Bias, 4

Healthy discrimination based on bias assessments can help you avoid danger. Unmanaged, it can run riot and turn into bullying and bigotry. How could that happen? Based on one frightening experience, an individual might jump to a global assumption. Or, a trusted adult could pass along a perception based on his/her own unfortunate experience. Or, a biological ancestor’s “bad” experience (mentally, emotionally, or physically) was epigenetically filed away in cellular memory—and passed down in family lines to the third and fourth generation. Fortunately, learned perspectives can be reevaluated and relearned, often by just getting to know someone different from you. Many have eventually decided that diversity can be enriching. Bottom line? Identify your own brain bias and alter what is erroneous.