Agents and agencies of mind change:
-cognitive science & the ways in which mental representations change, or are changed. p.7
-e.g. Vilifredo Pareto's "80/20 principle" (Italian economist and sociologist) pp.7-14
7 factors/levers that help to determine if they succeed in changing minds:
Reason (tight logic), Research (draws on relevant research), Resonance (with audience) [Rhetoric]
Representational Redescriptions (e.g. in linguistic, numerical, graphic ways), Resources & Rewards, Real World Events, Resistances.
Contents of the mind: ideas
-Concept="any set of closely related entities" p.19 e.g. virtue/vice; plant/animal
-Stories=narrratives that describe events that unfold over time (at a minimum, stories consist of a main character or protagonist, ongoing activities aimed toward a goal, a crisis, and a resolution, or at least an attempt at a resolution) e.g. girl meets boy; hero is defeated by a tragic flaw
-Theories=relatively formal explanations of processes in the world. "From an early age, young children develop theories about how things work in the world. They will also encounter theories that are held by others in their culture. And once they begin disciplinary study in the schools, they will also encounter formal theories" e.g. thunderstorm p.20 e.g. if two events occur in close proximity, the first causes the second; might makes right
-The Skills of Practices=procedures that individuals know how to carry out, whether or not they choose to--or even can--put them into words. prevalent skills:dividing resources equally; conserving energy in preparation for a high-stakes performance
skills can also be changed e.g. an experienced performer who typically learns a new piece of music by starting at the beginning..change to starting from the back. "The relation between content and form unfolds somewhat differently in the case of such skilled practices. ...The current status of the practice is both its form and its content--to recall poet William Butler Yeat's famous query, "How can one tell the dancer from the dance? The content and the form of the procedure can and do change--but by and large they change together."
"Human beings constantly create or construct new mental representations, and so the content of the mind is by its nature an open, infinitely expandable category. At the same time there are serious attempts to itemize and categorize the principal contents" p.21
Multiple intelligences (late 19702/early 1980s developed by Gardner):
-intelligence="a biopsychological potential to process specific forms of information in certain kinds of ways. Human beings have evolved diverse information-processing capacities--I term these "intelligences"--that allow them to solve problems or to fashion products...must be valued in at least one culture or community."
-Linguistic intelligence
-Logical-mathematical intelligence
-Musical intelligence=appreciation of melody and harmony, sensitivity to rhythm, the ability the recognise variations in timbre and tonality; and, speaking more holistically, the capacity to apprehend the structure of works of music " p. 33
"Elements of musical craft underlie many productions that ostensibly foreground other symbol systems. I write books, using words and occasional graphic images, but the way in which i assemble these linguistic and graphic forms draws on principles of organisation that, at least in my case, have their apparent origin in musical structure. Perhaps that is because music is the least overtly semantic of the major symbol systems: It does not convey discrete meanings. Instead music deals, on the one hand, in the pure architectonics (or syntax) of organization and presents, on the other, the forms and shapes of our feeling life. As the nineteenth-century British essayist Walter Pater memorably put it, "all art constantly aspires to the condition of music." p.34
-Spatial intelligence
-Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence
-Naturalist intelligence
-Personal intelligences: Interpersonal: knowing human beings, to discriminate among persons, figure out their motivations, work effectively with them; Intrapersonal intelligence: inward
~Daniel Goleman: emotional intelligence
-Existential intelligence?
Cognitive approach vs. sociobiological approach & the historical-cultural approach (these two stipulate that the moves that active human agents can make are severely constrained.) p.43
-"The more emotional one's commitment to a cause or belief, the more difficult to change." p. 57
-Vygotsky-when a child is performing poorly at a task, he or she will benefit from scaffolding: the orderly provision of just enough support so that the child can improve his or her performance significantly. until it is internalised. p.60
-content and countercontent
Examples: Margaret Thatcher: a story & a life (the weapons of persuasion & embodiment) "They had to tell their stories over and over again, tell them well, and embody their stories in appropriate life actions and evocative symbolic elements.They had to recognize, acknowledge, and ultimately undermine the regnant counterstories." p.88
-"by creating a compelling story, embodying that story in one's own life, and presenting the story in many different formats so that it can eventually topple the counterstories in one's culture." "when on eis addressing a diverse or heterogeneous audience, the story must be simple, easy to identify with, emotionally resonant, and evocative of positive experiences." p. 82 "In addition to its conscious appeal, a story must also capture an audience at a deeper, more visceral level." p.83
Nelson Mandela: "Mandela was imprisoned for twenty-seven years. Although such an experience would likely have demoralized, radicalized, or marginalized most other persons--especially since it occurred at middle age, often considered the apogee of an individual's personal power--imprisonment seemed only to fortify Mandela." he convened a Commission of Truth and Reconciliation. p.86
Jean Monnet (French economist and diplomat): "I regard every defeat (or every challenge) as an opportunity." p.87
"More complex stories and theories have a better chance of success when the entity in which one is working is of limited size and composed of individuals of similar background and with common expertise." p.92
e.g.: James O. Freedman-"Whenever he had the chance, Freedman would talk about the importance of excellent ideas, the power of intellectual discourse, the contributions to society made by individuals who valued the life of the mind." p.95
"Another way that leaders can present their case is by appealing to deep questions about life, experience, and possibility." p.101
Effective leader: intelligences, instinct, and integrity.
Indirect leaders: "artistic masters alter our minds in three ways. First, they expand our notion of what is possible in an artistic medium. e.g. Picasso" p.122 "Second, artists change minds by employing themes that rarely if ever had been the subject of art...Third, help us to understand, indeed help us to define, the spirit of an era." p. 123 use 3 levers: representational redescriptions, resonance, & resistances.
"there is value in struggling with ideas that one resists." p.126
"GoodWorker" -mission, models, and a mirror test.
28 May-2 June, 2017
Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2003.
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