Untentional Intolerance--Influence of Life Experience on Unintended Behavior

"Several years ago, Steve L. Robbins, PhD, coined the term 'unintentional intolerance' to define biases of which people are unaware," (JAVMA News, October 1, 2008).  Many researchers have documented various components of life experience which serves as the filter by which we find value in our experience--both tacitly (unconsciously) and with conscious awareness.

In my 1992 dissertation, I explored the components of life experience (see slide 3, then slide 2) and showed how these components of life experience are a factor in how we reflect on our experience and add to our integrated life experience.

While research such as that completed for this dissertation show how these often tacitly held beliefs influence our behavior, that does not mean that we remain aware of these influences in the moment of our action.

How often do we allow unintentional intolerance to influence our speech and behavior?  We often act in the same way a personal computer or Macintosh computer allows us to have operations working in the background of our awareness while we focus our attention on something in the foreground.