectation bias (EB) occurs when an individual’s expectations about an outcome influence perceptions of one’s own or others’ behavior. This as defined by Science Direct magazine.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0924933812748071
Having a personal bias isn’t uncommon and isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We all have them to some extent. It can however be limiting when it isn’t used with some common sense and facts. For obvious reasons if you employ the above examples you could be cheating yourself out of knowing a great person or crawling into bed or business with a fatal result.
when expectations go wrong
Probably one of the best examples that I’ve seen is the Aviation version of expectation bias. Being Rennie’s navigator and electronics engineer in multiple flights I can see how this could prove to be a deadly assumption.
If you’ve ever flown onto a grass strip then you learn to expect the unexpected. Even then there are hazards that can occur if you become complacent or fall victim to expectation bias.
Imagine this scenario. Days of rain have made the grass landing strip a potential “aqua” landing. You do your due diligence and are assured that the field has dried sufficiently and is safe to land. Because of the official clearance and the “all’s OK” regarding the sodden field you may forget to look for the wildlife from the adjacent woods, debris in your pathway from the storm or those power lines that hover at each end of the field.
This is expectation bias. You expected to find a dry strip but forgot to look at the other hazards.
managing expectations
Expectation bias can occur in any profession and unfortunately does. Medical diagnosis have been made sometimes in error or at the least not at its most complete due to what a patient may appear to present with.
Potentially good employees never make it into the company ofttimes because of the person’s appearance or lack of the “right” connection.
Relying on appearances can be deceiving in addition to not investing the time to find out the ‘whole‘ story or looking at the whole person.
Going through life with no expectation can be as detrimental as approaching it with an already preconceived notion of what you may be encountering. So which is worse?
removing the blinders
As you read this I bet you can think of several examples of when you have been the victim (or the perpetrator) of expectation bias. As we’ve discussed, it comes in many forms. If you allow yourself to fall victim to this practice then you are like a horse walking around with blinders. Missing out on what can be wonderful in the periphery.
Best lesson here is simple and has been around for many years. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. And to use a little poetic license, sometimes it may be good to believe in what you don’t see.
Closing this chapter, I am
Sassaleeyours…