Step 1: First try and identify what your political positions are you can do this in many ways. You could use multiple websites such as
- https://www.politicalcompass.org/test
- https://www.gotoquiz.com/politics/political-spectrum-quiz.html
- https://www.isidewith.com/political-quiz
Step 2: Another thing you should do is think about what your environment was growing up; for example what was your socioeconomic background, religion, race, and culture? What exposure did you have to people who were raised in different environments? Consider the amount of time you actually spent interacting and engaging with people who are different from you. How similar are your beliefs to your parents/guardians beliefs? How did your family’s opinions or practices compare to the dominant culture in your community?
Step 3: The next step should be to reflect on what you believe. Use all of the questions that were just listed. Once you have considered the questions, do some research. At this step you have to be careful to not be affected by confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is the human tendency to seek at and believe things that reaffirm your own beliefs. You have to be careful not to fall into this trap. When you find information see if you can find the same information in other sources, if you can then try and find something that disagrees with that point. If you find information that disagrees with your previous information than see if you can find the information in other sources. Do the research on a topic by using the questions stated before while being careful not to fall into the trap of confirmation bias.
Example:
“Recently I was thinking about the minimum wage and wanted to know more. One day I thought, have I ever used hard evidence to back up my point? I then realized that I never had. So the first thing I did was google minimum wage studies with no specific topic or possible bias, just the most clicked on academic studies. From there I went into more specific area of study. But the important part is how I tried to follow the criteria listed above."
This picture is from the political compass organization (https://www.politicalcompass.org/) and it shows how political views aren't on a line to the right or left, but can be diverse and different.