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October 12, 2019
enlightened leaders
8: Collaborative Relations with Other Groups
purposeful, equitable, inclusive, transparent, responsive, harmonious, and autonomy-supportive relations
The principles point to the direction groups need to move, but psychological skills are needed to make that journey boldly and flexibly.
every aspect of our meaning making is inherently social.
Not sure about this…
the warp and weft of daily life.
We live inside multilevel selection.
The oldest (600 million years old or more) form of learning (that is, behavior change) is habituation,
described
Contingencies are the PATTERNS of antecedent-action-consequence.
regularities in antecedent-action-consequence sequences—what are called contingencies.
Given an antecedent context, particular variations in behavior produce particular consequences that select for that behavior in a particular motivational context.
If we want to build a science of intentional change, it makes sense to use the power of associative, social, and contingency learning to affect behavior.
the means to foster key elements of prosocial relations to others, such as trust, awareness of shared purpose, and more prosocially oriented values.
Symbolic learning differs from normal associative and contingency learning because it is built from the bottom up on the two-way street of relations.
In normal operant learning, the future purpose of action has actually been experienced in the past;
in symbolic learning, the past controls the cognitive construction of a purpose that may never before have been experienced.
contingencies of meaning.
PATTERNS of meaning.
The same symbolic relations that allow us to solve problems mentally also allow us to create problems mentally.
It even limits what problems we can solve.
evolved responses that worked for earlier forms of learning do not necessarily work with symbolic learning.
HA! Fell right into the very same trap that he's describing: we don't have names for emotions we have not teased you, yet.
symbolic learning processes can become self-contradictory and self-amplifying.
When narratives and heuristics are collectively held, they drive the behavior of human groups.
symbolic learning is a very recent form of learning that has completely transformed the lived experience of being human.
symbolic (that is, relational)
to be able to
Not that they'll do so…
psychological flexibility, which involves consciously moving in the direction of values even in the presence of difficult thoughts and feelings.
What psychological flexibility does is provide the skills and perspective needed to rein in internal selfishness
symbolic learning changes how events impact us.
When we say “purpose,” we generally mean either values or goals.
Values are our chosen qualities of being and doing.
her value becomes a selection criterion for behavior.
cognitive defusion, or cognitive flexibility.
openness and awareness function as episymbolic processes
values can be put into practice through committed action.
the prime tool for behavioral retention is practice and pattern of values-based action.
Building retention via practice and pattern only works to produce more prosociality
Committed action means pursuing larger and larger habits of values-based action. It means being committed to developing a practice and pattern of moving toward what is meaningful.
flexibility processes in the ACT model—valuing, cognitive flexibility, emotional flexibility, and committed action. The final two are flexible attention to the present moment and perspective taking.
As the three repertoires come together, a sense of “I/here/now” emerges.
mindfulness—a term you’ve probably heard of that represents open and nonjudgmental attention to the present moment.
the actual physical world of direct contingencies and the symbolic world of our interpretations and meanings.
six flexibility processes that make up psychological flexibility: values, emotional flexibility, cognitive flexibility, committed action, flexible attention, and perspective taking.
key elements that social psychologists have found underpinning prosocial behavior: trust, a focus on longer-term rather than immediate outcomes, and social value orientation.
Trust entails a sense of vulnerability. For trust to develop something must be at stake.
Emotional and cognitive openness facilitate the sharing of values and vulnerabilities and reduce the pull to avoid.
Perspective taking fosters empathy and connection, and when combined with greater psychological openness it predicts more enjoyable and...
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The sharing of values allows for greater interpersonal connection and transparency about motives, further fostering trust.
People tend to act more prosocially when their attention is less on their immediate reactivity and more on what they want for the longer term.
Building a cathedral vs laying bricks.
values-based commitments undermine such impulsive processes.19
the relationship between trust and cooperation is strongest when there is more rather than less conflict.
