Our data and opinions – Indignant Bear

“On the subject of our data and opinions, we have a tendency to stay to our weapons. Psychologists name this seizing and freezing.“

Guide Assessment: “Think Again”

I acquired this 2021 guide after listening to an interview with its writer, Adam Grant, who sounded actually wise . . . for a psychologist (I child!).

Anyhow, it was much better — by way of insights and methods — than I deliberate, so I made far too many notes. I’ll give the highlights under however do additionally think about this guide as an fascinating companion to  Supercommunicators (my evaluate).

However earlier than I am going on, let me level you to a few “cheat sheets” (now referred to as “sketchnotes”?) that summaries a few of the guide’s main themes in footage (and phrases — you continue to must learn!

So, to the notes:

1. Rethinking and unlearning is extra essential than uncooked intelligence. “When it comes to our knowledge and opinions, we tend to stick to our guns. Psychologists call this seizing and freezing. We favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt, and we let our beliefs get brittle long before our bones. We laugh at people who still use Windows 95, yet we still cling to opinions that we formed in 1995. We listen to views that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard.”
2. Generally we have to confront our identification earlier than we will rethink. “A hallmark of wisdom is knowing when it’s time to abandon some of your most treasured tools—and some of the most cherished parts of your identity . . . rethinking who you are appears to become mentally healthy—as long as you can tell a coherent story about how you got from past to present you.”
3. Three modes: “We go into preacher mode when our sacred beliefs are in jeopardy: we deliver sermons to protect and promote our ideals. We enter prosecutor mode when we recognize flaws in other people’s reasoning: we marshal arguments to prove them wrong and win our case. We shift into politician mode when we’re seeking to win over an audience: we campaign and lobby for the approval of our constituents.”
4. A greater mode: “We move into scientist mode when we’re searching for the truth: we run experiments to test hypotheses and discover knowledge… When second and third graders learned about “doing science” fairly than “being scientists,” they had been extra enthusiastic about pursuing science. Changing into a scientist might sound out of attain, however the act of experimenting is one thing we will all check out. Even prekindergarten college students specific extra curiosity in science when it’s introduced as one thing we do fairly than somebody we’re.”
5. Entrepreneurs skilled to suppose like scientists (speculation, take a look at, evaluation, replace) made far more cash than the management group as a result of they had been keen to discard outdated methods and check out new methods of doing issues.
6. “Research reveals that the higher you score on an IQ test, the more likely you are to fall for stereotypes, because you’re faster at recognizing patterns. And recent experiments suggest that the smarter you are, the more you might struggle to update your beliefs. [How?] One is confirmation bias: seeing what we expect to see. The other is desirability bias: seeing what we want to see.”
7. “In preacher mode, changing our minds is a mark of moral weakness; in scientist mode, it’s a sign of intellectual integrity. In prosecutor mode, allowing ourselves to be persuaded is admitting defeat; in scientist mode, it’s a step toward the truth.”
8. “People who scored the lowest on an emotional intelligence test weren’t just the most likely to overestimate their skills. They were also the most likely to dismiss their scores as inaccurate or irrelevant—and the least likely to invest in coaching or self-improvement… When we lack the knowledge and skills to achieve excellence, we sometimes lack the knowledge and skills to judge excellence.”
9. Are you persistent or cussed? “You can be confident in your ability to achieve a goal in the future while maintaining the humility to question whether you have the right tools in the present. That’s the sweet spot of confidence.”
10. “Who you are should be a question of what you value, not what you believe. Values are your core principles in life—they might be excellence and generosity, freedom and fairness, or security and integrity… You want the doctor whose identity is protecting health, the teacher whose identity is helping students learn, and the police chief whose identity is promoting safety and justice. When they define themselves by values rather than opinions, they buy themselves the flexibility to update their practices in light of new evidence.”
11. “When you form an opinion, ask yourself what would have to happen to prove it false. Then keep track of your views so you can see when you were right, when you were wrong, and how your thinking has evolved. `I started out just wanting to prove myself,’ Jean-Pierre says. `Now I want to improve myself—to see how good I can get.’”
12. “Relationship conflict is generally bad for performance, but some task conflict can be beneficial…. when it brings diversity of thought, preventing us from getting trapped in overconfidence cycles. It can help us stay humble, surface doubts, and make us curious about what we might be missing. That can lead us to think again, moving us closer to the truth without damaging our relationships.”
13. “Rethinking depends on a different kind of network: a challenge network, a group of people we trust to point out our blind spots and help us overcome our weaknesses… The ideal members of a challenge network are disagreeable, because they’re fearless about questioning the way things have always been done and holding us accountable for thinking again. There’s evidence that disagreeable people speak up more frequently—especially when leaders aren’t receptive—and foster more task conflict.”
14. “Strong leaders engage their critics and make themselves stronger. Weak leaders silence their critics and make themselves weaker.”
15. This sentence jogs my memory of me: “Agreeableness is about seeking social harmony, not cognitive consensus. It’s possible to disagree without being disagreeable. Although I’m terrified of hurting other people’s feelings, when it comes to challenging their thoughts, I have no fear. In fact, when I argue with someone, it’s not a display of disrespect—it’s a sign of respect. It means I value their views enough to contest them. If their opinions didn’t matter to me, I wouldn’t bother.”
16. “Experiments show that simply framing a dispute as a debate rather than as a disagreement signals that you’re receptive to considering dissenting opinions and changing your mind, which in turn motivates the other person to share more information with you…When social scientists asked people why they favor particular policies on taxes, health care, or nuclear sanctions, they often doubled down on their convictions. Asking people to explain how those policies would work in practice—or how they’d explain them to an expert—activated a rethinking cycle.”
17. “Skilled negotiators rarely went on offense or defense. Instead, they expressed curiosity with questions like “So you don’t see any merit in this proposal at all?” … We received’t have a lot luck altering different individuals’s minds if we refuse to alter ours. We are able to show openness by acknowledging the place we agree with our critics and even what we’ve realized from them. Then, after we ask what views they is perhaps keen to revise, we’re not hypocrites.”
18. Find out how to discover widespread floor? Moderately than assault the straw-man model of your opponent’s argument, state their “steel man” (strongest) factors. If you agree with somebody’s level, you then give them the prospect to (a) agree with you and (b) query themselves.
19. Don’t struggle with the opposite individual’s views, however deal with the dialogue like a dance during which you attempt to perceive their emotion fairly than preventing it. “In a heated argument, you can always stop and ask, “What evidence would change your mind?” If the reply is “nothing,” then there’s no level in persevering with the controversy.”
20. I’ve stated that I’ve “strong opinions, weakly held.” I interpret this as an indication of willingness to alter my thoughts, however some individuals react extra to “strong” than “weakly” so it’s higher to incorporate uncertainty, i.e., “strong opinions, open to updates” (my phrases). Extra from AG: “An informed audience is going to spot the holes in our case anyway. We might as well get credit for having the humility to look for them, the foresight to spot them, and the integrity to acknowledge them”
21. “Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell reflected. “From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’” This response is called the overview impact”
22. How do you get rabid sports activities followers to cease attacking “the enemy”? Remind them of how arbitrary their anger is. (What for those who had been born in New York fairly than Boston? Would you be a fucking fool for supporting the Yankees?)
23. “People gain humility when they reflect on how different circumstances could have led them to different beliefs. They might conclude that some of their past convictions had been too simplistic and begin to question some of their negative views. That doubt could leave them more curious about groups they’ve stereotyped, and they might end up discovering some unexpected commonalities.”
24. “Motivational interviewing begins with an angle of humility and curiosity. We don’t know what would possibly inspire another person to alter, however we’re genuinely keen to search out out. The objective isn’t to inform individuals what to do; it’s to assist them get away of overconfidence cycles and see new prospects. Our position is to carry up a mirror to allow them to see themselves extra clearly, after which empower them to look at their beliefs and behaviors. That may activate a rethinking cycle, during which individuals method their very own views extra scientifically. They develop extra humility about their data, doubt of their convictions, and curiosity about various factors of view. The method of motivational interviewing includes three key methods:
    • Asking open-ended questions
    • Participating in reflective listening
    • Affirming the individual’s need and talent to alter.”
25. “When we try to convince people to think again, our first instinct is usually to start talking. Yet the most effective way to help others open their minds is often to listen…Listening is a way of offering others our scarcest, most precious gift: our attention.”
26. “Sustain talk is commentary about maintaining the status quo. Change talk is referencing a desire, ability, need, or commitment to make adjustments. When contemplating a change, many people are ambivalent—they have some reasons to consider it but also some reasons to stay the course. Miller and Rollnick suggest asking about and listening for change talk, and then posing some questions about why and how they might change.”
27. “There’s a fourth technique of motivational interviewing, which is often recommended for the end of a conversation and for transition points: summarizing. The idea is to explain your understanding of other people’s reasons for change, to check on whether you’ve missed or misrepresented anything, and to inquire about their plans and possible next steps. The objective is not to be a leader or a follower, but a guide.” Additionally see “looping to understand” in my Supercommunicators evaluate.
28. Moderately than current a dispute as proper or incorrect, black or white, permit for the fact of a center floor, a grey space. “An antidote to this [0/1] proclivity is complexifying: showcasing the range of perspectives on a given topic. We might believe we’re making progress by discussing hot-button issues as two sides of a coin, but people are actually more inclined to think again if we present these topics through the many lenses of a prism.”
29. “The greater the distance between us and an adversary, the more likely we are to oversimplify their actual motives and invent explanations that stray far from their reality. What works is not perspective-taking but perspective-seeking: actually talking to people to gain insight into the nuances of their views.”
30. “Many teachers don’t do enough to encourage students to question themselves and one another… extraordinary educators foster rethinking cycles by instilling intellectual humility, disseminating doubt, and cultivating curiosity.”
31. “Some teachers send students out to interview people with whom they disagree. The focus is less on being right, and more on building the skills to consider different views and argue productively about them.”
32. “Lectures… are not enough to develop students into lifelong learners. If you spend all of your school years being fed information and are never given the opportunity to question it, you won’t develop the tools for rethinking that you need in life.”
33. Senior Penn college students who wrote letters to their youthful selves didn’t simply give good recommendation; that they had an excuse to re-think — and possibly change — a few of their habits. “The students encouraged their younger selves to stay open to different majors, instead of declaring the first one that erased their uncertainty. To be less obsessed with grades, and more focused on relationships. To explore different career possibilities, rather than committing too soon to the one that promised the most pay or prestige.”
34. “When students confront complex problems, they often feel confused. A teacher’s natural impulse is to rescue them as quickly as possible so they don’t feel lost or incompetent. Yet psychologists find that one of the hallmarks of an open mind is responding to confusion with curiosity and interest. One student put it eloquently: “I need time for my confusion.” Confusion is usually a cue that there’s new territory to be explored or a contemporary puzzle to be solved.”
35. Do multiple draft… of a letter, an essay, a drawing, a leap. Drafts give us area to enhance with out placing strain on doing it proper or completely the primary time. In addition they enhance with every revision as a result of we study by doing. You’ll be able to’t write an ideal ultimate draft with out quite a lot of imperfect earlier drafts.
36. “We randomly assigned some managers to ask their teams for constructive criticism. [it didn’t go well] … Another group of managers shared their past experiences with receiving feedback and their future development goals. We advised them to tell their teams about a time when they benefited from constructive criticism and to identify the areas that they were working to improve now. By admitting some of their imperfections out loud, managers demonstrated that they could take it—and made a public commitment to remain open to feedback.”
37. “It takes confident humility to admit that we’re a work in progress. It shows that we care more about improving ourselves than proving ourselves”
38. “It isn’t until a high-stakes decision goes horribly wrong that people pause to reexamine their practices… When we dedicate ourselves to a plan and it isn’t going as we hoped, we tend to double down and sink more resources in the plan. This pattern is called escalation of commitment.” And that’s what occurred to me (what I did) when my boat was sinking — doubled down, as an alternative of stepping again. Since then, I’ve tried to step again extra shortly from (a) perfection (90% of excellent sufficient) and (b) confidence (possibly I don’t know what I’m doing… what do you suppose?)
39. “Gritty mountaineers are more likely to die on expeditions, because they’re determined to do whatever it takes to reach the summit. There’s a fine line between heroic persistence and foolish stubbornness. Sometimes the best kind of grit is gritting our teeth and turning around.”
40. Paraphrasing… “Career checkup questions can periodically activate rethinking cycles. Ask some key questions twice a year. When did you form the aspirations you’re currently pursuing, and how have you changed since then? Have you reached a learning plateau in your role or your workplace, and is it time to consider a pivot? A CC helps you maintain humility about you ability to predict the future, contemplate doubts, and stay curious enough about new possibilities or previously discarded ones.” 
41. “Data suggesting that meaning is healthier than happiness, and that people who look for purpose in their work are more successful in pursuing their passions—and less likely to quit their jobs—than those who look for joy.”
42. “Those only are happy,” thinker John Stuart Mill wrote, “who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way.”

[Adam’s] Backside Line: “It takes humility to reconsider our past commitments, doubt to question our present decisions, and curiosity to reimagine our future plans. What we discover along the way can free us from the shackles of our familiar surroundings and our former selves. Rethinking liberates us to do more than update our knowledge and opinions—it’s a tool for leading a more fulfilling life.”

Listed below are 30 ideas for pondering once more [pdf]

I give this guide FIVE stars. Don’t simply learn it — use it in your life.