We are not leopards and we can change our spots!

Without the greatest of support as a child, my husband does not have the fondest of memories of school to say the least. He was frequently told he was “stupid” and just tried to hide his way through everything! After moving to the UK in his mid-twenties with no knowledge of English, he effectively started again from the bottom until at the age of 32, he chose to embark on a degree in Psychology. The start was tough, as he battled with the volume of reading and his ability to retain the details of academic references and complex terminologies. However, an early module on learning disorders led to a light-bulb moment and his diagnosis as dyslexic, which started to help make sense of why his sharp and creative mind had struggled to translate into academic success.

This was a Eureka moment, helping him understand why he was facing so many challenges. He was given extra educational support, and this taught him how to deal with some of the difficulties he had been facing and started the process to build the confidence to believe he was not “stupid”. Putting it simply, he learned how to learn! But this was not an overnight transformation, and the degree was quite a journey for him. After struggling in the first year, he improved steadily during the second year, and was flying by the third year. To me, this sounds like a true advert for university education, someone who started with a lot of difficulties and challenges, learned hugely during the time he was there, and emerged as a different person. You might think therefore that he would be rewarded for the progress he had made and be congratulated on being a top student at the culmination of the course?

Sadly not. His degree score was built up from his performance across the whole three years. This meant that rather than being rewarded for the strong improvement he had made, he was penalised by the poor marks that he got in the first year before overcoming his dyslexia. Rather than marking him down for struggling at the start, shouldn’t we have celebrated and rewarded his learning, progress and positive development? Instead, he was awarded a lower grade than his final year performance warranted, and despite a subsequent Masters degree, these first year grades have haunted him ever since. Our tendency to remind people of former limitations, weaknesses or failings can have a long-lasting effect.

Now this may seem a bit unfair that he was penalised for past performance, but this is what we are all doing when we keep remembering or reminding people of past mistakes, behaviours, comments or judgements. Sometimes past form is a good indication of the way someone truly is; but only if that person has not changed. By placing so much weight on the past, rather than focusing on the person in front of us now, we remove any credit or incentive for learning. As we converse with people in our day-to-day lives, we need to remember this, supporting the learning journey of others, just as much as we open our minds to facilitate our own voyages of discovery.

But this is not as easy as it sounds, and there are two big reasons for this. Firstly, there is a psychological concept called the negativity bias. This is an in-built?cognitive bias that means we feel negative events more intensely than positive ones, with the consequence that things we get wrong linger much longer in people’s minds. This explains, for example, why after turning up late to one family Christmas (because we were delivering presents at a care home!), my partner and I have been questioned about our punctuality ever since. The irritation that we caused by delaying Christmas dinner on one occasion (about fifteen years ago!) is remembered more intensely than my frequent but less noticeable punctuality. This is exasperating, especially when others can be repeatedly late without any repercussions, but is difficult to shake once a perception has been created.

Whilst irritating enough to aggravate me in a discussion, this is a fairly trivial situation and nothing compared to the challenges faced by people with more serious incidents in their past. Consider for a moment, people who may have been to prison, or battled addictions, whose attempts to rehabilitate are only worthwhile if we give them the credit for their efforts. While we remain distracted by their past, how can we blame them for losing the motivation to improve and change their course? This is particularly problematic when our negativity bias is exacerbated by our second barrier, which is our conviction that:

A leopard cannot change its spots

But we are not leopards and we absolutely can change for the better.

If you don’t believe it, then consider the case of a good friend of mine who made a grossly homophobic remark to me at the time I was struggling most intensely with my sexuality, and significantly heightened my fear of coming out. But when I finally plucked the courage to tell my friends, he is the one who stepped up more than anyone. Over the years, he has proved himself to be the most supportive and open-minded of my old friends; someone who truly goes beyond tolerance, continually demonstrating his deep-rooted care for me and my partner. My husband truly sees and appreciates that, and considers him a true friend, just as much as I do. Why did he say something so offensive? Maybe his comments were simply not representative of what he truly thought. Maybe he held those opinions at the time but has since learned the error of his ways. Who cares! His historic remark was crass and offensive, but not a reflection of the friend I have known and loved ever since and it is therefore forgiven and forgotten.

If you still don’t believe it, then read the wonderful post by Hunter Shepard on his recovery from addiction, where he highlighted that:

USED TO BE is the most important part of this post

... to highlight the transformation journey that he has successfully made.

We can all change, but we need to have a conviction to make that change, and we also need support, encouragement and recognition for managing to do it. When we look at our politicians, I wince every time someone raids social media and finds a snippet showing that this politician once said something different to what they are saying now, particularly when they have trawled the archives to find some contradictory comment from 20 years ago. We are frustrated that our politicians are out of touch, but they will stay that way if we refuse to let them change. And it is the same with everyone we meet.

So when you enter a discussion with someone, consider the past and maybe use it to question more heavily to see if someone still thinks or behaves the same. But don’t let it colour your judgement of the present if they have changed for the better. People who evolve and improve deserve our admiration and appreciation about how they have learned and changed, rather than being slapped down and reminded of their past failings. And moreover, if you persuade someone to change their mind, then give them the credit for listening and learning, rather than giving them grief for being wrong in the first place; and then still holding that against them the next time you talk! Discussions truly are an opportunity for learning, but only when we open our minds to believe everyone involved can change.

James Wyatt, Author of?The Art of Discussion