Sunday, June 24, 2018

How can people become more open to critical evaluation of their own views?


It might not be obvious to everyone that it is desirable for people to be open to critical examination of their own views. The process of critical examination takes time and energy and can be unsettling. If it leads a person to change his or her view, relatives and friends might disapprove.


What is the problem with immunity to change? One problem is failure to actualize potential. In the first chapter of their book, Immunity to Change: How to overcome it and unlock the potential in yourself and your organisation, Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey provide evidence suggesting that immunity to change of attitude tends to hinder mental development of adults. Survey data indicates that there is potential for mental development to continue throughout adulthood, at least until old age. Development tends to occur unevenly, with periods of change followed by periods of stability.

Researchers have identified three adult plateaus of development corresponding to different meaning systems that people use to make sense of the world and operate within it:

·         A socialized mind enables an individual to be a faithful follower and team player.

·         A self-authoring mind can generate an internal belief system/ ideology/ personal code and is self-directed. It places priority on receiving the information it has sought and creates a filter which determines what information it allows to come through.

·         A self-transforming mind can step back from and reflect on the limits of personal ideology and systems of self-organisation. Individuals at this level of mental development value the filter they have created to separate the wheat from the chaff, but they also value information that may alert them to limits of their filter.

Individuals at each successive level of mental development can perform the mental functions of the prior level as well as additional functions. A person who had attained the self-transforming stage of development can be self-authoring when required to develop and execute a plan of action, and can also be a team player when that is appropriate.

Studies involving several hundred participants suggest that most people (58% of respondents) have not attained a self-authoring level of development. Of the remainder, only a tiny percentage have self-transforming minds. The studies probably exaggerate the level of personal development of most of the population because they were skewed towards middle-class professionals.

This research seems highly relevant to questions considered recently on this blog about echo chambers in the social media and the reluctance of many people to listen to opposing viewpoints, as well as to consideration of the ingredients of good leadership. The vast majority of those who aspire to be able to reflect objectively on the limitations of their views of how the world works are likely to be biased against seeking information that might challenge those views.

As the title of the book suggests, Immunity to Change is about overcoming the psychological resistance that that prevent us from making the changes we want to make in our own lives and within organisations. The book is replete with examples, drawn from the extensive consulting experience of the authors, to illustrate how people can identify and deal with hidden fears that prevent them from making the changes they want to make. Most readers of this book are probably aspiring to leadership positions or attempting to change organisations, but much of the material in it is relevant to anyone who is attempting to make changes in their lives.

I will focus here on the approach to overcoming internal resistance that the book might suggest for a person who wants to become more open to critical evaluation of his or her own views on issues that have become highly politicized. I will provide my own responses to the series of questions suggested by the authors, rather than speculate about how others might respond. Hopefully my introspection will have some relevant to others.

1.       What is your improvement goal?

As already noted, I want to be more open to critical evaluation of my views on issues that have become politicised. My reason for doing this is that I suspect the opposing side on such issues might sometimes have genuine concerns that are worth considering.

2.       What are you doing/ not doing instead?

I rarely read opinion pieces by commentators whom I consider likely to be opposed to my views on controversial issues. I have sometimes expressed the view that I need to be paid to read such commentary.

When friends and relatives challenge my views on controversial issues, my response is often overly defensive. I begin such conversations with the intention of ensuring I understand the opposing point of view, but I am easily diverted to point scoring.

3.       What hidden competing commitments prevent achievement of your improvement goal?

When I imagine myself reading commentary that is opposed to my views I feel that I am likely to be bored by a recitation of views that I have previously rejected. It seems like a waste of time. However, I must also acknowledge fear that reading such commentary could be unsettling. The authors of these pieces often do their best to appeal to the emotions of their readers. I acknowledge some concern that I might need to modify my views if I start feeling sympathy for the plight of victims of policies that I support. The hidden commitments underlying those concerns are not feeling unsettled and not being swayed by appeals to emotion.

My defensiveness in conversations on controversial topics with people with opposing viewpoints seems to be related to the tendency for such conversations to degenerate into point-scoring exercises in which participants attempt to attach labels to each other. I am concerned that I might respond in kind if conversation partners disrespect me. The hidden commitments are to avoid being labelled and to avoid losing self-control.

4.       What are the big assumptions that underlie this immune system?

I accept that the hidden commitments identified above act as an immune system to prevent progress toward my improvement goal. I can see why I am unlikely to be able to make much progress merely by forcing myself to read commentary that is opposed to my views, or by telling myself not to become defensive when discussing controversial issues. The hidden commitments identified above have been acting as an anxiety reduction system.

 The authors of Immunity to Change explain the concept of “big assumption” as follows:

"We use the concept of big assumptions to signal that there are some ways we understand ourselves and the world (and the relationship between the world and ourselves) that we do not see as mental constructions. Rather, we see them as truths, incontrovertible facts, accurate representations of how we and the world are.
These constructions of reality are actually assumptions; they may well be true, but they also may not be. When we treat an assumption as if it is a truth, we have made it what we call a big assumption."

The big assumptions underlying the hidden commitments I have identified seem to be related to self-trust. There is an assumption that I can’t trust myself to feel sympathy for the plight of some unfortunate people without losing my mental faculties. There is also an assumption that I can’t trust myself not to lose control if I am disrespected.

Identifying those big assumptions was an “aha” moment for me. The absurdity of the assumptions seemed obvious as soon as they were identified.

However, Kegan and Lahey emphasize that the process of overcoming immunity to change does not end with identifying big assumptions. The next step is to design tests capable of disconfirming the big assumptions. The tests involve changes in usual conduct that generate information that we can reflect upon to challenge the big assumptions. The authors emphasize that the purpose of running the tests is not to see whether performance has improved, but to generate information to provide a learning experience.

This is where my story ends. In writing this article I have ‘tied myself to the mast’ with a public commitment to test my big assumptions. However, it could be counterproductive to disclose what tests I have in mind, and I’m certainly not going to promise to write a sequel to tell you what happens.

Even if it achieves nothing more, this exercise of identifying big assumptions has made me more appreciative that the difficulty other people have in being open to critical evaluation of their own views could well be attributable to deep-seated fears.
I recommend Immunity to Change to anyone struggling to understand why they are having difficulty in making the changes they want to make in their own behaviours.

6 comments:

Winton Bates said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Leah said...

Hi Winton,

This is depressing if so few people are open to changing their views as the author claims. Good self analysis on your part.

Speaking about changing your mind on politics, of late I am so enamored with the works of Roger Scruton that I'm starting to wonder if I'm not a traditionalist conservative rather than a libertarian. I guess it is possible to be both really.

There are really two kinds of libertarians, the minarchist/vlountaryist kind, like am, and then the Randian kind who this that the market can solve every problem that humanity has, which I have never been.

What is your opinion?

Winton Bates said...

Thanks Leah.
I like some of the stuff Roger Scruton writes. I particularly like what he writes about beauty. I haven’t read much of what he has written about political philosophy. If he is a Burkean conservative I would find his views much less challenging than if he opposes all social change.
I still view myself as a classical liberal or Hayekian. That puts me in the small government camp, although I read quite a lot of stuff by anarchy-libertarians. It is fascinating that some communities have managed to function without governments. In the past it has been reasonable to presume that government lowers the transactions cost in provision of some goods, but that might not be so in future. Democratic government seems to be becoming increasingly dysfunctional all over the world and technological advances are making it possible for some public goods to be provided without government involvement. Recent posts about the Social Singularity discuss relevant technological advances.
I think Ayn Rand was a better novelist than philosopher, but I have been strongly influenced by some philosophers who describe themselves as Objectivists, particularly Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl. Their explanation in “Norms of Liberty” that we need liberty so that individuals can flourish without interfering with the flourishing of others, seems to me to hit the nail of the head. Their recent book, “The Perfectionist Turn” seems to me to provide a sensible grounding for individual ethics.

Leah said...

Hi Winton,

Yes, Scruton is a Burkean. He argues for preserving the natural enviornment as well, which I think would resonate with you. You should read his poltical philosophy, it's all very reasonable - in fact, I think most people would agree with they type of conservatism that he advocates. I think Scruton also argues for norms of liberty as you describe above. In How to be a Conservative, he states:

"Conservatism starts from a sentiment that all mature people can readily share: the sentiment that good things are easily destroyed, but not easily created. This is especially true of the good things that come to us as collective assets: peace, freedom, law, civility, public spirit, the security of property and family life, in all of which we depend on the cooperation of others while having no means singlehandedly to obtain it."

What does that mean government lowers the transaction cost in the provision of some goods? Can you explain?

Winton Bates said...

Hi Leah, Scruton makes conservatism seem attractive. However, he doesn’t seem to be claiming that the quoted passage contains a uniquely conservative viewpoint. Perhaps conservatives are more inclined to oppose social experimentation than are classical liberals.

Anyhow, you have persuaded me to read more of Scruton. I have just bought his recent book on human nature.

Regarding transactions costs, what I am talking about is the time and effort that would be required to get voluntary agreement to provide and pay for public goods e.g. national defence. It is not possible to prevent people who don’t subscribe to the service from benefiting from it. Libertarians tend to argue that governments invest too heavily in defence/ war, but I suspect the absence of government would result in under-investment in defence and vulnerability to invasion.

Leah said...

Glad to hear that Winton! I've not read that one, let me know how it is. I'm reading and highly recommend How to Be a Conservative. He makes many references to Hayek.

Yes, that makes sense and I agree with that regarding defence.

All of this is quite tricky; I find that I am an anarchist in theory but minarchist in actual practice.