Human beings always want to be right about everything, we tend to believe that our opinions are very well founded and valid, even if we often do not know why we think so, it is not uncommon for these characteristics to prevail more than reason itself. That is why it is said that we only listen to what we want to hear, this is due to the functioning of selective attention.
Selective attention is focusing only on certain aspects, leaving aside others, especially in the context of beliefs and opinions, it can make sense to do so, because it is impossible to pay attention to everything that happens around us. becomes a cognitive error or distortion that leads us not to perceive reality correctly.
“Listening is the best remedy against loneliness, loquacity and laryngitis. “William George Ward?
In fact, the information we select through our service mechanism is not necessarily the most valid or relevant, we try to pay attention only to what confirms our beliefs or validates our opinions, so in the end we only hear what we want to hear.
One way or another, we always pay more attention to certain realities than others, the cognitive system of the human being has limitations, so he must focus only on certain aspects and ignore others in order to function properly. avoid overloading stimuli processing.
Well, permissible selective attention can easily lead to a kind of hermetism versus evidence. This is when we just hear what we want to hear. We’ve built a barrier. We develop a closed attitude towards anything that challenges our beliefs or opinions.
We almost always do this process without realizing it, for example, we only surround ourselves with people who think or act very similarly to our own, we exclude others because we assume that differences will be a source of conflict. , we seek environments that reinforce our beliefs and build the idea that we are always right, since everything and everyone around us confirms it. In practice, we are in a position where we only hear what we want to hear.
The distortion of selective attention is not the only one that influences this process, we only listen to what we also want to hear through another distortion: confirmation, is the tendency to look for evidence that validates what we think or believe and, at the same time, ignores the evidence that calls into question the validity of opinions and beliefs.
We do this almost unconsciously. If we find information or someone who offers something that contradicts what we believe, we tend to reject it, we’re not looking at the validity of what he says, we just refuse to listen to his arguments, though what he says. True, there is always a way to reinterpret discourse to match what we believe.
Basically, many times we have no interest in finding the truth, what we want is to confirm that we are right and use all the means to achieve it. This situation is particularly applicable to unsafe people: they are more stubborn in their distortions.
The first effect of staying in a position where we only hear what we want to hear is to get caught up in a possible mistake, we are depriving ourselves of the opportunity to enrich ourselves, to broaden our horizons and above all to reach a greater degree. truth this ends up creating other problems.
In depressed people, for example, selective care and confirmation distortions can sometimes have devastating effects, end up paying attention and validating everything that reaffirms their strangeness, their pain in front of the world and life, basically maintaining a view that only increases their discomfort and restlessness. They don’t realize what they’re doing. His truth is imposed on the most objective truths.
The same happens in cases of anxiety and in those in which there is a delusional construction, that is why it is so important to work to get out of this condition where we only listen to what we want to hear, it is worth, at least since From time to time, to approach other ways of seeing and thinking without judging and without being defensive. Open us to the difference.