Leading for the Future:
Adaptive Leadership Module 1 – Ladder of Inference
The Ladder of Inference
Inferring is largely an automatic and unconscious process in adults; we have to operate most of the time using higher level abstraction in order to process the huge amounts of information we gather through our senses.
Our assumptions or attributions about other people are extrapolations from perceived data at various levels of abstraction. Chris Argyris[1] describes this as a ladder of inference: the higher the rung in the ladder, the more abstract and less reliable the inference.
Ladder of Inference
In the course of our lifetime, attitudes and beliefs become reinforced by our selective attention to events: we tend to pay attention to confirming rather than disconfirming data. In the main, this is a natural and helpful process because it helps us avoid information overload and continuous reappraisal of people and situations. However, it does mean that we all operate on the basis of prejudices and biases: “a man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest”. No two people experience the same event the same way.
An Example:
Our natural mental shortcuts (assumptions, expectations, biases, prejudices, beliefs, attitudes) can prove to be unhelpful at times.
Problems arise from not testing our attributions about other people's behaviour. The higher the level of inference, the more difficult it is to be explicit about our thinking process; in threatening situations, it becomes more difficult. Very often, when things go wrong, we attribute to others our own weaknesses, assuming that we all fail for the same reasons. We seek to protect ourselves and the others involved by not telling them the negative attributions we are making about them; and this is considered to be the "right" thing to do.
Unfortunately, by avoiding confrontation and leaving attributions untested, they can become self-fulfilling prophecies, even if inaccurate. For example, if I assume she is autocratic and behave to protect myself from her “autocratic” decisions (e.g. by avoiding discussing important issues with her), she is likely to end up acting autocratically because of what she sees as my untrustworthy behaviour.
1
Reproduced with permission of Malcolm Young & Associates
Leading for the Future:
Adaptive Leadership Module 1 – Ladder of Inference
1
Reproduced with permission of Malcolm Young & Associates
[1] Strategy, Change and Defensive Routines, Chris Argyris, Pitman Publishing Limited, 1985