Rotman Management — Spring 2017

rotmanmagazine.ca / 107

At the far end of this spectrum, you have found that we can
actually dehumanize people. Tell us how that happens.
Dehumanization is a scary term, but psychologically speak-
ing, it’s a simple concept: When you dehumanize someone,
you attribute less fundamental human capacities to them. So,
I might assume that somebody is not quite as intelligent or ra-
tional as I am, or that they can’t feel in quite the same sophis-
ticated ways that I can. We see this showing up in political
discourse all the time: People think the other side is irrational
or unreasonable, and this is a dehumanizing perception.
The best way to overcome this is to actually seek out oth-
er people’s perspectives. That is, listen to somebody from the
other side explaining their thoughts and feelings; have them
reveal their thoughts to you directly, through conversation
and interaction.

On that note, you’ve been quoted as saying that texting is
not the best way to connect with people. What is a better
choice?
The human voice contains a lot of additional information
that is lacking in text: Intonation, pace and pitch — all of
which can convey your thinking process while you’re speak-
ing. As a result, texting can be dehumanizing.
In our research, people seemed less capable of think-
ing and less human when people read what they had to say,
rather than listening to their voice. I should note that this
happens in cases where people are interacting with folks they
don’t know very well; if you already have a strong impression
of someone, presumably, the medium will not have as big an
effect on your impression. But if you don’t know anything
about the other person, you want to be connecting in an in-
formation-rich environment where you can get good access
to that person’s mind — and the best context for that is one
that involves a person’s voice.
If the goal is to understand somebody, talking can work

just as well as sitting down with them face to face. If, how-

ever, you are interested in other things — like persuading

someone to do something or befriending them — those are

different outcomes. In such cases, being face to face will cer-

tainly help.

You have said that being self-aware demands a recogni-

tion that our judgment is wrong more often than we think.

Please discuss the importance of this.

Our confidence in our judgment is typically far greater than

the accuracy of our judgment — which is why the key require-

ment for improving in almost every domain of life is the

recognition that you might have something to learn. Rec-

ognizing that we make mistakes is a critical requirement for

adopting strategies that allow us to understand other people.

The humility that comes with this is a key requirement for

continuous improvement. Overconfidence can be a major

impediment to learning.

It is widely believed that we use only about 10 per cent of

our brain. Do you agree?

That is a widely-quoted myth, but rest assured, there are very

few spare neurons in your brain. We use our whole brain in

every waking — and sleeping — moment of our life. Having

said that, only certain parts of our mental experience are ac-

cessible to us consciously, and most of that has to do with the

‘end-products’ of our thinking and feeling—things like expe-

riences of pain or pleasure, feelings of control and strongly

held beliefs. What remains invisible to us are the processes

by which these mental ‘products’ come to us.

How can we get started on improving our understanding

of others?

You can start by attempting to take the perspective of anoth-

er person and imagining how you would see the world if you

Our confidence in our judgment is typically far

greater than the accuracy of our judgment.