You might manage to do both at the same time, but the question isn’t aimed at your result. It’s aimed at identifying your underlying intention or aim (also referred to as motive, although not in the conventional sense).
The question is important because the answer determines how you process information. And how you process information can have a considerable influence on how accurate you might be in your perception of reality, which in turn will influence how well you succeed at accomplishing what you set out to do.
Soldier or Scout?
A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. —Paul Simon, The Boxer
Julia Galef, president of the Center for Applied Rationality in Berkeley and author of the newly published book The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don’t, has come up with a great metaphor to describe these two different mindsets: the soldier and the scout.
She says that when you operate from the soldier mindset, your actions stem from reflexes rooted in a need to protect yourself and your side and to defeat the enemy, whoever or whatever it may be. In fact the terms used to describe operating from this mindset tend to be militaristic: shoring up, supporting, or buttressing beliefs; taking a position; shooting down opposing arguments, etc.
On the other hand, when you operate from the scout mindset, your actions are based not on attacking or defending but on understanding the terrain and potential obstacles. Instead you focus on being intellectually honest and objective because you want to know what’s really there as accurately as possible.
If someone wants to think more clearly, they have to cultivate an attitude of curiosity and openness to evidence. —Julia Galef
Confirmation or Feedback?
In the grand scheme of things, both mindsets can be useful. Obviously there are times when you need to defend and protect—and maintain the status quo. But if you’re trying to change your status quo, you need to know how to distinguish relevant information from irrelevant information. You also need to pay attention to what happens when you take steps to achieve your goals. You can interpret what happens as either confirmation or feedback.
If you’re aiming to confirm and defend your pre-existing beliefs (soldier mindset), you won’t be inclined to examine what happens with any degree of objectivity. Instead you’ll be quick to jump to a conclusion and then build a case to support it by what’s referred to as motivated reasoning.
There is considerable evidence that people are more likely to arrive at conclusions that they want to arrive at [as opposed to arriving at accurate conclusions], but their ability to do so is constrained by their ability to construct seemingly reasonable justifications for these conclusions. —Ziva Kunda
If, however, you view what happens as feedback (scout mindset), you tend to be curious about it. You want to understand it because the better you understand it the better you’ll be at making effective course corrections. People with a scout mindset, Galef says, “are more likely to feel intrigued when they encounter something that contradicts their expectations” rather than dismayed.
The soldier mindset is easier to access because System 1 is often more concerned with being right than it is with getting it right. Soldier mindset is automatic. You don’t have to do anything to slip into it. It’s easier to jump to conclusions than it is to be deliberate and thoughtful and willing to acknowledge doubt and uncertainty.
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. —Voltaire
You can end up paying a very high price when you aim to be right instead of to get it right. It’s easier to dig your heels in than it is to admit you’ve made a mistake or have changed your mind. But if you can’t change your mind, you won’t be able to change your status quo.
Bias and the soldier mindset come naturally to us. But in order to master the art and science of change, we need to develop critical thinking skills and operate from the scout mindset more than we do from the soldier mindset. But as Galef says:
Even when you’re motivated to try to improve your own reasoning and decision-making, just having the knowledge itself isn’t all that effective.