The study of human psychology is never-ending, and therefore endlessly fascinating. You don’t have to be a white-coated scientist with a lab full of white rats to be a psychologist, either. It takes only curiosity and a willingness to strive for objective observational perspective in order to engage in the practical field research of humans. The effort is amply rewarded, because there are so many ways to apply the knowledge gained, incomplete and imperfect though it may be.

For instance, recent research has shown that our brains actually make decisions before we are conscious of them. The neural signals that trigger to act upon a decision are detected before the subject is aware of the choice. In this case, “aware” means that the subject speaks the choice to himself, silently and with the internal dialogue of the conscious mind.

The implication of this evidence is that our conscious mind is always “catching up” to the decisions and actions of our unconscious or subconscious minds. The unconscious mind is thought to be that which used to be conscious, but is now so habituated that the activity no longer requires voluntary action. Like 10-finger typing, riding a bike or constructing a sentence in one’s native language. The subconscious mind is thought to be all those brain activities that have never been conscious, including the autonomic nervous system that controls such things as breathing and blood pressure, the fight-freeze-or-flight response and procreative drive.

An implication of this research is that humans are not aware of when they have made a decision. And if they are questioned about that decision, they could be simply composing an extemporaneous, plausible story as to the rationale for it, which may not be accurate. We don’t know why we make decisions, but we attempt to create the reasons with our logical mind so that it makes sense. How many times have you made a decision that you later regretted, and then asked yourself privately, “Now, why did I do that?” I have a book full of such.

To avoid being surprised by our own decisions, the amateur psychologist can employ the standard tool of the scientist: considering oneself just another rat in the maze. When scientists design research in behavior, whether it is for rats or pigeons or people, they are careful to identify the various sources of information that may introduce confounding variables and experimenter bias. Bias is the tendency of the observer to see only what is expected. And we all have our biases.

The study of perception, pioneered by the Gestalt psychology movement early in the last century, has shown that we perceive imperfectly. We introduce “percepts,” or units of sensed information, that can be shown not to actually exist. We see patterns where there aren’t any, because the patterns we are seeing are projections of patterns we are predisposed to seeing.

For example, if a farmer is used to looking for weeds when surveying their plowed acreage, they will miss the presence of the rattlesnake. When you present an image that can be interpreted two ways, some people see only one of the images, while others perceive the alternate. Or if a parent wishes their child to be attractive, they will tend to ignore the imperfections. “A face only a mother could love,” as the saying goes.

Taken together, just these two principles of human behavior can be useful in understanding ourselves, and in leading others. First, we don’t always consciously know why we choose to do the things we do. Second, we take in information and filter it according to what we expect to perceive, based upon our existing biases. It is with great effort of ruthlessly honest self-study that we may become more instantly self-aware about ourselves.

Then we’ll be more understanding of others when they do something we think is boneheaded, or fail to appreciate our cogent, conclusive arguments, constructed after the decisive fact.

Sewitch is CEO of KI Investment Holdings LLC, conducting an investment experiment in long-term principles. He can be reached at stan@sddt.com.