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June 18 - August 7, 2021
confirmation bias,
Mercier begs to differ. With his collaborator Dan Sperber, also a cognitive scientist at CNRS, he has proposed a provocative alternative—different in its explanation for reason’s afflictions, and different in its recommended remedy. We did not evolve to solve tricky logic puzzles on our own, they point out, and so we shouldn’t be surprised by the fact that we’re no good at it, any more than by the fact that we’re no good at breathing
underwater.
“argumentative theory of reasoning.”
arguing together,
Indeed, research has consistently found that argument—when conducted in the right way—produces deeper learning, sounder decisions, and more innovative solutions (not to mention better movies).
David Johnson, a psychologist at the University of Minnesota. It is “a general rule of teaching,” he has written, “that if an instructor does not create an intellectual conflict within the first few minutes of class, students won’t engage with the lesson.”
The ability to argue emerges early in life, as any parent knows. Children as young as two or three are capable of producing justifications and constructing arguments when they find themselves at odds with their parents or siblings. “As they acquire more language, cognitive skills, and social knowledge about rules and rights,” children become increasingly effective advocates for their own points of view, notes Nancy Stein, a psychologist at the University of Chicago who studies the development of argumentative thinking. The ability to critically evaluate others’ arguments—to distinguish strong
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“People should fight as if they are right, and listen as if they are wrong.”
stories.
Stories
“Gossip is stories about what happened and what you did” in response. He adds: “If you think about what needs to happen for a healthy organization, people need to know the rules of the road. They need to know how things are done. Which means they have to hear the stories.”
“socially distributed cognition,”
“groupthink.”
Something beyond solo thinking is required—the generation of a state that is entirely natural to us as a species, and yet one that has come to seem quite strange and exotic: the group mind.
synchrony.
cognitive synchrony: multiple people thinking together efficiently and effectively.
Studies of athletes and dancers have even found that moving in unison increases endurance and reduces the perception of physical pain.
Synchronization sweeps us up into what one researcher calls a “social eddy,”
The "Social Eddy"
Jonathan Haidt,
“hive switch.”
shared movement but shared arousal.
attention and our motivation.
“shared attention”
Infants will gaze longer at what the grownups around them appear to be looking at, and they are more likely to recognize objects that they earlier jointly attended
Joint Attention
“cooperative eye hypothesis”—the theory that our eyes evolved to support cooperative social interactions. “Our eyes see, but they are also meant to be seen,” notes science writer Ker Than.
And it starts with babies following the direction of our eyes.
“moments of joint attention” are associated with more successful outcomes.
“entitativity”—or, in a catchier formulation, their “groupiness.”
First, people who need to think together should learn together—in
(Notably, research has found that asynchronous communication—of the kind that is now common not only among teenagers but among adult professionals as well—reduces the efficiency and effectiveness of group work.) In a clever jujitsu move, Barnwell redirected his students’ use of technology: he asked them to record one another with their smartphones and then analyze their own and their partners’ conversational patterns. Before long, his students were holding lively class-wide conversations—thinking and acting more like a group, and reaping the cognitive benefits that only a group can generate.
A second principle for engendering groupiness would go like this: people who need to think together should train together—in
“silo effect,”
A third principle for generating groupiness would hold that people who need to think together should feel together—in
The fourth and final mandate for eliciting groupiness is this: people who need to think together should engage in rituals together—in
The explanation may go back, again, to synchrony. Balachandra notes that when we eat together, we end up mirroring one another’s movements: lifting the food to our mouths, chewing, swallowing. “This unconscious mimicking of each other may induce positive feelings towards both the other party and the matter under discussion,” she writes. Other research has found that the positive effect of shared meals on cooperation is heightened if participants dine “family style”—eating the same food, served from communal dishes. It may also be enhanced if very spicy entrees are on the menu, since consuming
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The power of the pepper!
together.
This marks a difference from notions such as “crowdsourcing” and the “hive mind,” which have enjoyed a sustained surge of popularity. In theory and in practice, these concepts are highly brainbound: a bunch of disembodied minds bouncing ideas around, usually online.
What explains the disparity between the productive, invigorating, even ecstatic ideal of group thought and action—which, as we’ve seen, human beings evolved to do well—and the dispiriting reality as most of us experience it? The answer may lie in a profound mismatch between the present-day demands of knowledge work and a set of ideas about such endeavors that is rooted deep in the past.
A very important question.
“collective intelligence.”
“inquisitive and self-silencing” stance,
Philosopher Andy Clark, observing the progressive delegation of our mental operations to our devices, has noted that “the mind is just less and less in the head” these days. More than that, the mind must be less and less in the head, and more and more emblazoned on the world, if we are to extend our minds with the minds of others.
we should acknowledge, repeat, rephrase, and elaborate on what other group members say.
Acknowledge, Repeat, Rephrase, Elaborate
“shared artifacts.”
The process by which we leverage an awareness of the knowledge other people possess is called “transactive memory.”
As a result, research finds, teams that build a strong transactive memory structure perform better than teams for which that structure is less defined.
who’s responsible for doing what but also who’s responsible for knowing what.
each topic has its designated “knowledge champion,”
they were at last getting outside their own heads.
“stereotype threat”:
“conditional stupidity.”
