The challenge of new behaviors
A Look at Beliefs and Mental Models
Week 10
Announcements
Quick questions after class
Make a time to meet your TF or anyone on the team for particular puzzles
Review and Preview
The challenge of new behaviors
Behaviorism How is it best learned? – Reinforcement,
conditioned reinforcers, shaping, desensitization, etc.
Beliefs and mental models
Will and intentions
Preview
A look at beliefs and mental models, the second session on
“the challenge of new behaviors”
1. The glass half full
2. Beliefs on the (front) line
3. Facing a complicated world
4. Designing for changes of mind
5. Rapid review and looking ahead
Learning Goals
Get acquainted with some of the potentials and limits of changing behavior through changing beliefs
Learn to be alert to conditions that make change of belief challenging
Get acquainted with some general strategies for shifting beliefs.
The Glass Half Full
Goal: Through a brief exposition, get acquainted with potentials and limits of changing behavior through changing beliefs
A very old idea
Behavior reflects what we believe
To change behavior, change what people believe
The glass half full
Pandora #3. How is it best learned? Provide missing information
Improve people’s ‘self-theories’ (Dweck)
Shift from Model I to Model II theory of learning (Argyris)
The tradition of enlightenment – The Greeks, Freud, cognitive-behavioral therapy, etc.
Howard’s six ways of changing minds
The glass half empty
Pandora #2, What’s hard about learning it? Hastiness (“seizing”)
Entrenchment (“freezing”)
Defensiveness (Model I, Argyris)
Complexity
Behaviorism
The will
Propaganda and hot buttons
Tacit knowledge
Beliefs on the (Front) Line
Goal: Understand the influence of need for cognitive closure on beliefs and learning through analyzing a training video
Think like a commander
U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences
Facts from the film that students sometimes overlook include
CPT Young was assigned to the food distribution situation at the last minute because the previous commander needed an emergency appendectomy. CPT Young does not know these Soldiers.
CSM Pullman is on site to direct camera crews who will videotape the food distribution operation. He is not there to secure the site.
The food on the NGO convoys is for the villagers, not the Army. Omar and Mohammed are not part of the local security team. Omar and Mohammed turn out to be not rivals but brothers-in-
law. CPT Young did not get shot, an Afghan villager did. CPT Young did not select the site. The site was selected
because it was neutral territory in which no warlords were supposed to be present.
How do the ideas of seizing and freezing apply to the video?
What does Captain Young need to understand about the situation and about leadership that he doesn't?
Teaching themes
1. Command Climate
2. Command Influence
3. Communication
4. Cultural Awareness
5. Guiding Subordinates
6. Mission Clarity
7. Model of Command
8. Respect for Experience
9. Leadership Assessment
At the end of the discussion on command climate, students should:
Understand the factors that contribute to command climate and be able to trace the origins of command climate.
Understand that CPT Young conveyed to his subordinates that he did not want input from them.
Understand that the command climate discouraged 2LT Wychowski from asking questions.
Understand why 2LT Wychowski tried to implement a plan that he knew was bad.
Understand how the command climate discouraged 1LT Perez from communicating his location and plans to move to higher ground.
Facing a Complicated World
Goal: Extend ideas about complicated situations of belief and learning to various life circumstances
Decision zones
Zone 1. We live here
Zone 2. We’re visitors
Zone 3. Where are we?
Zone 4. Elsewhere and don’t know it
Designing for Changes of Mind
Goal: Get acquainted with strategies for changing minds through quick design
1. Reason
2. Research
3. Resonance(the affective component)
4. Redescriptions(representation in a number of different reinforcing forms)
5. Resources and rewards
6. Real world events
7. Resistances
Rapid Review and Looking Ahead
Learning Goals
Get acquainted with some of the potentials and limits of changing behavior through changing beliefs
Learn to be alert to conditions that make change of belief challenging
Get acquainted with some general strategies for shifting beliefs.
Beyond
these walls
Look for conditions in your life that exacerbate need for cognitive closure. Ponder how to manage them.
Look for belief systems in yourself or others that ideally would change in a healthier direction. Consider what strategies might budge them.