In the Zone

Not to beat around the bush too long, but Michael Shermer says that humans tend to convince ourselves to believe: We overvalue the "hits" that support our beliefs, and discount the more numerous "misses." This represents the core of his argument. People will see the things that affirm certain beliefs, ideals, and biases, while at the same time, they will choose not to see the things that affirm the opposite.

I believe that this is a fundamental principal that guides human action. Everything that we do, everything that we think, and every reaction we have is a product of our preconceived individual beliefs. Humans are very one-track minded and will easily conform to the preconceived notions that they already have. I see this every day, but I don’t completely understand why this is so. At a deeper level, I think it has to do with a person’s desire to not stray away from their comfort zone. Everybody has a zone of comfort in whatever they do, whether it be in talking about religion, meeting new people, or trying to determine how the Earth rotates. Introverts have a differing level of comfort in social surroundings than extroverts. Imagine that a devout Catholic who was raised to believe in everything about Catholicism has a conversation with an atheist. The atheist provides undeniable proof that Catholicism is flawed and that the beliefs that this person has held for his or her entire life is based on a lie. How do you think that this person is going to take it? I don’t know for sure, but probably not very well. He or she will dispute the evidence and self-rationalize to a point that puts them back into their comfort zone. Most people do the things that keep them in the zone, and try to avoid all the things that take them out. This logic may not always hold true, but I think it’s reasonable to assume that humans like to live their lives in their comfort zone.

This concept can be useful for understanding people’s choices in making purchases. How far are people willing to go out of their zone for certain products? What kind of qualities or aspects of the product do people relate to, and what qualities put them in their comfort zone? Knowing this can be incredibly valuable for marketers because they can really target what people want in a product or service. If you keep them in the zone that they want to be in, then you have a repeat customer.

Another interesting point that Shermer brought up was that people are easily persuaded by the power of suggestion. I saw all of his examples that he put up and I thought they were pretty interesting when I saw how the crowd responded to the slides and clips he used, especially the Led Zeppelin example. People heard the word Satan in the reversed playing of the song, but I don’t think many were convinced that this song was actually a satanic song. However, when he put up the lyrics, I bet he had a lot of people convinced that the song was about worshipping the almighty Lucifer. This leads me to the conclusion that people will easily give into ideas if they are unfamiliar with what is put in front of them. I think it’s natural for people to be inquisitive about things that they don’t know about, but our society has created people that think it’s bad to not know something, so in an effort to feel like they understand (being knowledgeable and understanding is a natural zone of comfort for anyone), they accept and believe what they see.