How is it that we sometimes ignore something or someone as worthless whereas someone else may instead see huge value? Might our intuition sometimes be wrong? I've heard people say we need to trust our intuition, that little voice that speaks inside us telling us when something is wrong or right or giving us some form of insight. I once attended a course on intuition and to my surprise discovered raw intuition should often not be trusted, as it may be clouded by our past and our own personal perception of events. What other examples are there where we see things through our clouded lenses of perception?
Perception And Rating Scales
At one training course we were each asked asked to rate our lecturer on a specific character trait. Imagine your upbeat friendly lecturer asking your group to rate him on a rudimentary extrovert / introvert scale by giving him a score of where you each believe he fits on a scale, 1 being most introverted and 10 being most extroverted. I would probably give him a score of 8 or 9. Surprising to me would be other people in the group who would give him a score on the introverted side of the scale, perhaps 4 or 5. This is a good example of how perception may influence a subjective answer. We judge another based on our belief as to what it means to be extroverted or introverted. The words have meaning for us. Previous relationships we have had with different types of people may influence our judgements as to how friendly we think extroverts should be. If I am used to very approachable friendly extroverts I may miss seeing that someone who holds back from strangers is an extrovert too. I might have scored the lecturer high as an extrovert as I took his loud booming voice and enthusiastic manner interacting with the class to be an indication of a gregarious nature, yet I might not have seen that he was quite a private person who did not share many of his thoughts and who needed some time alone during lunch time, perhaps traits that would indicate he is an introvert. A similar example would be judging a person on assertiveness. If my understanding of assertiveness is someone who should appear to be domineering, then I might find a quietly assertive lecturer to be less than assertive, whilst other people might judge him highly on assertiveness. Our perception of what words mean and how we understand behaviour in relation to other examples influences our intuition of a situation.
Facts Versus Assumptions
In another example a lecturer spent a morning teaching us and then asked us to list facts we knew about her. We filled a large flip chart piece of white paper with a number of facts: friendly, assertive, married, kind, gentle and the list went on. Our lecturer then asked us to tell her which of the listed "facts" were actually "assumptions". By going through the list one by one of what we had thought were "facts" she told us that what we had listed were actually assumptions, things we did not know for sure, except for "married" which was a fact she had told us. How did we know she was kind? Or friendly? Or assertive? We couldn't know for sure as we had only spent a short time with her and she was of course on her best behaviour with us. It was quite an eye opening exercise. I realised that people should avoid snap judgements and we do need to make sure that what we take as fact might actually be assumption; always check to make sure something is factual before assuming it to be and this goes for situations too. Never assume you know for sure what someone else is thinking or why they do something.(see blog article: Avoiding snap judgements)
In my blog article called: Black swan event in judging beauty and potential I spoke of seeing how June Smith stood out as markedly different from other contestants in a 1955 beauty contest. Would Marilyn Monroe have been judged as beautiful today? What about the model called Twiggy (Twiggy Lawson website) who created a new trend in her hey day? She was reed thin in a world of buxom models and many started seeing her as the new beautiful. Are our ideas of modelling today different because of what she brought to the world? What will our future models look like?
Do We Recognise Beauty If It's Right In Front Of Us?
At one training course we were each asked asked to rate our lecturer on a specific character trait. Imagine your upbeat friendly lecturer asking your group to rate him on a rudimentary extrovert / introvert scale by giving him a score of where you each believe he fits on a scale, 1 being most introverted and 10 being most extroverted. I would probably give him a score of 8 or 9. Surprising to me would be other people in the group who would give him a score on the introverted side of the scale, perhaps 4 or 5. This is a good example of how perception may influence a subjective answer. We judge another based on our belief as to what it means to be extroverted or introverted. The words have meaning for us. Previous relationships we have had with different types of people may influence our judgements as to how friendly we think extroverts should be. If I am used to very approachable friendly extroverts I may miss seeing that someone who holds back from strangers is an extrovert too. I might have scored the lecturer high as an extrovert as I took his loud booming voice and enthusiastic manner interacting with the class to be an indication of a gregarious nature, yet I might not have seen that he was quite a private person who did not share many of his thoughts and who needed some time alone during lunch time, perhaps traits that would indicate he is an introvert. A similar example would be judging a person on assertiveness. If my understanding of assertiveness is someone who should appear to be domineering, then I might find a quietly assertive lecturer to be less than assertive, whilst other people might judge him highly on assertiveness. Our perception of what words mean and how we understand behaviour in relation to other examples influences our intuition of a situation.
Facts Versus Assumptions
In another example a lecturer spent a morning teaching us and then asked us to list facts we knew about her. We filled a large flip chart piece of white paper with a number of facts: friendly, assertive, married, kind, gentle and the list went on. Our lecturer then asked us to tell her which of the listed "facts" were actually "assumptions". By going through the list one by one of what we had thought were "facts" she told us that what we had listed were actually assumptions, things we did not know for sure, except for "married" which was a fact she had told us. How did we know she was kind? Or friendly? Or assertive? We couldn't know for sure as we had only spent a short time with her and she was of course on her best behaviour with us. It was quite an eye opening exercise. I realised that people should avoid snap judgements and we do need to make sure that what we take as fact might actually be assumption; always check to make sure something is factual before assuming it to be and this goes for situations too. Never assume you know for sure what someone else is thinking or why they do something.(see blog article: Avoiding snap judgements)
In my blog article called: Black swan event in judging beauty and potential I spoke of seeing how June Smith stood out as markedly different from other contestants in a 1955 beauty contest. Would Marilyn Monroe have been judged as beautiful today? What about the model called Twiggy (Twiggy Lawson website) who created a new trend in her hey day? She was reed thin in a world of buxom models and many started seeing her as the new beautiful. Are our ideas of modelling today different because of what she brought to the world? What will our future models look like?
Do We Recognise Beauty If It's Right In Front Of Us?
In 2007 the Washington Post conducted what they called an "experiment in context, perception and priorities", and I first heard about this in a random email I received from an acquaintance. The Washington Post asked Joshua Bell, one of the most famous classical musicians alive today, to play incognito at a Washington metro station. He wore nondescript clothing and a baseball cap and looked perhaps like any other street musician. Three days before he had played to a full concert at Boston's Symphony Hall where people paid $100 for a reasonably good ticket, and where it was considered an affront to cough during his performance. That January Day in 2007 Joshua Bell played 6 classical music pieces on his 3,5 million dollar violin over the next 43 minutes to a passing crowd of 1097 people. I would have expected a crowd to form as the lilting melody resonated around the arcade. Most people did not give the musician a second glance, only seven people stopped to listen for more than a minute, and 27 people gave some money. Joshua Bell collected only about $32. Edna Souza, a shoe shiner from Brazil, mentioned that normally she would call the police to remove a musician but she left this one where he was, though she thought the music was too loud and admittedly she was calmed down by someone else. When told the man playing was a famous musician she was surprised and said if he had played in Brazil he would have been mobbed. Here people just hurried by, preoccupied with their own lives, their own thoughts. Interestingly at one point a 3 year old tried very hard to stop and listen to the music, and was hurried out by his rushed mom. The toddler, Evan, kept trying to catch a last glimpse of the musician as Evan was bundled out the door to wherever they needed to go. Other children did not want to walk past Joshua Bell, they wanted to listen. Often times children will see beauty that adults miss, as they have no preconceived notions of what society considers to be beautiful. John Picarello was stopped in his tracks when he heard Joshua Bell play. He stood flabbergasted as he saw no-one else even noticing the music and said he could not understand how this could happen. John said he had not known the musician was Joshua Bell, but he had wanted to be a violinist himself and he had recognised the talent flowing around him when the music sang its lilting, flowing, ebbing, sobbing lullaby. Isn't it sad that people did not hear the beauty that was playing, and did not have time to stop and listen, but kept rushing by? What else might we not be seeing all around us, right in front of us? This is the link to the Washington Post article about Joshua Bell playing at the metro station: Pearls Before Breakfast and it includes a video of Joshua Bell's actual performance.
Changing Trends
Norms of society cause us to see beauty where previous generations might not and the opposite is true. Think of an historical icon like Elvis Presley. I mentioned him in passing in blog articles: Everyone is a genius and The power of one voice (part 1): leaving a legacy. In his heyday Elvis was adored by millions of fans. He changed the way the world looks at music, as how different might the music scene be if he hadn't used his talent. He was different, he had an amazing gift, and even in death his legacy lives on in millions of adoring fans. I wish I could know what his autopsy results were as these will apparently be made public in 2027, fifty years after his death. For some reason I believe there may be a surprise for the world. I truly believe God loved Elvis, and Elvis loved God in spite of his brokenness towards the end. (This is a link to: Elvis singing "How Great Thou Art" in 1977) I wonder if his story could have ended differently. Did he receive help for his prescription medicine addiction? I have seen someone suffering the burden of addiction and didn't understand myself at the time and now that I am older I have some empathy for someone in this situation. And this is another example of perception at play. In Elvis I see an amazing ground breaking talent and a person taken from the world too soon, and someone else might see just the story of his addiction and write him off as a fool. We each view circumstances differently through what is our perception.
In Conclusion
Where is our intuition mistaken and do we even know it? Do we see talent when a little boy in rags plays soccer with an amazing skill? Do we hear how a little girl sings like an angel from her wheelchair? Why were Van Gogh's paintings only seen as masterpieces once he had passed on? Why do people become famous in chance moments on talent shows, due to publicity to mass audiences? Perhaps it's that we each have a different type of awareness of what to look for in identifying beauty. Other musicians may recognise an undiscovered talent in someone who has perfect pitch. Someone who loves art may be touched by an oil painting by an unknown artist who has never managed to sell her masterpieces. But perhaps we can all learn to discover the beauty hidden around us and look at the world with fresh, expectant eyes.
Changing Trends
Norms of society cause us to see beauty where previous generations might not and the opposite is true. Think of an historical icon like Elvis Presley. I mentioned him in passing in blog articles: Everyone is a genius and The power of one voice (part 1): leaving a legacy. In his heyday Elvis was adored by millions of fans. He changed the way the world looks at music, as how different might the music scene be if he hadn't used his talent. He was different, he had an amazing gift, and even in death his legacy lives on in millions of adoring fans. I wish I could know what his autopsy results were as these will apparently be made public in 2027, fifty years after his death. For some reason I believe there may be a surprise for the world. I truly believe God loved Elvis, and Elvis loved God in spite of his brokenness towards the end. (This is a link to: Elvis singing "How Great Thou Art" in 1977) I wonder if his story could have ended differently. Did he receive help for his prescription medicine addiction? I have seen someone suffering the burden of addiction and didn't understand myself at the time and now that I am older I have some empathy for someone in this situation. And this is another example of perception at play. In Elvis I see an amazing ground breaking talent and a person taken from the world too soon, and someone else might see just the story of his addiction and write him off as a fool. We each view circumstances differently through what is our perception.
In Conclusion
Where is our intuition mistaken and do we even know it? Do we see talent when a little boy in rags plays soccer with an amazing skill? Do we hear how a little girl sings like an angel from her wheelchair? Why were Van Gogh's paintings only seen as masterpieces once he had passed on? Why do people become famous in chance moments on talent shows, due to publicity to mass audiences? Perhaps it's that we each have a different type of awareness of what to look for in identifying beauty. Other musicians may recognise an undiscovered talent in someone who has perfect pitch. Someone who loves art may be touched by an oil painting by an unknown artist who has never managed to sell her masterpieces. But perhaps we can all learn to discover the beauty hidden around us and look at the world with fresh, expectant eyes.
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