Attitudinal Responses

The idea of automatic attitudinal responses is an intriguing concept to me, particularly because I’ve felt that I have had very different responses than people in my normal social group. This has been a significant source of frustration for me in every day conversation and other heated discussions. As I ponder on what has caused me to have the responses that I do, the thing that comes to mind is first my family, but then more particularly my dad when it comes to disagreement. My dad consistently pushed me to question all sides and challenged me when I couldn’t back up my own position. I think all of the discussion with my dad has caused me to side with him without question at this point. I’d like to think that I still have a brain of my own though, very much thanks to my mom. My mother, very opposite of my dad, doesn’t have those big discussions with me, but she has taught to keep an open mind and be very sympathetic towards others. This means after immediately picking my side, which usually lines up with something I’ve learned from my dad, I step back and question things like my dad taught me and then try to understand like my mama taught me.

So my parents are definitely very influential in shaping my initial reactions, but I know I have had my own experiences that speak to my responses. Some of my interactions and situations I’ve dealt with in college definitely shaped my reaction to the use of trigger warnings, which I discussed at the beginning of the semester. I don’t know that trigger warnings are things that my dad would support, but some traumatic experiences I’ve had definitely made me quick to snap at those in the class who thought they were stupid and unnecessary.

Being biased isn’t a bad thing. We all have biases and I think discussion, or more likely argumentation, is far more productive if we let those biases influence our words. In addition, being objective isn’t any fun. These biases become a problem though when we let them blind us completely from another’s point of view. I have been unfriended on Facebook for being controversial and offering an alternative perspective. I think that’s a problem. If a person’s automatic attitudinal response is to get pissy and unfriend someone who has a different opinion, that person won’t be able to gain anything from the situation. If all you’re doing is looking for someone to agree with you, it’s probably best not to say anything. To be able to grow and to view things from different perspectives, we need to let our biases play a part, but not so big of one that we are no longer able to consider an alternate view.