Unlearning Expectations: The Fundamentals to Accepting Asexuality and Aromanticism

The Oxford Dictionary defines unlearn as a verb meaning “to discard (something learned, especially a bad habit or false or outdated information) from one’s memory.”

A lot of my adult life so far has been centered around unlearning things I was raised with. Part of growing up is pushing past what you were taught and doing your best to figure out what you do, in fact, believe, so that you can create a better future for yourself and others. This involves both actively learning about the world around us and taking the time and effort to challenge our core beliefs.

Core beliefs are essentially how each of us sees ourselves, others, and how we each interpret our world. Everyone has them and everyone passes them along to others around them all the time. They are not necessarily good or bad — they can be either good or bad, or even neutral.

Core beliefs are extremely difficult to unlearn. Our brains do not like to be challenged. Challenging the beliefs of others can even result in The Backfire Effect, or our own beliefs becoming stronger. But how is that possible?

Challenging Our Core Beliefs

So what’s happening in the brain when our core beliefs are challenged?

It goes something like this: First, we are presented with new information that does not align with something we deeply believe. Our brain reacts as if it’s being physically threatened and our emotional response rushes our much more quickly than our logical thinking. Our previous biases are confirmed the stronger the emotional reaction gets for us. In the other person’s attempt to disprove our misconception, our brain goes to emotional arguments rather than anything logical, even as the other person presents us with thorough information to back up their side of the argument.

Our emotions are fast and strong and our brains like emotions more than they like logic. Even when we’re presented with logic, if the logic challenges something we believe deeply, our brains reject it before we’ve even had the chance to consider the new information.