The Biggest Bias. Me.

Our biggest bias is that we matter--I mean individually.  That our individual lives matter. 

I know, I know, this seems counter-intuitive.  One second. 

The question of how much we "matter" is of course one that begs for parameters.  Set them too wide and nothing matters--a nuclear explosion is the equivalent of a dust mite, and the sun exploding is a mild itch--set them too narrow and everything matters.  Your neighbor listens to music just to piss you off, happens to park an inch into your spot just because he's got a gripe against you, and happens to itch himself with his middle finger just because, well, you know. 

Obviously, maybe, how wide we set our personal parameters, our filter, changes daily. We need reflection--wide parameters--at times.  We crave the hike, the view from the top of the mountain.  It allows us to feel like we can breath.  But, if we're set with wide parameters and must interact with someone set quite narrow, they'll be quite pissed off and we'll be oblivious to it--which is to say, how wide we all set our parameters as we walk around (or how wide they are set for us by our genes) matters a great deal to how we'll see the world, and our place in it.

As such, whether we deem ourselves important,  and how that analysis relates to our own self-esteem and feeling of fulfillment of life--and in turn how much we try to accomplish things, if at all--is highly dependent on how wide our aperture happens to be, i.e. if we're set really wide and don't matter at all, then perhaps we're reckless idiots, but if set too narrow, perhaps we never leave the house because we can't stand the stimulation, or the insults.

Whenever we argue for something, we utilize these parameters, perhaps without knowing it, and we give reasons that may make sense only to those people with similar frames--or, if they make sense to listeners, it is because the listeners have translated a reason to their particular focus.

When we don't like something, something specific, we often back up and say it doesn't matter anyway, from a more general (wider) perspective.  That's fine, and relevant, but not on-point.  After all, if we're countering someone's argument at one level, we should stay on that level and give reasons for our side, right?

Well, when we argue for ourselves, we always adjust the parameters to our favor (or, if you like, on average we do this--there are outliers who don't)--we step back or forward to make ourselves more important than we really are in a situation.  It is a natural human instinct to adjust the frame this way, perhaps the most basic bias available, and one that we have to work hard at to understand.