How to not Hate Your Roommates!

This summer, I roomed with a friend who, by the end of our stay, was getting on my nerves. I felt like I did all of the chores, and consistently went out of my way to do things for her, but she wouldn't return the favor. This resulted in me feeling like I was appreciating her more than she was appreciating me. However, when I stepped back I realized that she did in-fact return the favor. 

The reason that I didn’t notice this at first is because our brains are programmed to remember more of our own positive actions and more of someone else’s negative actions. You may think that perhaps they are just lazy or selfish, and though this might be true in some cases, it could just be a reality that our minds have constructed, and not what's really going on. This is thanks to something known as bias (Manson, 2025).

There are many types of biases that impact the way we view ourselves and others, such as self-serving bias, confirmation bias, and negativity bias. These biases can lead to the destruction  of many relationships. Luckily, in this blog, we will not only identify these common biases, but also learn solutions to combat them. 

Let's start off with one of the big relationship-ruining biases: the self-serving bias. The self-serving bias is defined as our tendency to attribute our success to ourselves and our failures to external factors, such as the people around us. In any relationship, this could look like not taking ownership of one's mistakes and instead blaming it on the other person. The way to combat this would be to take a moment to calm down, and then listen to what the other person is saying. Taking accountability for your actions is also a big step in overcoming this bias.(Sarkis, 2023). 

The next bias is called confirmation bias, which is our tendency to only see information that confirms our pre-existing belief (Manson, 2025). In a friendship, this could look like only focusing on the incomplete chores rather than the ones your roommate has checked off the list because this would confirm your belief of their laziness and your own contributions being the only ones worth noting. To counter this, one could practice gratitude for their friends, and challenge their beliefs. For example, is my roommate really messy because they left their dishes out, or do they usually do their dishes and you're only noticing because you’ve labeled them as messy? Acknowledging this bias and being self-aware can help us to practice gratitude for our friends (Sarkis, 2023). With this gratitude, we may be able to remind ourselves not to label our roommates as lazy right away, but rather give them a chance to show you who they are through their actions.

The last bias, which is similar to the previous two biases, is the negativity bias. This occurs through our brain’s tendency to give more priority to remembering negative experiences than positive ones. To demonstrate an example of this, you may remember the one time your roommate forgot to take the trash out when it was their turn but will not remember all of the times in which they have cleaned the windows. The best way to combat this is to practice mindfulness -remember why you are friends with them in the first place (Kiken, 2011).

Therefore, the answer to how NOT to hate your roommates is simple: take ownership of our mistakes, check our beliefs, practice mindfulness, and, most importantly, gratitude. Cohabitation is hard but we can make it easier if we all give each other grace and communicate.

 

 

Works Cited

Sarkis, Stephanie (2023). How cognitive biases impact our relationships. (n.d.).

Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-

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ore%20their%20positive%20attributes.

Kiken, L. G., & Shook, N. J. (2011). Looking Up: Mindfulness Increases Positive

Judgments and Reduces Negativity Bias. Social Psychological and Personality

Science, 2(4), 425-431. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550610396585

Mark Manson. (2023). The cognitive biases that hurt our relationships. Retrieved

from https://markmanson.net/cognitive-biases-that-hurt-relationships/