The viral video of a stare down on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial between a teenage high school student and a Native American elder has triggered a debate across America. Our individual experiences may shape the way we interpret that event and our view may be entirely different from the person standing beside us.

• The incident involved Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann and Native American edler Nathan Phillips
• The incident was recorded on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC
• Covington Catholic High School is located in Kentucky

Lena Tenney studies bias and how our biases may affect how we recognize race and ethnicity. Tenney works at the Kirwan Institute at Ohio State University and said social media can reinforce our own beliefs, amplify our biases and the way we see and think about certain incidents. More specifically, Tenney said it's our misunderstanding of other cultures that may lead to these types of incidents.

"The way that white people versus indigenous people might perceive Nathan Phillips drumming or something like that, where a lot of native folks have said that this is not aggressive, but to a lot of white people who don't have that cultural context, the perception might be like, 'Oh. This person is being aggressive,'" Tenney said.

Tenney also cited the "Make America Great Again" hats, which many of the boys were wearing in the video as another example.

"You have to really think through and break down what is someone implying when they wear this hat, regardless of what they explicitly believe," Tenney said. "For a lot of people America never was great, so even the messaging of Make America Great Again harkens back to, 'Okay, so does this mean the sixties before the Civil Rights Act was passed?'"

Lanier Holt, PhD. is an assistant professir at Ohio State University. He teaches crisis communication, intercultural communication and media law and ethics.

"You wear that, you're stating something," Holt said. "This is what they believe as evidence to the fact that they are wearing a hat, supporting a person who supports the very issues of white supremecy, racism, descrimination and alienation of minority groups."

Since the first video was posted, other recordings from different angles have been shared and both Sandmann and Phillips have appeared on national news outlets voicing their thoughts and explaining their perspective of what took place.

Tenney said you should attempt to analyze your own understanding of a situation and also think about how someone else may interpret the same event in a different way.

"What's important to recognize is that we all have bias and to check our bias when we know it's popping up," Tenney said.