We Need To Stop Labelling People

How confirmation bias can ruin the best and brightest

You’re weird!

You’re an idiot!

You’re a bully!

You’re a psychopath!

You’re a liar!

You’re a mess!

You’re disabled!

These are just a finite amount of examples in what is an infinite pool of words we use to describe other people.

Labelling is powerful. Not so much when one person does it, but very much so when a group does.

If you are labelled as something in this world, everyone who calls you that will only consider things that enhance that initial belief and ignore what doesn’t.

This confirmation bias is relatively common among us. In fact, everyone has it. Even if you think you are very open-minded, we tend to lean on things that confirm our beliefs and ignore what doesn’t.

It can be dangerous.

When we label someone something, they become it. It is like a cage we trap them in.

If you call a bully, a bully, he or she will do things that make him/her a bully. They will accept that label as a part of them.

Whether consciously or subconsciously, they will become it.

Research confirms that labelling someone something makes them seem and see more of it.

A study was done regarding intelligence.

Teachers were given a pool of students and told that some students in their midst scored in a high percentile in intelligence. Coming to the end of the year, students were deemed smart, their scores were not much different from the rest. There was no apparent evidence.

Next year, teachers were convinced that a handful of students were smarter than the rest. These students were pointed out. By the end of that year, these students did in fact outperform the rest.

Teachers developed these students in order to fulfil what was nothing more than a label.

Those students were not actually smarter. They were selected randomly. But they're being labelled as that made teachers address them in a different way.

This was no deception on the part of the teachers. It was just confirmation bias coming into play.

As you are reading this, you are biased as well.

If you have previously leaned towards what I am saying you are likely to remember this. If not, you are more likely to forget it because it does not align with your own beliefs.

Now, don’t get me wrong, labelling someone smart is not essentially wrong, but labelling someone as dumb, for example, does him a world of harm.

Not only does confirmation bias kick in, it tends to stick. Like a boil that keeps on growing.

Consider the example of someone being labelled a bully.

So when 50 people call someone a bully, the ‘bully’ perceives themselves as being some kind of outlaw. Thus, they will do what outlaws do — break the law.

On the other hand, things also get worse.

When confirmation bias kicks in from the observer's point of view — the one calling the bully a bully — they will only focus on things that particular person does that makes him more of a bully.

As a result, if the labelled ‘bully’ starts to change his actions, it would most likely be futile.

As labels tend to stick, he would still be called that even when his actions are contrary to the fact. It would take a great deal of effort to remove the label.

Labels suggest that behaviour is fixed and are unlikely to, or unsusceptible to change.

Look at it another way.

Calling someone dumb may make him consider himself dumb too. With that limiting belief, he is more prone to negative thoughts and feelings of being unlucky or discarded from the universe.

The worst part is when kids are labelled.

If one kid is very smart, he can make okay kids look stupid. So, if those kids are labelled stupid, they are likely to fall to the end of the pyramid when they were not supposed to be there in the first place.

They are likely to make friends who reinforce that certain ‘discarded’ belief they have of themselves. ‘Stupid’ ones.

Obviously, it is not nearly as simple as I am portraying it to be, there are a gazillion factors at play, but it is quite understandable how labelling people can have repercussions. Particularly ones that are not favourable to either party.

It should not be surprising if I tell you that science has backed that people with certain labels do indeed have self-esteem issues. Why wouldn’t they, right?

Societies have an overwhelming effect on us. We all long for social approval, we are in fact social beings, but society can be relentless sometimes and that can be very harmful in most cases.

It breeds a competitive school when there was no need for one. Yes, competition is in most cases healthy and/or necessary (I am very pro-competition), but it should not exist on grounds people can’t control (Kids competing on who is smarter).

That is unfair.

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