The Illusion of Transparency (Cont.)

Note: This is the second part to yesterday’s post, so kindly read yesterday’s post before reading this if you haven’t done so yet.

The anchoring effect is a cognitive bias where individuals rely too heavily on the first piece of information they encounter (the “anchor”) when making decisions or judgments.  For example, if a shirt is worth only $30, but the store lists it as $100, and then giving a 50% discount, making the price $50, humans would, more often than not, see that as a great deal. Why? Because 100 is your mental reference point. The same rule applies to something like public speaking. Just because you feel your heart throb in anxiety, just because that feeling is so prominent and vivid to you, you assume it is as obvious to others, which is false. 

Lack of Feedback is pretty self-explanatory. It is the absence of clear, direct information from others about how they perceive your actions, emotions, or intentions. Without feedback, the only praise or criticism we have is our own assumptions, which combined with egocentric bias and the anchoring effect, tend to be misleading. Why is there a lack of Feedback, you ask? There’s two big reasons, in my opinion. One is social norms. We are constantly cautious about our feedback to avoid conflict or hurt their feelings. We refrain from talking in uncomfortable situations because we don’t want to be the one making the other person feel bad. Another big reason is we, as you may have guessed already, assume. We often assume others understand us without needing explicit communication. The result of this is we never ask for feedback or even a simple clarification.

So, how to overcome the Illusion of Transparency? The simplest answer is to put yourself out there and ask for feedback. When you hear about what you are doing well and what you can change, you get a direction to move forward. The other thing is to keep your mind open; be aware that internal feelings are not as explicit to others as you think, and it is also not necessary for everybody to think like you. After all, it’s an illusion; take off the right glasses and the illusion goes away.