I heard about this crazy theory that there is a correlation between parking and a country’s productivity.
An international business professor did some research and apparently, Americans tend to back into public parking spaces more often, selfishly blocking the flow of traffic around businesses while they continually reposition their vehicles so that they can experience the gratification of immediately pulling out when they are ready to leave.
Chinese pull in forward more often so they reduce their impact on the flow of traffic and will patiently yield to approaching vehicles when it comes time to back out and leave.
This is why China is more productive than the United States. They are more attuned to how their actions contribute to the good of the whole of society.
Oh wait a minute, that isn’t what the research says at all.
Actually, it says Chinese back into spots more frequently than Americans, showing their propensity for delaying gratification and that is why they are more productive. They are more willing than Americans to forgo comfort now for prosperity later.
You can read a quick recap of the research on this NPR story about it.
When I first heard about this research, I thought it was a bunch of baloney and sounded like confirmation basis. Backing in to a spot as a manifestation of delayed gratification supports the narrative of Chinese as patient just like it supports the narrative of Americans being selfish in my fake survey results.
Did you find it easy to believe my fake example by the way?
I don’t necessarily care overly much about parking and productivity. I just thought this was a good illustration of how our biases can shape our perceptions of data. When we survey our community and look at the results, we often make conclusions about what has lead to those answers based on what we think we know. In addition, the choices we made while collecting the data might have pre-biased the results toward our existing assumptions.
It is only when you don’t believe the results that you take the time to scrutinize them closer and see if there are any problems. If you agree with the findings, you aren’t motivated to do so.
The author of the parking study presents some numbers that show a correlation between parking style and productivity so there may be some evidence in support of his hypothesis. But I wouldn’t know that if I hadn’t been inclined to think that the way you park your car was the product of a wide variety of factors and not a manifestation of delayed gratification.
It can be difficult to do, but when you review data about your organization, be it surveys, ticket sales, attendance, etc., it can be good to occasionally step back and wonder, is this what the data really says or what I want it to say?