There is one thing that is completely unique to a person: it is shaped by their lives and shapes their lives, including their perspective. It plays a crucial role in how someone sees the world, reacts to events, and interacts with others.
Perspective can be best described as the mental framework through which a person views the world around them. It shapes how people interpret situations and events and influences how they respond to them.
Learning the concept of perspective is important for changing and improving it. Similarly, it’s also important for individuals interested in courses like an EdD in educational leadership because being able to understand others’ perspectives is critical for leaders.
This article is a guide to perspective, covering the importance of it and the role that bias plays in influencing it. It also covers how individuals can better recognise their own biases and change their perspective for the better.
Table of Contents
Understanding perspective
In psychological thinking, “perspective” is how a person has chosen to see the world. This includes the way they see themselves, other people around them, and any events or situations that occur.
A person’s perspective, sometimes called their worldview, is formed by a complex interplay of factors. This includes all their past experiences, both internal and external, and their values, beliefs, and cultural background.
For example, if a child is praised by a role model for their drawing ability, this will lead to them developing beliefs that they’re a good artist. This can influence their perspective throughout life, where they continue drawing and have a positive association when viewing art.
It’s crucial to understand that perspective is also not permanent. A person’s perspective will fluctuate and change throughout their life, influenced by conscious and subconscious factors, like biases.
Why does it matter?
Perspective is vital to a person’s life because it is closely linked to their mindset and well-being. Ultimately, a person’s perspective determines how they feel, influences their decisions, and how their life plays out.
This is where perspective becomes serious. A negative perspective on life means that a person is more likely to perceive all events and interactions in their life negatively. Similarly, it contributes to negative thought patterns, also known as cognitive distortions.
Cognitive distortions are when people habitually think in extremes, without considering all the possible facts. For example, a person stuck in a negative thought pattern due to their perspective might believe they’re destined for failure and that every outcome is bad.
This can lead to catastrophizing and mental filtering, where a person ignores any positives and focuses exclusively on the negatives of their life or an event. In severe cases, a bad perspective increases the risk of developing mental health disorders or worsening existing conditions.
What is bias?
As mentioned earlier, a person’s perspective is formed by a range of factors, with many of these factors being beyond our conscious awareness. This means that their perception is also shaped by implicit bias.
Implicit bias is also known as implicit prejudice and implicit attitude. It describes when a person has a negative attitude against a specific social group, person, or place that they’re not consciously aware of.
A person’s implicit bias can be completely different from their publicly stated beliefs and values. It’s thought that implicit bias is shaped by experience and based on learned associations between particular qualities and social categories.
Everyone has implicit biases, and they influence their perspective and thought patterns. Recognizing your own implicit biases is the first step to changing them and being able to change your perspective.
How to change implicit bias
Changing implicit bias requires recognizing and challenging your unconscious prejudices and negative attitudes. The first step towards this is by accepting that you may have implicit biases, which can be confronting for some people.
Tips for recognizing implicit bias include:
- Self-reflect after interactions with people from different social groups and journal how it made you feel
- Practice viewing situations and interactions from other people’s perspectives, especially those with different beliefs and backgrounds.
- In moments of judgment, try to be self-aware and analyze why you had those thoughts.
Once you’ve identified the unconscious prejudices and attitudes, you need to make conscious efforts to change your beliefs. Mental health professionals, such as counselors and psychologists, can also help examine and change these attitudes.
Are there other types of bias?
There is another type of bias known as explicit bias. Unlike implicit bias, where a person is unaware of their attitudes or beliefs, explicit bias is when an individual consciously demonstrates negative attitudes or aversion towards a particular social group.
In severe cases, explicit biases can include hate speech, physical harassment, and discriminatory policies. Explicit biases can cause and be formed by negative perspectives. Eliminating harmful explicit and implicit biases is the key to a positive perspective.
The importance of empathy
Empathy is the key to challenging your biases and expanding your perspective. Empathy is the ability to understand other people’s emotions, see things from their point of view (perspective), and feel how they feel.
Empathy is more than just being able to recognize when a person is upset or stressed. It means being able to place yourself in their metaphorical shoes and envision how they’re feeling.
Without empathy, it’s impossible to eliminate biases and change your perspective. Explicit and implicit bias require being able to understand how people, especially those from other social groups, feel and see the world.
The skill is also critical for seeing other people’s worldviews and using them to inform and shape your perspective. The only way to change how you interpret events and interactions in your life is by being able to imagine them from someone else’s point of view.
How to expand your perspective
If you’ve made it to this section, congratulations. The first, and most daunting step to expanding your perspective, is recognizing the need to. If you want to change to a more positive perspective and eliminate negative biases, the list of tips below is a great place to start.
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- Help others: A research paper from 2023 revealed that volunteering can boost a person’s social, emotional, and physical well-being. It can also help you practise empathy, meet people from other social groups, and expand your perspective.
- Practice self-reflection: Taking the time to practise introspection and self-reflect on events that happen throughout your day is important. Analysing your interactions with other people can help you identify any biases and pinpoint areas where your perspective needs improvement.
- Reframe your mindset: When a negative event occurs, try to ‘reframe your mindset’ and look at the situation through a positive lens. This can help you train your brain to be more positive, reshaping your perspective.
- Journaling: Regular journaling is a good way to be more attuned with your emotions, facilitating empathy and identifying biases.
It’s also important to remember that asking for help is okay. Mental health professionals, like psychologists, can provide personalised advice and strategies for expanding your perspective and tackling biases.
