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.