 On September 29th, we witnessed the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Personally, I had no plan to watch this debate, and I was actually going to watch American Horror Story Coven with my lovely girlfriend Tristan, but she had to go out. So, like millions of others around the world, I endured the debate, and it was more of a mess than any of us expected. Trump's lack of maturity and emotional regulation caused him to interrupt Biden at every turn, and Chris Wallace was forced to stop the president on numerous occasions. In my opinion, Biden's one goal should have been to keep his cool to really highlight Trump's lack of candor, but Biden failed miserably at this. But, the focus of this video isn't to share my opinions about how each candidate did, or to fact-check each of their statements. I'm more fascinated with how each side perceived the debate and who won. Although I'm liberal, I find it a good practice to follow right-wing media to not only see how their side thinks, but even though I disagree with their ideology, they're more likely to call out factors my biases may miss on the left. So, since the debate, I've seen both the right and the left share their opinions on who won and who lost the debate, and it's been fascinating. The left has been focusing on Trump's avalanche of lies throughout the evening and his constant interruptions. But what stood out the most to many of us was the fact that Trump was given the opportunity to denounce white supremacists and he came so close, but he then refused to do so. Meanwhile, those from the right argued that Trump clearly won this debate, and they've created the narrative that Trump was outnumbered as he had to defend himself against Joe Biden as well as the Fox News moderator Chris Wallace. Since the debate finished, Trump has sent out a barrage of tweets with clips of conservative pundits and his supporters to further create the image that he won the debate. While watching the debate, I tried to be as objective as possible, and that's why I found the coverage so interesting. Although there were many lies from Trump, I saw certain people hyper-focus on strange flaws from Trump's debate. Meanwhile, I saw this clip that Trump shared where Leo Terrell claims Biden didn't say anything about helping the black community. Not only was Leo Terrell wrong, but I've seen many people on the left who miss things as well. So I thought this was the perfect time to discuss a psychological flaw that many of us suffer from without even knowing it, and it comes from one of the most famous studies in the field. But before we get started, if you're new to the rewired soul, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. Here we develop our critical thinking skills and practice skepticism by taking a look at what's going on in the world and see what we can learn from it. I absolutely love reading books on the flaws in our thinking and how to improve it. Some of the most recent books I've read on the subject include The Art of Thinking Clearly, Black Box Thinking, and Cluj. I read books like this because I truly believe that the closest any of us can get to self-awareness is to realize that our brains and how we think can be extremely fallible. A study that's often referenced in some of these books, as well as many other books, is the famous study on Perception from Albert Hastorf and Hadley Cantrell. By analyzing this study, we may be able to have a better idea of who won the presidential debate of Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The authors of this study had the idea after a 1951 football game between the rivaling teams of Dartmouth and Princeton. In this game, there was quite a bit of controversy as well as a disagreement between the two schools as to what actually happened during the game. Much like the left and the right after the debate, Hastorf and Cantrell found it interesting that it appeared as though people witnessed completely different events. So, they designed a study which is described in the abstract of their famous paper, They Saw a Game, A Case Study. A questionnaire was designed to get reactions to the game and to learn something of the climate of opinion was administered at each school in the same motion picture of the game was shown to a sample of undergraduates at each school, followed by another questionnaire. Whether the students were physically at the game or watched the video of it, you'd hope their memory of the events were accurate, but that's far from what happened. Here are just some of the results from the study. One question said, for what you saw in the game or the movies or what you have read, which team do you feel started the rough play? 36% of students say Dartmouth started it, but there were 86% of Princeton students who said that Dartmouth started it. And then another question that says, from your observations of what went on at that game, do you believe the game was clean and fairly played or that it was unnecessarily rough and dirty? Dartmouth students, 6% of them said it was clean and fair and 24% said it was rough and dirty. Princeton students, 0% said it was clear and fair and 69% said it was rough and dirty. In total, there were eight questions asked and as you can see from the examples, the students saw completely different events. When interpreting the data, the authors stated, it seems clear that the quote-unquote game actually was many different games and that each version of events that transpired was just as quote-unquote real to a particular person as other versions were to the other people. A consideration of the experiential phenomena that constitute a quote-unquote football game where the spectator may help us both to account for the results obtained and illustrate something of the nature of any social event. As they said, this is more than just a study about a football game. This study illustrates something about the nature of any social event. This study spawned many other social psychology studies which then led to what's known as selective perception. So who won the debate? Well, it depends who you ask. Trump supporters will say Trump won and Biden supporters will say that he won. The reality is that we all fall victim to selective perception and we see what we want to see. Although the 2020 elections have major implications for the future of our country, as well as the rest of the world, we should all take a moment to think about how selective perception manifests in other aspects of our lives. Are we staying in toxic relationships because we're not seeing the truth of the situation? Are we stuck at an awful job because our perceptions are off? And what about the thoughts that go through our head that fuel our depression or anxiety? Critical thinking not only helps me analyze what's going on in the world, but it helps me take a look at my own thoughts and life to try and get closer to the truth. Oftentimes, our perceptions are not reality. Our brains are flawed and subject to a slew of biases that many of us neglect to acknowledge. By becoming more aware of the inner workings of our minds, we can become better critical thinkers, improve our emotional intelligence, and get a little bit closer to living a better life. All right, everybody. I hope you enjoyed that quick little video essay. But yeah, I want you to think about selective perception. When we're viewing situations, our own biases completely skew what actually happened. And there's a whole bunch of other studies that I could dive into. But anyways, let me know your thoughts on the debate, who you think won. All right, or if you just think it was a hot mess all around. But anyways, I always think that these are great opportunities to discuss a little bit about psychology and the way our minds work and all that kind of stuff. And if you want to check out any of those books, I recommend it down in the description below. Those are affiliate links. So when you use my link to get those books, a little bit comes back to support the channel. And by the way, make sure you're following me on Instagram and Twitter. I'm starting a weekly book review. I finished like, I don't know, four or five books a week. So I'm going to start just kind of knocking them out as a review. So follow me on social media, and I'll be sharing them over there. Alright, but anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And a huge thank you to everybody who supports the channel over on Patreon, or getting my books at therewardsoul.com, or using affiliate links for the books, or any of that stuff, you're all awesome. All right, thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.