The "Homie Principle"

With help from my friends at NASA (Langley) I am using a new term to describe how we tend to go to our friends to confirm ideas that we like and disconfirm ideas with which we don't agree.. It's called the "Homie Principle." (And for you who have never been called a homie, a homie's a good thing)

Think about this a moment. We tend to hang out with people who are like us. Who think like us, act like us, look like us and who generally share the same values and beliefs. A subset of these folks are our friends, our homies. Besides being a great support group our homies serve as a sounding board for us. They listen to what we have to say and the vast majority of time, they agree with much of what we have to say, especially on important "values" type issues. We need homies like this because they help us to navigate our world with some level of confidence. The serve as a protective wall that shield us from "weird" and "kooky" stuff. However, a wall can be seen as not only as something that protects but it can also be viewed as something that imprisons us. Unfortunately, our homies also serve to insulate us from ideas that at times we need to hear and critically entertain. They prevent us from hearing and seeing alternatives to our current reality.

Here's what generally happens when we run up against an idea (or anything) that challenges our current conception of the world. When we hear it (and can't explain it away our selves) we go to our homies to get their opinion about this thing that caused us some cognitive discomfort. Not surprisingly, our homies (who think like us) tell us it's stupid stuff to which we should pay no attention. We then walk away thankful to have homies who agree with us and help us to get back into our comfort zone.

You don't have to be all that insightful to recognize how this phenomenon I call the "Homie Principle" might lead to groupthink, stifle creativity and innovation, and lead to less than optimal decision-making and wrong conclusions. Our homies simultaneously serve a good purpose (support and protect us) and a bad purpose (imprison us). Since they can be both positive and negative our job as individuals is to be mindful of how the Homie Principle works and how important it is, if we want to practice open-mindedness, to seek out opinions from myriad sources, not just our homies. As Aristotle states, "The measure of a wise person is the ability to entertain new ideas, without necessarily having to accept them." Is your mind an entertaining place? Is your walk in life an entertaining walk? If not, you may have to admit you are more closed than open-minded. But don't take my word for it, go ask your homies.