Everyday situational awareness should be your constant state of being, but how do you focus with constant distractions?

Challenges to situational awareness lurk around every corner. They pose a problem to all of our safety, security, and our very survival. Fortunately for all of us, many of the challenges to everyday situational awareness can be minimized and possibly overcome completely. However, to do so, you first need to understand what the problems are, and that’s what this episode is all about.

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is our tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information that supports our pre-existing beliefs and assumptions.

An example of confirmation bias is the gun control debate. People on both sides of the debate seek out information, news stories, etc., that support and paint their position in a positive light. At the same time, they seek out information that discredits the other side's positions and portrays them in a negative light.

In the end, even if both sides read the same story, they are both likely to interpret the story in ways that support their position and beliefs.

Overcoming Confirmation Bias

Unfortunately, all of us have confirmation bias, even those who believe they’re open-minded. Luckily, we do have the ability to minimize its impact on us. However, while it’s challenging to overcome confirmation bias, we can limit its effect upon us.

The first step is to recognize that it exists. Then attempt to look at issues through other people’s eyes. While you may disagree with them, you may learn to understand their position. Then, as a result of that learning process, you may end up expanding your thought process broadly enough to benefit you and your everyday situational awareness in a way that affects your decision-making abilities.

Here’s an excellent article to learn more about confirmation bias.

Hyper-Focus

Hyper-focus occurs when we focus only on one specific thing. In so doing, it becomes difficult to switch our focus to another situation or task.

An example of task hyper-focus happens when a person is treating an injured patient and focuses on a specific injury. While the person is focused on the one injury, they overlook a more serious but less apparent injury. For example, a medic could be focusing on a fractured limb because it looks awful and not paying attention to something more serious, like life-threatening internal bleeding.

Often, even after a person treats the first injury they are focused on, they’ll neglect to search for other problems. This can also happen in different situations that are non-medical.

Overcoming Hyper-Focus

It’s important to remind yourself from time to time to take in the entire situation. Make sure you mentally step back and honestly observe what is happening in case you missed something before.

Hyper-focus can relate to all sorts of things, like worrying about one specific threat while another lurks right behind you. Hyper-focusing on only one particular aspect of a problem causes your everyday situational awareness to suffer.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect

The Dunning-Kruger Effect (DKE) is a person’s belief that he or she is more capable than they are in physical and mental ability, i.e., overconfidence. This overconfidence can cause someone to miss or ignore warning signs about potential trouble or try to resolve a situation believing he or she is capable but aren’t.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect is a theory that establishes a relationship between a person’s knowledge, experience, and training about a topic or situation and their confidence in dealing with that topic or situation.

People with no knowledge of a subject usually have no faith in their ability to deal with that topic. However, some people with only a small amount of experience or even incorrect information often have the highest am...