This document discusses various cognitive biases that affect how people receive and understand information. It explores confirmation bias, which is the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs. It also examines complementarity bias, which is the tendency for people to be more open to ideas from those who treat them with respect rather than disdain. Additionally, it addresses contact bias and how lack of contact with those different than us can reinforce prejudices and false assumptions about others. The document advocates for developing humility and understanding different perspectives to overcome these natural biases.

1. The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name
May your kingdom come, may your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our sins
As we forgive those who sin against us
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory
Forever and ever.
Amen.

3. Whatever is received is received
according to the manner of the
receiver;
i.e. we receive things not
as they are, but as we are
LATIN PROVERB

4. How can you see the speck of
wood
in the eye of another when you
cannot see the log in your own
eye?
MATTHEW 7:3 (FNV)
For now, my knowledge
is full of holes...
1 CORINTHIANS 13:12(FNV)

5. ADAM GRANT
The joy
of being wrong

6. Whatever is received is received
according to the manner of the
receiver;
i.e. we receive things not
as they are, but as we are
LATIN PROVERB
- Confirmation Bias
- Complexity Bias
- Community Bias
LASTWEEK

8. If people are nice to you,
you’ll be open to what
they see and have to say.
If they aren’t nice to you,
you won’t.
COMPLEMENTARITY BIAS

9. Most of us would rather
be persuaded by people
who treat us and our
current ideas with respect
rather than disdain. We
like to be persuaded by
people who like us, but
we find it insulting and
demeaning
to be persuaded by
BRIAN MCLAREN

10. How is this bias challenging
for those in the majority?
Do you struggle with taking
disagreement too
personally?
How should this inform
how we choose to interact
with folks we disagree with?
~ QUESTIONS ~

11. Revisionist
history
A generous
Orthodoxy
S1, e9
8.11.16

12. Spirit of wisdom,
protect me from being misled
by those whose words are full of
flattery,
familiarity, and false promises,
and keep me humble enough
to learn from those whom I am
tempted to dismiss as strange,
difficult, or unfriendly.
COMPLEMENTARITY BIAS PRAYER

13. If you lack contact with someone,
you won’t see what they see;
when you don’t have intense and
sustained personal contact with
“the other,” your prejudices and
false assumptions go unchallenged
CONTACT BIAS

14. When someone unfamiliar
arrives and disrupts our
normal social patterns,
we may reject/kill them.
But if we are willing to
listen/learn from them,
we can break out of our
contact bias, which opens
us to seeing life in a new
way (e.g.: E.T.)
BRIAN MCLAREN

15. How diverse/homogenous
is your social circle?
How have you seen
“contact”
positively impact/change
you?
How have you seen a lack
of
~ QUESTIONS ~

17. Revealer of insight, do not let me be
satisfied to see only what is visible from
my limited perspective. Grant me
insatiable curiosity
to understand what my neighbors can
see from their different vantage points.
Help me draw near to them, to walk
with them, to see through their eyes,
hear through their ears, and feel through
their experience, so our shared horizons
CONTACT BIAS PRAYER

18. We are incompetent at knowing
how incompetent or competent we
are, so we may see less or more
than
we think. Our brains prefer to
think of ourselves as above average
COMPETENCY BIAS

19. (This) bias can make
unknowledgeable people
assume they already
know what you want to
tell them; (it) can (also)
make knowledgeable
people under-confident
and unwilling to stand
firm
in the face of uninformed
BRIAN MCLAREN

20. people with low ability
at a task overestimate
their own ability;
people with high ability
at a task underestimate
their own ability
(“imposter syndrome”)
DUNNING/KRUGER

22. The first rule of the
Dunning-Kruger club
is you don’t know
you’re a member...
DAVID DUNNING

23. Do you see how you’re
prone to either “side” of
this?
What examples of this
do you see around us?
How would fostering
humility positively impact
both
~ QUESTIONS ~

24. Wellspring of all self-knowledge,
give me humility so that I do not
overestimate my competence.
Save me from both excessive
confidence and a lack of confidence;
instead, please grant me proper
confidence, to see myself, my
abilities, and my limitations with a
clear eye
and sound mind.
COMPETENCY BIAS PRAYER

25. Consciousness Bias
read/listen accordingly 
Conservative Liberal
read/listen accordingly 
Comfort/Complacency Bias
read/listen accordingly 
FORNEXT WEEK

26. Our Closing Prayer
Source of wonder, help us see with wonder.
Depth of mystery, help us find delight and truth
so profound that they surpass all knowing.
Fountain of compassion, help us see with compassion.
Bringer of justice, help us see with justice;
Revealer of truth, help us see what is real.
Holy wisdom, whose presence fills our ever-expanding
universe, help horizons ever to expand.
Light of glory, help us to see with humility and awe.
Amen.