I grew up watching my parents dismiss every piece of information that contradicted what they already believed — and it took me until my 30s to understand that I had absorbed that habit too and had been quietly doing it for years without knowing where I learned it

Growing up, I watched my dad dismiss a news report about climate change with a wave of his hand. "They've been saying this stuff for years," he said, not even looking up from his newspaper. My mom nodded along, adding something about how scientists just wanted grant money.

That moment stuck with me, but not in the way you might think.

It wasn't until I was 32, sitting in a coffee shop in Los Angeles, that I realized I'd been doing the exact same thing. A friend was telling me about a study on decision fatigue, and I caught myself mentally filing it away in the "probably not true" folder without even considering the evidence. The scary part? I had no idea why I was doing it.

That's when it hit me. I'd absorbed my parents' habit of selective listening without even knowing it. For years, I'd been quietly dismissing anything that didn't fit my existing worldview, and I had no clue where I'd learned this behavior.

The invisible inheritance we don't talk about

We talk a lot about inheriting our parents' eyes or their talent for music. But what about the mental habits we pick up? The ones that shape how we process information every single day?

Confirmation bias isn't just some psychology term you learn in college. It's a living, breathing part of how we navigate the world. And for many of us, we learned it at the dinner table.

Think about it. How did your parents react when someone challenged their political views? What happened when new information contradicted their beliefs about health, money, or relationships?

Kids are sponges. We absorb everything, including the subtle eye rolls, the dismissive comments, and the quick channel changes when something uncomfortable comes on TV.

I remember watching my parents switch off documentaries that challenged their views. They'd find one small flaw and use it to dismiss the entire thing. "See? They got that fact wrong. The whole thing is probably nonsense."

And there I was, thirty years later, doing the exact same thing with peer-reviewed studies.

Why our brains love being right

Here's what I've learned since that coffee shop moment: our brains are wired to protect our existing beliefs. It's actually less work for our minds to dismiss contradicting information than to rebuild our mental models.

Psychologists call this cognitive ease. When information aligns with what we already believe, it feels good. It slides right into place. But when something challenges our views? That creates cognitive strain. It's uncomfortable. It takes energy.

So we take the easy route. We find reasons why the new information must be wrong.

I saw this clearly when I went vegan in my late twenties. My parents' first reaction wasn't curiosity about my reasons. It was immediate dismissal. They'd heard veganism was unhealthy, and that was that. Any study I shared was "biased." Any documentary was "propaganda."

Sound familiar?

The thing is, I'd spent years doing the same thing with topics I didn't want to face. Financial advice that suggested I needed to change my spending? Must be for other people. Research about the benefits of waking up early? Clearly flawed methodology.

The moment everything changed

After recognizing this pattern, I started paying attention to my knee-jerk reactions. When I read something that made me uncomfortable, I forced myself to pause.

What was I feeling? Why did I want to dismiss this information? Was it because the source was questionable, or because I didn't like what it was saying?

I've mentioned this before, but traveling helped crack this habit wide open. When you're in a new country and your assumptions keep proving wrong, you learn to question everything you think you know.

In Tokyo, I watched people leave their laptops unattended in cafes while they went to the bathroom. My immediate thought was that this was naive and dangerous. But when nothing ever got stolen, I had to face an uncomfortable truth: my assumptions about human nature were shaped by my specific experiences, not universal truths.

Breaking the cycle (without breaking relationships)

Here's where it gets tricky. Once you see this pattern in yourself, you start seeing it everywhere. Especially in your parents.

For three years after going vegan, I became that person. You know the one. The aggressive evangelist who couldn't shut up about documentaries and studies. I was trying to break through my parents' confirmation bias with brute force.

Spoiler alert: it didn't work.

What I learned was that shame doesn't create lasting change. Neither does bombarding people with facts. If anything, it makes people dig their heels in deeper.

The approach that actually worked? Living my life and letting the results speak for themselves. When my energy improved and my health markers got better, my parents started asking questions. Real questions, not defensive ones.

The daily practice of staying open

These days, I have a simple rule: if my immediate reaction to new information is dismissal, I need to look closer.

Doesn't mean I accept everything at face value. But I've learned to recognize that quick dismissive feeling as a red flag. It usually means the information is bumping up against something I believe strongly.

Sometimes, after investigation, my original belief holds up. Sometimes it doesn't. But at least I'm making that choice consciously.

I keep a note on my phone of beliefs I've changed in the last year. It's surprisingly long. Everything from small stuff (turns out cold showers actually do have benefits) to bigger things about relationships and success.

What we pass on without knowing

The real kicker in all of this? We're all passing on mental habits to someone. Maybe it's kids, maybe it's younger colleagues, maybe it's friends who look up to us.

What are we teaching them about how to handle contradicting information?

Are we showing them it's okay to be wrong? That changing your mind is a sign of growth, not weakness?

Or are we teaching them what my parents unknowingly taught me - that being right is more important than being accurate?

I think about this when I catch myself dismissing something too quickly. Who's watching? What am I modeling?

Wrapping up

That moment in the coffee shop changed how I see everything. Not because I suddenly became perfectly open-minded. Far from it. But because I finally understood that many of my mental habits weren't really mine - they were inherited, absorbed, learned by observation.

The beautiful thing is, once you see these patterns, you can start to change them. It's not easy. That dismissive reflex is strong, especially when it's been reinforced for decades.

But every time you catch yourself, every time you pause and reconsider, you're rewiring those old patterns. You're choosing which mental habits to keep and which to leave behind.

And maybe, just maybe, you're modeling something different for whoever's watching you.