People are undiscovered countries

 

Robert Greene

@RobertGreene

The greatest danger you face is your general assumption that you really understand people and that you can quickly judge them. Instead, you must begin with the assumption that you are ignorant and that you have natural biases that will make you judge people incorrectly. Each person you meet is like an undiscovered country, with a very particular psychological chemistry that you will carefully explore.

Shiv Om

@imshivom

·

Sep 26

True understanding requires humility. Instead of assuming we know others, we should approach each person as an undiscovered world. Recognizing our biases opens the door to deeper, more meaningful connections. Exploration leads to growth. L

Context and decisions

In a new study, "The researchers aimed to investigate whether context consistently influences our decisions or whether the degree of human rationality varies depending on socioeconomic and cultural factors such as country of origin, status, religion, political system, and others." 

https://phys.org/news/2024-09-wrong-context-human-rationality-decisions.html

The right to be wrong: How context or human rationality may influence our decisions | Phys dot org Conventionally, decision-making is portrayed as a rational process: individuals calculate potential risks and aim to maximize benefits. Yet, our brains do not always endorse rational action, particularly when an immediate response is required. Sometimes, individuals mistakenly choose objectively worse options because of how these options are perceived in a given context. For instance, if an investor is presented with the opportunity to purchase a portfolio of shares with a 60% probability of yielding profit, they are likely to accept. However, if informed that there's a 40% chance of the portfolio incurring losses, they will probably decline the offer. Similarly, two circles of identical diameter may appear different in size depending on the shapes surrounding them. The context is what determines our evaluation of the available options. ... An international team of authors, including researchers at the HSE Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, conducted a study involving volunteers across eleven countries of remarkably different socio-economic and cultural makeup. More than 500 nationals of Russia, France, Argentina, India, China and some other countries performed a decision-making task consisting of two phases. The research is published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. During the first phase, participants were asked to choose between two options, each linked to either obtaining a reward or facing the risk of losing it. In each round, the options were reiterated, forming various combinations to establish contexts in which these options were perceived as either more or less rewarding. Thus, participants had the opportunity to maximize their rewards based on learning from previous rounds; however, all participants without exception, irrespective of nationality, made suboptimal decisions and incorrectly evaluated the options in certain contexts. To assess the reproducibility of context-dependent results from the first phase of the experiment, the study authors instructed participants to perform a second task involving a choice between two options presented in the same contexts but with known variables. For instance, the participating volunteers were informed that they could either receive a substantial reward with a 50% probability or opt for a guaranteed but small reward. By consistently administering such lotteries, it becomes possible to identify the threshold at which individuals cease taking risks and choose the safe option. This threshold is individual and depends on a person's risk preference, which, as revealed, is a culture-specific characteristic. Thus, Russian nationals exhibited average risk preferences, Chinese and Japanese participants demonstrated the highest risk propensity, while residents of India and Chile emerged as the most risk-averse. "Previously, it was believed that the primary factor influencing our decisions was our willingness to take risks. However, through our research, we discovered that this is not always the case. Our decision-making primarily depends on how we receive information: whether we experience the situation first-hand or are informed about it," explains co-author of the study Oksana Zinchenko, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, HSE University. "We have demonstrated that human consciousness exhibits a certain cognitive limitation, which is a shared characteristic not contingent on our beliefs, attitudes, or nationality."

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People can change their minds

In the pursuit of clarity, charity and understanding, there's an excellent article in the Deseret News by Jacob Hess on how people change their minds.

https://www.deseret.com/opinion/2024/08/28/overcoming-persuasion-skepticism/

Hess discusses a book by David McRaney that I greatly enjoyed titled How Minds Change.

https://www.davidmcraney.com/howmindschangehome

The understanding element consists of not seeking to persuade, convince, or convert, but instead seeking to understand one another. By sharing information and thought processes, people can make informed decisions for themselves.

_____

The article describes the steps for changing one's mind:

Conditions supporting persuasion

The podcast summarized a few key conditions making it more likely that people will feel comfortable changing their minds.

1. I’m not threatening you

2. I’m willing to listen with empathy and compassion

3. Acknowledging good reasons to resist persuasion

4. Appreciation that persuasion is normal and happens every day

5. There is more to your identity than even you may think

6. We have more in common than we may realize

7. I respect that you have to decide on your own perspective

N. T. Wright on how to get along

Q&A with N.T. Wright:

Esser: What advice would you give to us as a community to better work in an interfaith way with other denominations?

N. T. Wright: We make the distinction between ecumenical discussions, which are specifically between different ideas or Christian groups, and interfaith discussions, which would be, say, Christian with Muslim or Christian with Buddhist or Christian with Jewish, but whatever you are doing, I would say the primary thing is making friends. We Anglicans tried to do dialogue with the Romans by having theologians sitting around discussing dogmas, and of course, the first thing that happens is, “We believe this and you believe that,” the clashing. 

But actually, the best way of doing it is what I did as bishop in Durham, which was I got my opposite Catholic number and we played golf together, and then we got our clergy and we had a Catholic-Anglican golf game, which was great. Then we’d go out for dinner and have a pint of beer. At the end of the day, you’ve created a context within which other conversations are going to be much more healthy.

And I would say the same about working with a Buddhist group or a Jewish group or Muslim group. We say, particularly in our country at the moment, about Muslim communities that who knows what the next flashpoint is going to be globally or locally. It’s vital that, say, the Anglican vicar of the parish gets to know the local Muslim representative so that if there is something really bad that happens, they can appear on the street linking arms and saying, “Not in our name.” Doesn’t mean they’re agreeing about everything; they’re not. It just means they’re sending a signal to the community that we ought to be working together on this. So friendship.

  https://www.deseret.com/faith/2024/06/21/latter-day-saints-meet-nt-wright/

An organization called UNITE has developed what they call the Dignity Index. Their concept has a lot of promise.

Here's their explanation (https://www.dignityindex.us/about):

Ease Divisions.
Prevent Violence.
Solve Problems.

We formed UNITE in 2018 to find ways to help ease divisions in the country. In 2021, we began developing the Dignity Index, an eight-point scale for measuring how we talk to each other when we disagree. Our faith in the Index is grounded in a few core beliefs: 

• Contempt causes division; dignity eases division.

• If we put a spotlight on dignity and contempt, we will use more dignity and less contempt.

• If we show Americans how they can help ease our divisions, they will jump on it.

https://www.dignityindex.us/

THE DIGNITY INDEX

The Dignity Index is an eight-point scale that scores speech along a continuum from contempt to dignity in as unbiased a manner as possible. By focusing on the sound bites, not the people behind them, the Index attempts to stay true to its own animating spirit: that everyone deserves dignity.

The have several graphical resources that convey the principles of the Dignity Index. The're available here: 

https://www.dignityindex.us/resources

Here are some examples:

(click to enlarge)

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Dignity Principles:

1. Dignity is the inherent worth we all have from birth. We all deserve to be treated with dignity no matter what. 

2. Along with our survival instincts, the longing to be treated with dignity is the single most powerful force motivating our behavior. 

3. If we violate someone’s dignity repeatedly, we will get a divorce or a war or a revolution, because a desire for revenge is an instant response to a dignity violation. 

4. Treating people with dignity means seeing ourselves in them; treating people with contempt means seeing ourselves above them. 

5. When contempt tears us apart, dignity can bring us together, whether we’re talking about our friends, our family, our community or our country. 

6. Treating people with dignity helps bring out their best and discourage their worst. 

7. Treating people with contempt makes both sides angry, anxious and depressed. 

8. When we use contempt, we create enemies for ourselves and the causes we care about. 

9. Contempt gives us an addictive buzz, and people exploit our addictions to get rich, famous and powerful. 

10. When people use contempt, they claim noble motives because contempt needs excuses and disguises. When we expose contempt, it loses its power. 

11. When we put a spotlight on dignity and contempt, we use more dignity and less contempt. 

12. When we create communities that reward dignity and challenge contempt, we can change the culture. 

BYU conference June 20, 2024

BYU is hosting a conference titled "Becoming Peacemakers Through Supporting Religious Freedom and Pluralism."

The program is here:

https://religiousfreedom.byu.edu/program/

I'm happy to see all the participants, presentations and panels that are focusing on "no more contention" through clarity, charity and understanding.

Being part of a community

RFK Jr.: "An individual, like every nation, has a darker side and a lighter side. The easiest thing a politician can do is appeal to our dark angels—to our greed, our anger, fear... That is the most potent instrument for manipulation. It's much harder to do what my dad was trying to do. Which is to get people to transcend their narrow self interest and find a hero inside themselves and say we are part of a community here, we are a part of something larger."