The study of “othering” focuses on how we identify others and the consequences of that labeling.

Originally the studies analyzed the era of Western exploration and colonization. For example, Captain Cook labeled the people he encountered in Hawai’i as “savages,” “not civilized,” “not developed,” and “not Western.” In contemporary times, women were described in terms of “not men” and those in the LGBTQ community were described in terms of “not heterosexual.”

The process of othering tends to define the differences from the perceived positives we view in ourselves. There are many negative consequences of othering, including considering those that are different as “less than” and not recognizing people’s good attributes. The “others” themselves experience negative effects when they are forced one way or another to accept this alternative version of themselves.

Rudyard Kipling said it many years ago in his poem “We and They:”

               “All nice people, like us, are We

               And everyone else is They:” 

The concept of othering applies equally well to groups and individuals in conflict. Motorists can have strong views of cyclists defining them as “others” in ways that reaffirm their own “rightness” and the “selfish” demands of cyclists. Covid vaccinated individuals can have strong views of people who refuse vaccination defining them as “others” lacking in personal and social consciousness. Members of political parties can view and speak of members across the aisle in othering language. For example, a 2019 study presented Republicans and Democrats with moral violations committed by individuals identified by each political party. The study showed that Democrats were more lenient on other Democrats and Republicans were more lenient on other Republicans. The difference was who was the “other” and who was the “us.” 

What can happen if we stop thinking of others as “them”? Kevin Dutton, author of the new book “Black and White Thinking” tells the story of Winston Churchill who happened to see a guest about to steal a valuable silver saltshaker from the dinner table. Of the many things Churchill could have done, he picked up the matching pepper shaker and slipped it inside his coat pocket and walked over to the other guest, set the pepper shaker on the table and whispered, “I think they’ve seen us. We’d better put them back.”

 Rather than making the guest a “them,” Churchill made the guest and himself a “we” and the rest of the guests the “them.” Churchill demonstrated what those who study conflict would advise: help people find the “we” and let go of the “they.”

Perhaps you learned during your education that our awareness of the external world begins with our neurological sensation of the external. For example, the presence of a cat nearby begins with light receptors in our retina, which are transmitted as signals to our brain. Our brains then interpret those signals and identifies the cat’s existence.

What then explains how individuals can respond to the same external surroundings in different ways?We’ve recognized that individuals can differ in sensory skills, such as with color blindness or nearsightedness. We also acknowledge that after becoming aware of the cat from the earlier example that we can attach individual experiences to the sensation, such as attaching loving feelings from past memories while another might attach different feelings as a result from allergic reactions. But we’ve assumed that each of us has the potential for generally the same neurological awareness of the cat.

Recent neuroscience research has cast a new light on this assumption. Research now suggests that many, if not most, of our neurological signals do not flow from the eye to the brain, but instead flow from the brain to the eye. From past experience our brain expects to see something and in essence predicts what the eye should see. Only when there is a discrepancy between the expectation and experience are neural signals sent to the brain.

Of course, generalizations from basic research are to be taken only as suggestions, but think of the implications of understanding that what we perceive of the world is what we already believe to be there and if so, our senses only unconsciously scan for discrepancies. For each of us, reality is what we expect to be correctly external only when we accept an awareness of a contradiction to that expectation.

How does this apply to conflict and dispute resolution? From past experiences we believe new neighbors are trouble. That is what we believe and what we see. We see what we expect to be there. We interact with our new neighbor based on our belief which, in turn, influences how our new neighbor builds the expectation of us. Their expectation of us begins to be one of an unfriendly person. We may have conflicts.

How are these beliefs changed? First there must be a willingness to be open to an awareness of discrepancies, then an acknowledgement of a discrepancy, and then a willingness to change our mental image. Perhaps only after a dramatic change in our own life we become open to new experiences and begin to see our neighbor’s actions are not expressions of being unfriendly at all. Our neighbor didn’t change, only our expectation of how we see them.

Initially we all see what we each expect to from the outset, which explains why we don’t all agree, at least at first, on the things we see around us.

To read more about this research, consult Andy Clark’s 2013 work in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, “Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science.”