Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. This produces a feeling of mental discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance.
For example, when people smoke (behavior) and they know that smoking causes cancer (cognition), they are in a state of cognitive dissonance.
A STORY THAT EXEMPLIFIES COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
This is the theory of cognitive dissonance, first proposed by Leon Festinger, a psychologist at the University of Minnesota. In the summer of 1954, Festinger was reading the morning newspaper when he encountered a short article about Marion Keech, a housewife in suburban Minneapolis who was convinced that the apocalypse was coming. (Keech was a pseudonym.) She had started getting messages from aliens a few years before, but now the messages were getting eerily specific. According to Sananda, an extra-terrestrial from the planet Clarion who was in regular contact with Keech, human civilization would be destroyed by a massive flood at midnight on December 20, 1954.
Keech’s sci-fi prophecy soon gained a small band of followers. They trusted her divinations, and marked the date of Armageddon on their calendars. Many of them quit their jobs and sold their homes. The cultists didn’t bother buying Christmas presents or making arrangements for New Years Eve, since nothing would exist by then.
Festinger immediately realized that Keech would make a great research subject. He decided to infiltrate the group by pretending to be a true believer. What Festinger wanted to study was the reaction of the cultists on the morning of December 21, when the world wasn’t destroyed and no spaceship appeared. Would Keech recant? What would happen when her prophesy failed?
On the night of December 20, Keech’s followers gathered in her home and waited for instructions from the aliens. Midnight approached. When the clock read 12:01 and there were still no aliens, the cultists began to worry. A few began to cry. The aliens had let them down. But then Keech received a new telegram from outer space, which she quickly transcribed on her notepad. “This little group sitting all night long had spread so much light,” the aliens told her, “that god saved the world from destruction. Not since the beginning of time upon this Earth has there been such a force of Good and light as now floods this room.” In other words, it was their stubborn faith that had prevented the apocalypse. Although Keech’s predictions had been falsified, the group was now more convinced than ever that the aliens were real. They began proselytizing to others, sending out press releases and recruiting new believers. This is how they reacted to the dissonance of being wrong: by becoming even more certain that they were right.
IMPLICATIONS FOR CORONAVIRUS
Will people embrace change based on realisation or simply move into denial and stick with old ways of thinking and old methods of working. Perhaps making every effort to return to a past that cannot be recreated.
It has been suggested to me (and I readily agree) that in a time of crisis we are all in this together and there is little room or tolerance for maverick thinking. Any challenge is likely to be met with resistance and distancing from the social group which is clinging to itself and relying upon social cohesion to survive (like Keech’s followers gathered in her home).
However once the crisis is past you may see recriminations and blame, instead of new harmony you will see division. In political terms alliances may reach an end and inevitably compete for votes rather than collaborate for the future.
So it seems we have a temporary harmony which will be followed by [a] a new way of thinking and doing [b] a return to old beliefs and actions [c] division and debate about the future. Which do you subscribe to?
Me? I am waiting for the next spaceship to planet Clarion
USEFUL REFERENCES
What happened December 20, 1954.
https://www.wired.com/2011/01/cognitive-dissonance/
Monday 27 April 2020
MAKE THE NEW NORMAL = HAPPINESS
MAKE THE NEW NORMAL = HAPPINESS
At a time when so many people appear to be stressed-out and anxious aside from the benefits of routine and habit to gaining control over your day, yourself, you mind and your wellbeing here are 10 Best Ways to Increase Dopamine (happiness ) Levels Naturally
Dopamine is one of the “feel good” chemicals in our brain. Interacting with the pleasure and reward center of our brain, dopamine — along with other chemicals like serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins — plays a vital role in how happy we feel. In addition to our mood, dopamine also affects movement, memory, and focus.
1. Eat Lots of Protein
2. Eat Less Saturated Fat
3. Consume Probiotics
4. Eat Velvet Beans
5. Exercise Often
6. Get Enough Sleep
7. Listen to Music
8. Meditate
9. Get Enough Sunlight
10. Consider Supplements
REFERENCE
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-to-increase-dopamine
At a time when so many people appear to be stressed-out and anxious aside from the benefits of routine and habit to gaining control over your day, yourself, you mind and your wellbeing here are 10 Best Ways to Increase Dopamine (happiness ) Levels Naturally
Dopamine is one of the “feel good” chemicals in our brain. Interacting with the pleasure and reward center of our brain, dopamine — along with other chemicals like serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins — plays a vital role in how happy we feel. In addition to our mood, dopamine also affects movement, memory, and focus.
1. Eat Lots of Protein
2. Eat Less Saturated Fat
3. Consume Probiotics
4. Eat Velvet Beans
5. Exercise Often
6. Get Enough Sleep
7. Listen to Music
8. Meditate
9. Get Enough Sunlight
10. Consider Supplements
REFERENCE
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-to-increase-dopamine
Tuesday 21 April 2020
COACHING GREATER EXPECTATIONS AND HIGHER PERFORMANCE
COACHING GREATER EXPECTATIONS AND HIGHER PERFORMANCE
A coach, manager or leaders expectations can affect the performance of their teams.
The first psychologist to systematically study this was a Harvard professor named Robert Rosenthal, who in 1964 did a wonderful experiment at an elementary school south of San Francisco.
The idea was to figure out what would happen if teachers were told that certain kids in their class were destined to succeed, so Rosenthal took a normal IQ test and dressed it up as a different test.
It was a standardized IQ test, Flanagan's Test of General Ability, he says. But the cover we put on it, we had printed on every test booklet, said 'Harvard Test of Inflected Acquisition.'
Rosenthal told the teachers that this very special test from Harvard had the very special ability to predict which kids were about to be very special that is, which kids were about to experience a dramatic growth in their IQ.
After the kids took the test, he then chose from every class several children totally at random. There was nothing at all to distinguish these kids from the other kids, but he told their teachers that the test predicted the kids were on the verge of an intense intellectual bloom.
As he followed the children over the next two years, Rosenthal discovered that the teachers' expectations of these kids really did affect the students. If teachers had been led to expect greater gains in IQ, then increasingly, those kids gained more IQ, he says.
But just how do expectations influence IQ?
As Rosenthal did more research, he found that expectations affect teachers' moment-to-moment interactions with the children they teach in a thousand almost invisible ways. Teachers give the students that they expect to succeed more time to answer questions, more specific feedback, and more approval: They consistently touch, nod and smile at those kids more.
It's not magic, it's not mental telepathy, Rosenthal says. It's very likely these thousands of different ways of treating people in small ways every day.
APPLYING SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY TO THE WORPLACE
People respond to praise or criticism whatever their age and a shift from command and control telling (which is often met with defence or resistance) toward a more coaching and collaborative style (which encourages the team-member to come up with ideas and take responsibility for the problem) can and does work in the workplace.
It can be very hard to control your own thinking, values, beliefs and assumptions and the inevitable impact that they have on other people. This is why coaches, leaders and managers need coaching. Even psychotherapists need psychotherapy before they can practice so as to be able to manage their own thinking and remain objective when working with clients.
If you want to more towards a coaching approach a good first step would be to find a coach, mentor or buddy who can give you honest feedback. If you are able to record or video meetings and reflect on the play-back that can be really helpful. Ideally if you have an open dialogue with the team you can use 360 feedback to help everyone improve.
One of the significant elements of scrum is the use of self-coordinated teams and the emphasis on retrospective meetings at the end of each delivery phase to both look at improvements in product or service delivery, but more importantly about how the team worked and what processes or behaviours will improve team working in the future.
The great strength of this approach is that the proposed processes or behaviours can be employed in the next (2 weekly?) delivery phase allowing for rapid feedback, review and improvement providing constant learning and growth.
7 WAYS COACHES AND LEADERS CAN CHANGE EXPECTATIONS
Watch how each team member interacts. How do they prefer to engage? What do they seem to like to do? Observe so you can understand all they are capable of.
Listen. Try to understand what motivates them, what their goals are and how they view you, their classmates and the activities you assign them.
Engage. Talk with team members about their individual interests. Don't offer advice or opinions just listen.
Experiment: Change how you react to challenging behaviours. Rather than responding quickly in the moment, take a breath. Realize that their behaviour might just be a way of reaching out to you.
Reach out: Know what your team members like to do outside of work. Find both individual and group time for them to share this with you. Watch and listen to how skilled, motivated and interested they can be. This type of activity is really important for team members with whom you often feel in conflict or who you avoid.
Reflect: Think back on your own best and worst coaches, bosses or supervisors. List five words for each that describe how you felt in your interactions with them. How did the best and the worst make you feel? What specifically did they do or say that made you feel that way? Now think about how your team members would describe you. Jot down how they might describe you and why. How do your expectations or beliefs shape how they look at you? Are there parallels in your beliefs and their responses to you?
A coach, manager or leaders expectations can affect the performance of their teams.
The first psychologist to systematically study this was a Harvard professor named Robert Rosenthal, who in 1964 did a wonderful experiment at an elementary school south of San Francisco.
The idea was to figure out what would happen if teachers were told that certain kids in their class were destined to succeed, so Rosenthal took a normal IQ test and dressed it up as a different test.
It was a standardized IQ test, Flanagan's Test of General Ability, he says. But the cover we put on it, we had printed on every test booklet, said 'Harvard Test of Inflected Acquisition.'
Rosenthal told the teachers that this very special test from Harvard had the very special ability to predict which kids were about to be very special that is, which kids were about to experience a dramatic growth in their IQ.
After the kids took the test, he then chose from every class several children totally at random. There was nothing at all to distinguish these kids from the other kids, but he told their teachers that the test predicted the kids were on the verge of an intense intellectual bloom.
As he followed the children over the next two years, Rosenthal discovered that the teachers' expectations of these kids really did affect the students. If teachers had been led to expect greater gains in IQ, then increasingly, those kids gained more IQ, he says.
But just how do expectations influence IQ?
As Rosenthal did more research, he found that expectations affect teachers' moment-to-moment interactions with the children they teach in a thousand almost invisible ways. Teachers give the students that they expect to succeed more time to answer questions, more specific feedback, and more approval: They consistently touch, nod and smile at those kids more.
It's not magic, it's not mental telepathy, Rosenthal says. It's very likely these thousands of different ways of treating people in small ways every day.
APPLYING SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY TO THE WORPLACE
People respond to praise or criticism whatever their age and a shift from command and control telling (which is often met with defence or resistance) toward a more coaching and collaborative style (which encourages the team-member to come up with ideas and take responsibility for the problem) can and does work in the workplace.
It can be very hard to control your own thinking, values, beliefs and assumptions and the inevitable impact that they have on other people. This is why coaches, leaders and managers need coaching. Even psychotherapists need psychotherapy before they can practice so as to be able to manage their own thinking and remain objective when working with clients.
If you want to more towards a coaching approach a good first step would be to find a coach, mentor or buddy who can give you honest feedback. If you are able to record or video meetings and reflect on the play-back that can be really helpful. Ideally if you have an open dialogue with the team you can use 360 feedback to help everyone improve.
One of the significant elements of scrum is the use of self-coordinated teams and the emphasis on retrospective meetings at the end of each delivery phase to both look at improvements in product or service delivery, but more importantly about how the team worked and what processes or behaviours will improve team working in the future.
The great strength of this approach is that the proposed processes or behaviours can be employed in the next (2 weekly?) delivery phase allowing for rapid feedback, review and improvement providing constant learning and growth.
7 WAYS COACHES AND LEADERS CAN CHANGE EXPECTATIONS
Watch how each team member interacts. How do they prefer to engage? What do they seem to like to do? Observe so you can understand all they are capable of.
Listen. Try to understand what motivates them, what their goals are and how they view you, their classmates and the activities you assign them.
Engage. Talk with team members about their individual interests. Don't offer advice or opinions just listen.
Experiment: Change how you react to challenging behaviours. Rather than responding quickly in the moment, take a breath. Realize that their behaviour might just be a way of reaching out to you.
Reach out: Know what your team members like to do outside of work. Find both individual and group time for them to share this with you. Watch and listen to how skilled, motivated and interested they can be. This type of activity is really important for team members with whom you often feel in conflict or who you avoid.
Reflect: Think back on your own best and worst coaches, bosses or supervisors. List five words for each that describe how you felt in your interactions with them. How did the best and the worst make you feel? What specifically did they do or say that made you feel that way? Now think about how your team members would describe you. Jot down how they might describe you and why. How do your expectations or beliefs shape how they look at you? Are there parallels in your beliefs and their responses to you?
Thursday 2 April 2020
WILL CORONAVIRUS RESET OUR THINKING ON DEMOCRACY, LIBERTY, DATA AND SURVEILLANCE?
It may be suggested that more authoritarian government or
cultures have been able to enforce and cope with lockdown better than others.
But there is a counter-argument that the community spirit and collaboration is
greater in those counties of civil liberties.
Could Britain become like George Orwell’s 1984 with drones patrolling
the streets or embrace more socialist concepts like universal income as espoused
in Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There by Rutger Bregman
Maybe we will see a new social contract as suggested in Out
of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis by George Monbiot or as
advocated by Robert Peston in his book WTF?: What have we done? Why did it
happen? How do we take back control?
Brexit seems tame in its impact and its implications
compared to where we are now.
In his book How To Fix The Future, Andrew Keen looks at how
different governments approach the use of data for civil purposes. In his best
seller books (Homo Deus and 21 Lessons
for 21st Century) Yuval Noah Harari also explores the choices and future
scenarios that may arise as a result of the decisions we take.
The papers say We will have to accept the curtailment of our liberty to
vanquish the coronavirus in one breath and Britain has traded individual liberty for a
terrifying state omnishambles
Some try to take a neutral stance: Liberty and the Coronavirus: Not An
Either/Or Proposition
Now might be a useful time to engage in a debate about the world
we want to return to when this is all over.
Feedback and comments welcome.
#LetsResetNormal
LINKS
We will have to accept the curtailment of our liberty to
vanquish the coronavirus
Britain has traded individual liberty for a terrifying state
omnishambles
Liberty and the Coronavirus: Not An Either/Or Proposition
#LetsResetNormal SURVIVING THE CORONAVIRUS LOCKDOWN (Download)
This is a fantastic
compendium from 60 people of stories about routine and of survival and triumph
taking everyday and extraordinary experiences and applying them to the strange
set of circumstances we now find ourselves in. It is full of fun, insight and
some valuable lessons about life.
This book went from
concept to creation in a matter of days thanks to an absolutely epic effort by
a hastily assembled team of editors, the book shaped up to launch today.
A number of formats are available from www.wordcatcher.com/letsresetnormal
Sadly, my story did not make it into the book
They asked for stories about working together and
teams and collaboration but in the end decided my story (copy below) was nice, but wasn’t
enough about epidemic, virus and uncertainty. However, there is something from
me in the book (a check-list) and it will be good to read all the other
stories.
Please feel free to
read the stories and promote. Look out for the hashtag #LetsResetNormal
In the meantime below is my story.
Tim
#LetsResetNormal
The old lifeboat shed was the venue for a
have-a-go-row and given the recent good weather and boat show there were a
number of novices gathered to try coastal rowing.
Coastal rowing could not be more different
from Oxford v Cambridge but the larger sea-going boats are accommodating and
forgiving and ideal for novices on their first venture onto the water.
After a basic induction on indoor rowing
machines the club captain divided the attendees into random crews of four with
an experienced rower as their cox, coach and co-ordinator.
One crew in particular protested that the
teams were uneven and unfair. “Our
crew are all girls, we cannot compete against the men, it’s not fair!” Their cox however
was more confident but used the perceived inequality to secure the best choice
of boat.
Out of earshot the cox explained in a team
huddle with his new crew: “Rowing is about collaboration
and timing. Even if you are rubbish, being rubbish together will move the boat
better than everyone doing their own thing.”
If you rush it is like a car wheel spinning
from the traffic lights, lots of effort but little progress forward. Moreover,
if you are not synchronised, it is like driving with the handbrake on. Boats
are like cars, smooth is fast.
Once launched and on the water the mixed and
men’s teams conceded the ladies crew a boat length head start. This was a show
of confidence in the absence of experience and the cox knew it and how to play
on it.
The crews made themselves ready. The final
advice the cox gave to the novice crew was “Ignore
everyone else and everything else, just listen to me each time I call ‘stroke’
and stay on that rhythm”. Focus on what you are doing and
nothing else matters.
At the first victory over 1000 meters the
ladies were jubilant, but the cox (small, bossy and loud) feigned surprise to
the rivals who trailed by nearly a boat-length. Clearly a fluke, he shrugged.
But the second heat cut their head start by half.
A combination of overconfidence by the women
and prudence by the other teams meant the ladies crew trailed in a narrow
second place on the second heat.
Ironically, the third heat win and
best-of-three victory was made easier when the women went back to basics and
the mixed and men’s teams abandoned any technique in favour of all-out effort
and a clash of oars and personalities.
After the race the club captain and cox
chatted: “I bet that’s the first time any
of them have won anything since they left school, and in some cases that was
clearly a long time ago!”.
For the rowing club it was just another
have-a-go-row but it dawned on the cox that even that experience was
intoxicating for people who possibly have forgotten what it feels like to be a
winner.
By TimHJRogers (Cox)
Lessons
There are some rowing lessons about team-work,
timing, technique and a bit of gamesmanship to underplay your hand or overplay
your hardship. There are also lessons in leadership: Stay simple with a clear
message and an obvious achievable target. Leadership is sometimes helping
others succeed with your help but with no thought for reward or status. But
there are some life lessons too…
Co-ordination + communication = collaboration
and this beats the solo effort of individuals that just happen to be in the
same boat. Never underestimate your opponent. Decisions without data (or
experience) mean you give your rival a head start from which you may not get a
second chance.
You cannot win them all. However, provided the
ups outnumber the downs you’re a winner, even Darwin knows that. The only
certain way to lose is to not try.
A loss can make you humble, a win can make you
complacent, both may change your fortunes. But your ultimate success is not
about luck, it is about repeatedly doing simple things well.
Can you apply these lessons to coronavirus or
even your thinking? You may have a healthier and better life if you did.
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