Let's talk about cognitive biases. Commitment bias, confirmation bias, and negativity bias are common thinking patterns that can lead to errors in judgment as well as conflict in our relationships. We dive into how they show up in our everyday lives and how becoming aware of our brain's tendencies can allow us to be more open and curious and to find more joy and connection in our relationships.

We hope today's episode sparks some fun insights for you and we invite you to dive deeper with our Episode Questions. Join us on Instagram or YouTube to continue the conversation and share your reflections.

Let’s dig deep, challenge paradigms, choose connection, and live joyfully!

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EPISODE QUESTIONS

Download a printable PDF of this week's questions here.

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1. Examine your thoughts around quitting, sunk costs, and commitments. Are those thoughts serving you? Do you and your partner see them in the same way?
2. Describe a time when confirmation bias stopped you from seeing someone else’s point of view.
3. Do the Joy Writing exercise for your partner or another loved one. Reflect on how it felt and how it changes your energy when you read it.

TRANSCRIPT

ANNA: Hello and welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast. We're happy you're here exploring relationships with us, who we are in them, out of them, and what that means for how we move through the world.

If you're new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen to the earlier episodes. We started with some foundational relationship ideas and really have enjoyed how they're kind of playing off each other and building on one another. And if you've already been enjoying the podcast, we'd love it if you could leave a rating and review. That definitely helps new people find us.

In today's episode, we're gonna talk about a few common cognitive biases that trip us up as we navigate our relationships. Cognitive biases are basically mental shortcuts that our brains will take as they try to quickly process the vast amounts of information in our very complex world.

So, let's start with commitment bias and the sunk cost fallacy. The sunk cost fallacy is associated with the commitment bias, where we continue to support our past decisions despite new evidence suggesting that it isn't really the best course of action. We fail to take into account that whatever time, effort, or money that we've already expended will not be recovered.

And this could be something as simple as finishing a meal or a movie one of you isn't enjoying, because you've already paid for it, or something bigger, like finishing a college program even though, at this point, you're pretty sure you don't want to work in that field at all, but you stay because you've committed to it.

This can cause friction in our relationships when we have different ideas about money, commitment, and what those things mean. Very often, the idea to stick it out at all costs was pretty much ingrained in us as children. Somehow we're a failure if we quit or we would be wasting the money, so we have to stick with it to make these expenditures worthwhile.

It's really worth examining those beliefs if you see them coming into play in your relationships. Understanding sunk costs helps us see that the money is spent, period. The choice then becomes whether I want to take what I've learned about myself and move on to something else I can enjoy or stay with something that I don't.

Take the money out of the equation because it's already gone, but what can I get out of that situation? What I get out of is up to me. Just learning that we don't like something has value. Letting go of judging ourselves or our partners as failing when we decide to quit something goes a long way to learning more about each other. And providing unconditional support as we figure out what we want to do with our time.

The conversation is so much more valuable when we're looking at the nuances of the situation. And this also comes into play big time with children, doesn't it?

PAM: Oh, it definitely does. We think we're teaching our children something positive by insisting they stick it out and follow through on their commitments when we sign them up for a rec class or they join a team. But the message they're often absorbing is, don't try new things unless you're really sure you're going to like it, or you might get stuck having to do something you really dislike.

It can be so helpful to frame these kinds of choices, not as commitments, but as opportunities to try something new. You're paying for the opportunity for them to try it out and discover if it's as interesting as they imagine. Insisting someone not quit doing something they're not enjoying or just judging them negatively when they do is disconnecting and damaging to the relationship. And to what end? Because they definitely learn something more about themselves through discovering they don't like the thing and they can use that knowledge along with the time they freed up to pursue something else more in alignment with their interests.

So, when you think about it in the bigger picture, they'll find the things that they love more quickly this way. And it's in finding the things they really enjoy where you'll see commitment in action. Even when things get frustrating or inconvenient, they'll show up. So, it's not about teaching commitment, it's about finding the things they are excited to commit to.

And that definitely applies to us as well. Sometimes it's easier to think about it in the context of another person, but then to make that shift to realize this applies to us. We don't need to pressure ourselves to follow through on commitments if our enthusiasm has waned and we are ready to move on.

Instead, let's celebrate that. Yay! Look what we know. We know more about what we like and what we don't like, or even more about the environments in which we're comfortable. That's another big piece of it too, right?

ANNA: Yes. I love celebrating when we're learning more about who we are and how we want to move through the world. And I love the idea of paying for the opportunity. It's such a helpful framework. We're always learning and I want to support my kids, my partner, and myself in trying things that seemed interesting to us.

I didn't need to have an attachment to the outcome, because no matter what, there will be learning, even if it's just, I really don't like this particular activity.

And so, it goes back to conversations too though, because we can talk about the money involved in trying something and we can see if there's ways to trial it first, and what would be some of our other options. But I didn't want to get stuck only looking at decisions through the lens of how much it costs.

It's one part, but it's not the only, and I usually found it wasn't the most important part.

And it was actually my finance major husband who first told me about sunk costs when one of our children wanted to quit a class they were taking and it made honoring where they were and what they were learning so much easier, because I could let go of any guilt or baggage around the money part. Because the money's already spent, and again, this was work I needed to do for myself, as well. Giving myself permission to try something, even if I wasn't perfect at it, even if I decided at any point along the way that it wasn't working for me.

PAM: Yeah, it's interesting how it's often easier to give grace to other people than it is to give it to ourselves, but we're people too. And I wanted just to bring back that point, when we talk about sunk costs, it's not about ignoring the money. It is once it's spent, but it doesn't mean we don't have that conversation up front. Maybe this is gonna be a big chunk of our budget and we want to look at all sorts of possibilities. If there is a way to get some experience with it before spending the larger chunk, that can be a valid way, too. Again, back to the conversations.

ANNA: That's the richness of the conversations and staying connected and the baby steps from last week. It all wraps together.

PAM: Okay, so now let's talk about the confirmation bias, which is the tendency to process information by looking for or interpreting information that is consistent with one's existing beliefs. This biased approach to decision making is largely unintentional and often results in ignoring what feels like inconsistent information. "That doesn't make sense. I'm going to toss that."

It's hard to be open and curious when we're filtering information through our existing beliefs. This can sow disconnection in our relationship in a few ways, like discounting the other person's ideas or always bringing the same old ideas to our conversations. We are less creative.

And in conversations, we tend to listen to the other person with an eye to picking out the bits that match how we see this situation, which we talked about a couple of weeks ago as well. And we're just waitin