Experience Ontario from the Grassroots Up

 

 

Last is the government's plan to spend more on skills training, including a new program called Experience Ontario - details of which are not spelled out in the speech - to help recent high school graduates get work experience.

 

That's great - truly.  We can do so much more than that, though.  What about empowering youth with leadership skills, business management, project management finance, etc. - and doing it through NFPs like SoJo or through youth job subsidies to employer that require certain training components attached?

 

There are so many innovative, cost-effective and community-empowering ways this stuff can be done, if the consultation and planning process behind these initiatives is done right. 

 

Two things not yet addressed that I hope to see - you can't do labour and hiring better unless you include things like management training and cognitive labour, which has to include some emphasis on mental health.  This is simply what the evolving nature of work requires.  It'd be great for government to take the lead.

 

And - Open Government.  That one has to happen.

 

The Secret Sauce for Success

Dr. Dweck has shown that when kids learn and read about the brain and how it changes and grows in response to challenge, they're much more likely to persevere when they fail because they don't believe that failure is a permanent condition.

To sum up all of what follows if you don't have time to read - the next evolution in healthy people and a healthy society is going to be redefining mental health from being about managing illness to fostering fitness.

Angela Lee Duckworth is an amazing speaker.  She has executive presence; from the moment she opens her mouth, you're hooked.  She gesticulates just enough to be engaging, she speaks in a confident tone at a solid pace and above all, she makes it abundantly clear that she knows her stuff.

This last one is what interests me the most.  Lee Duckworth talks about bouncing between careers, studying completely dissimilar groups - all the kinds of scattered, unfocused activity that is generally seen as traits of failures.  

What do we tell youth or job-seekers today?  Pick one subject, narrow in on it and do just that.  Find your "critical path" and pursue it, accepting no deviation.

The same mentality is increasingly true for politics, as best exemplified by the Political Right (Stephen Harper, Tim Hudak and Rob Ford come to mind) with their one-point plans and dismissal of everything else.  We want simplicity, sound-bites, one-dimensional narratives and quick wins.

It makes sense, right?  Simple sells.  Functional fixedness and message repetition sell.  We intuitively recognize that people don't want to have their brains stretched, they don't have the time to study complexity, so we continuously aim for "the low hanging fruit."

When it comes to failure, it's three strikes and you're out - if you're lucky.  If you can't get it right in a very narrow timespan, you're clearly never going to win and are therefore not a good investment.

Imagine if this was the approach we encouraged in our students.  "Look, you're clearly not a math whiz, so give up on it.  Science?  You're not bright enough, so move on.  The only think you'll amount to is manual labour, so forget all this learning and develop on your critical path to getting your foot in that door."

Education is about challenging our kids to expand their minds.  Learning to read, write, do math, think critically - these are all tough activities to undertake, like training for a marathon.  They're not easy; they take effort.  They are meant to take effort.

At some point along the way, though, we give up on this concept of a growth mindset and switch to functional fixedness.  "Don't confuse me with facts," our policy makers will tell us, "I know my plan is the only one to get the job done."

Bosses work the same way - "I have the answers, your job is to implement them.  Do what you're paid to and leave the rest to me."

Cognitive development, myelination of neuropathways has something to do with this, but again, that's complexity.  We don't want complexity, because we're too important or too busy to have to actually learn any more.

Sales, not growth, becomes the fixation.  How we feel shapes our behaviour, without us exploring the reason why.

We ask "what's in it for me?" or "what's my ROI?" or "why should I care?" putting our selfish best-interest first.  We focus on pushing content and taking what we can get, not on what we can contribute or what we have to learn.

Go back, watch Angela Lee Duckworth again.  Listen to what she says and how she says it.  She makes sense, she provokes thought, she engages - and she does it all in the span of six minutes.

Chuck Berry once said that it should take a long time to craft a great song - but only two minutes to sing it.  Songs are sourced from experience, from listening to music, from thinking about life - all activities that provide no immediate ROI, but that you can't innovate without.

It's really hard to write a great song for money, on the fly - songs are art, an expression of complex thoughts and feelings in digestible formats.

Like Lee Duckworth's presentation.  She's up there on stage, captivating an audience and inspiring people like me to share her story not because her primary objective is to make a buck or sell a book, but because she's twigged on to something that, in her mind, is so critical for people to understand that it would be wrong not to share.

Angela Lee Duckworth is an amazing speaker because she believes what she's telling.  She has dug deep and searched far, doing all the things we're told not to do in pursuit of answers to the questions that challenged her.

She has grown, she has come to see how her exploration has facilitated her cognitive growth and, through multiple iterations, she has excelled.

In short, Angela Lee Duckworth has done what all successful people do, throughout history - she has put the Why before the What or the How.  Her question has become her mission and that mission keeps driving her to greater heights.

Had she stopped at some point along the line, no one would have heard about her.  She'd be considered an abject failure.

The same holds true for people like Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill and Steve Jobs.  

It's interest to note that these three men, like most successful, world-changing leaders, spent more than a little time exploring their own minds and their own motivations, as well.  They were driven to push past themselves and truly become agents of change.

What, then, is the secret?

It's the exact opposite of what we are taught, what we are told and what the marginally successful people we are told we should emulate represent.

Don't focus on selfish interest, a simple path over a short distance and get there as fast as possible. That may bring you wealth, it can even bring you fame, but these are passing things.  

The people that change the world think broadly, see failure as a teachable moment rather than an endgame and look far down the road to where we can and need to go.

They're not interested in scoring wins or beating opponents - history's actors are committed to understanding the world and making it a better place.  They are perpetual students, constantly learning, constantly iterating, constantly honing their message, drawing new connections and filling in the dark spaces of their understanding.

And every single last one of them circles back to cognition.

Angela Lee Duckworth is fascinated with how motivation works, how the mind functions and how we might develop grit through the educational process.  This is the same challenge CEOs, policy makers, managers, mentors, parents, health care providers, everyone is butting against.  Tried-and-true methods aren't working, but few know why.  They should work - carrot and stick financial motivation has been successful throughout the age of the Manufactured Economy, so it should work now, right? 

But it doesn't.  Why?

We generally come to understand a given process, but not the underlying mechanics.  Attack ads work because they do; bonuses work because they have; people that don't succeed are failures and are therefore not worth investing time or money in.  That's just how we think things work.

The way we used to think the world was flat, or the earth was the centre of the universe.  The way we think sales determines success now.  Or the way we think it's bluster that leads to success, or that success is an individual achievement.

Cognitive science is proving all of our assumptions wrong.  It's doing this by going beyond what we know and accept as true and asking why it might be the case.  People like Angela Lee Duckworth no longer accept the notion that some kids are failures, some people are just bad seeds and that people have personal plateaus that they reach and cannot surpass.

The way we understand the world is changing.  With this growing knowledge of why, new tools, technologies and processes are being developed that are fundamentally going to change our world.  

Open Government, Social-Emotional Learning, work culture, employee engagement programs, changes in metrics, new economic sectors, nudge theory, it goes on and on.

The successful people who will shape tomorrow are active today.  Many are flying under the radar, others are being dismissed entirely.  That doesn't bother them, because recognition isn't their motivation.

They are driven to know and as they learn, they see an emerging picture of where we are going next.  It's daunting, but very cool.  They want to be part of that world.  

This is the secret to success, which is the exact opposite of what we are taught.  

Understanding, not messaging.

Communication, not sales.

Be what we can contribute to, not take what we can.

Altruism is selfishness that plans ahead.

The only barriers between what we are and what we can be are in our mind.

When we are conscious of these barriers, we can tear them down.

When that happens, everything is possible.

You just have to believe it.

Angela Duckworth does - it's working pretty well for her so far.

Finally, Cognitive Labour is on The Agenda!

Starting Monday, TVO and The Agenda will be presenting Mysteries of the Mind, an exploration of the many surprising things about the human brain being revealed by the latest science.

Hosting the series is psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and best-selling author, Dr. Norman Doidge.  As a part of this, Dr. Doige will join Steve Paikin every night next week to discuss topics including: how to make your brain smarter, the hidden potential buried in the unconscious brain, technology and the brain, and how to ensure brain health from cradle to grave.

It was two years ago that I sat down with Diane Mckenzie and Cortney Pasternak to talk about mental health.  I told them, as I had previously told mental health professionals, politicians and the consultants who woo them from across Toronto that a number of distinct trend lines were starting to merge into one emerging reality.

The main threads I wove together were as follows:

Mental Health Crisis:  Countries around the world were starting to identify, by name, a mental health crisis of massive, expensive proportions.  As we'd done away with the institutionalization of "crazy people" (much as we'd done away with leper colonies) were rejoining a society that simply wasn't set up to accommodate them.  Even worse - we really have no idea what mental health looks like.  By and large we still focus on the need for people to "act normal", essentially identified as an outlook and approach to life that properly supports economic functioning.

But there was the rub; mental illnesses like depression and anxiety were popping up in the workplace at an increasing rate.  In fact, it was starting to look like some work conditions/expectations/management norms were causing mental illness, much as poor physical labour conditions can result in physical injury.  

Presenteeism and Canada's Innovation Deficit: Presenteeism is on the rise across Canada, and not because people are catching more colds.  For some reason, we are not as productive as we could, should and truly need to be.  Common management wisdom was (and is) trending towards a problem with employees - they have become needy and are demanding more recognition, more ownership of work and the like.  Silly employees - that's not how the world of work functions, they'll say.  Work hard, work your way through the ranks from assembly line to front-line management to middle management and who knows, you may make partner one day.

A big part of the blame for this needy-employee syndrome is being placed on the shoulders of unions, who have gotten too big for their britches and are making unsustainable demands from employers around things like wages and benefits.  Work is a carrot-and-stick business; employees need to be more productive, resulting in a more productive company, which will then allow for increased wages as incentives to keep up the good work.  That's simple economics, right?

But cognitive science has demonstrated clearly that traditional wage carrot-and-stick motivation doesn't work when it comes to motivating innovative productivity.  If you're making widgets or digging in mines, yes, the promise of more cash can incent you to work faster, but when you want employees to be developing, selling and implementing new products and services, carrots and sticks literally fire up the functional part of the brain, not the creative one.

Instead what you get is de-motivated employees, inclinations towards micro-management and overall corporate stagnation.  When financial times are tight and your firm isn't growing, what do fiscally-minded bosses do?  They cut jobs, cut wages and shrink the overall pie - moving their company (or country) in the opposite direction of sustainable growth.

Yesterday's Policy Solutions For Today's Problems: At the time of our chat, there was a widespread belief that the Political Right was on an unstoppable trend towards success, with expectations that the progressive movement in Canada had ground to a halt.  

Policy focuses seemed to reflect this reality; unions were in everyone's political cross-hairs, corporate tax cuts and de-regulation were favoured tools and the path to economic prosperity was largely defined as harvesting and exporting natural resources courtesy of trade deals that had to emerge.  There was some lip-service paid to innovation, social enterprise and the whole Knowledge Economy thing, but Canada's strength had always been in resource exports - if it ain't broke don't fix it, right?

A Shift in Global Consciousness:  While Canada was increasingly focus on hard-nosed sales and labour efficiencies, the rest of the global village was grappling with a changing reality.  More and more citizens were accepting the notion of detrimental climate change due to industry-induced environmental degredation.  

While Canadian politicians worked to shore up their traditional manufacturing economic base and woo back those who had fled to cheaper pastures, the countries we were reducing our labour supports to compete with were facing backlash due to illness, injury, loss of life and unbalanced profit-sharing.  Folk in places like Bangladesh were demanding better treatment and work conditions and, thanks to social media and a trend downwards in working conditions in the Western World, were gaining international support in their demands.

Civic Unrest:  Occupy, Idle No More, Arab Spring, so on and so forth - in fits and spurts, the have-nots were finding there voice and doing it so in increasingly global fashion.  An underlying theme was that something in the current model must not be working, because it was clear far too many people were working hard or trying hard to work but barely making ends meet while others seemed to have a better deal.  In countries like Canada and the US, the 1% have been identified as the problem; in places like Greece, there's a trend towards blaming immigrants.  Whatever the root cause, consensus is building that something's gotta give.

To make matters worse, this reality is playing out against a backdrop where a privileged few are being exposed as playing by a different set of rules than everyone else.  When big C Conservatives like Mike Duffy or Peter Shurman extol the Calvinist virtues of jobs being the best social program, but are quietly taking their own share of gravy, people get upset.  When politicians break the law - drunk driving, drug use, so on and so forth - without punishment yet minority groups are subjected to racial profiling even when they are following the rules - again, something's gotta give.

Political Staff:  To an increasing degree, politicians caught in lies or misdeeds or simply not properly informed of a given issue are passing the buck to their staff.  In a sense, you can't blame them - in as hostile a political climate as we have, no politician can risk been seen to be prone to human error, so somebody has to go under the bus.  Staff fit the bill nicely; they're easily replaceable, by and large young and untrained.  It's easy to blame them for mistakes and discard them as a way to demonstrate to the public action taken.

But the undercurrent reality is that political staff are subject to some of the most impossible labour expectations out there.  They receive precious little training that isn't partisan in nature, are expected to function as soldiers but are treated like servants and by the nature of the business, have to be available at all hours and mindful at all times of how they present the Party brand.  The boss mentality is rampant in politics, from the top down - disgruntled MPs and MPPs are expected to protect and promote their leader first, their own ridings second; political staff are expected to keep their bosses happy, ensure their win yet do all this while ensuring they are towing the Party line, with information flowing from the top down only.

Poverty, Justice and Back to Mental Health:  So, we have people with significant mental illness on the street, unable to function without proper accommodations and unable to fit the narrow expectations of employers.  We have employees who are worried about their jobs, upset at their bosses and trying to find a square deal; if it isn't in wages, it comes through things like printing out their kids' homework on company paper or stretching coffee breaks to the max (i.e., presenteeism).  

You have political staff realizing that the only way to do what's expected of them is to break the rules - which has led to scandals ranging from deleted emails to Senate follies to kids fraternizing with drug dealers at the boss' behest.  Then you have those individuals who, seeing no hope of entering the modern workforce and succeeding in the way the 1% does turning to alternative avenues, like crime.

Enter the justice system and social service providers.  More people on the street, unemployed, ill, agitated and breaking the law from within the system or on the streets adds more pressure to anyone charged with keeping society healthy and orderly.  Police are a good example of this.

With some prominent police suicides, incidents of excessive use of force (like in the Sammy Yatim case) it's becoming clear that those front-line service providers who end up managing all this mental mayhem are suffering themselves.  The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police have taken this big picture so seriously that they're holding an all-encompassing mental health conference in March, trying to bring players together to discuss how we can fix all these disjointed but socially (and economically) taxing realities. 

Which brings us to our last thread - 

Cognitive Labour and the KISS Paradox:  Canada says it wants integrated solutions for complex, multi-lateral problems, but in reality it doesn't want to have to think to understand them.  Politicians have recognized the value of simple, repetitive sound-bite messaging to trigger emotional reactions (and donations and votes) from citizens.  Employers expect their employees to wrap their heads around complex details, but only communicate the bare-bones essentials in almost pictogram simplicity for them to understand.  They're busy, doncha know.  

The Keep It Simple Stupid premise ties in neatly with the corporate So What mentality - if you can't make me care, i.e. trigger an emotional response in the way politicians do with their base, then whatever you had to say wasn't so important anyway.

But this extends beyond mere explanations; it extends to the whole business culture.  Bosses of all stripes aren't looking to be challenged, they want to be obeyed and supported.  Potential employees have to earn the right to work for them by having the right personality, the right track-record and that ability to "speak their language" - sometimes at the expense of an ability to speak their clients' language.  

A subtle result of this trend is a spread of traditional bureaucratic culture to all areas of the Canadian economy and a dumbing down of process, which again impacts both presenteeism and innovation.  Low-hanging fruit has become the staple of our economic, political and policy diet.  You'd be shocked at the number of successful people and their teams who have no idea how to organize a database or create a phased implementation strategy.  

Actually, you probably wouldn't.  Because from misspelled signs at conferences to ill-conceived cover-ups or mismanaged businesses ranging from RIM to Canada Post, we're seeing the consequence of this dumbed-down approach unfold daily in the news. 

They think they do, because what they communicate or have communicated to them is simple to understand, but therein lies the problem - Canada has declared war on complexity and is suffering the consequences.  Its the law of diminishing returns; you get what you pay for.

Which brings us back to The Agenda.

The Agenda is one of many institutions that, over the past couple of years, have taken a real interest in mental health - how it's diagnosed, how it's treated and what it really means for society.  Steve Paikin has interviewed Psychiatric Survivors like Don Weitz and "mentally ill" geniuses and social disrupters like Jacob Barnett.

Jacob Barnett is autistic (and yes, he is autistic, rather than has autism, much as a deaf person is deaf rather than has deafness - it's genetic and forms a part, if not the totality, of who the person is).  He has trouble focusing on the sorts of things society would probably rather him pay attention to - sports and sales and trades skills.  He talks fast and uses maddeningly big words and concepts.  

By all rights, he should be on the street, because he isn't doing his part to fit into our economic model.  And yet, because he's had supportive parents and some great mentors along the way, Jacob has harnessed his "illness" and is already being touted as the next Einstein.

To any student of history and mental health, there's nothing surprising in this.  Our greatest leaders, thinkers and catalyzers have all been different shades of crazy.  Were they not, they would have been like everyone else and we'd still be using Plato's Desktop as a table.  There have been times in the past when what we now call crazy people were labeled prophets and oracles and were both revered and feared.  Where the fear has been the greater reaction, we've called these people witches or worse.

Today, though, we don't believe in magic, nor mystery - we pretty much assume we have it all figured out and that history has ground to a halt.  We need only keep on keeping on as we've done throughout the Age of Industrialism.  Of course, this is nonsense; the truth is that the majority has become complacent in our comfort levels and is prepared to ignore warning signs of our decaying social model because we'd rather things stay as they are.

The problem is that the world has changed and our stagnant, complacent selves are falling behind.  Try as they might to ignore this reality and shore up the past as a bulwark against the future, conservative-minded leaders are losing ground, as are the countries they lead.

Subjects that periodically come up for discussion on shows like The Agenda, too.

Which brings us right back to where we began - the hidden potential of the brain and the fostering of life-long mental health or, as I like to call it, maximizing personal potential and nurturing a conscious society.

There are a lot of smart, "unusual" people out there - introverts, egoists, fast-talkers and deep-thinkers who have never stopped being exceptional, but have learned how to mask it.  They are bureaucratic staff in the federal Treasury Board or in Ontario's Cabinet Office; they are thought leaders in companies like Optimus SBR, Enivronics or any number of social entrpeneurs connected to MaRS or the Centre for Social Innovation.

These virtuous schemers are looking ahead as only they can and seeing what the elephant in the room looks like - a global social shift from our current burning platform to a new foundation for growth.  As global civic unrest grows, these folk are recognizing the reality - we can no longer afford for them to stay in the background, thinking.  We need for them to start organizing, to start figuring things out.

As Big Idea, landscape-changing innovations ranging from Twitter to the Open Government movement take hold, there will be a slow shift from the Innovators to Early Adapters in this new mentality that stops penalizing lateral thinking and starts trying to harness, emulate and capitalize on it.  As that process continues, we'll see a shift from Early Adapters to the Early Majority, but that won't be an easy process.  It never is.

Which is where The Conscious Revolution comes in to the picture.  At the same time as we see a general degradation of the status quo, the average person will grow weary of fighting against and start looking for something to believe in.  This shift from reactive fear, anger and despair to hope and vision will, in no small irony, require the very cognitive processes folk like Dr. Doidge are talking about - social-emotional literacy, self-regulation, mindfulness and positive psychology are part of this picture.

To frame it much more simply - we'll experience a gradual shift from seeing all things mental as illness-based to wellness-based.  Whether we choose to call it such or not, mental fitness will come to the fore, as will all the things that support it - changes to the education system, work-life balance, accommodations and social interactivity.

None of this will be an easy process; social change never is.  In fact, every major shift we've experienced, from The Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution has taken a great deal of cognitive labour to achieve.  

The difference this time is that we'll be conscious of what we're doing and, as a result, can hopefully do it better.

I'd be interested to see how many people read this through in its entirety - feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.  In the big picture though, it doesn't matter how well we understand the trajectory we're on, because it's an incredibly long-term project.  We might not get all this conscious cognitive stuff but I guarantee that for our great, great grandkids, it'll all be intuitive.

UPDATE:  I'm worried that I'm not going to be able to communicate fluently if I don't catch up.

There's something to that, but if you aren't prepared to question yourself, you won't see it coming.

The Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire But Reject Creative Ideas

But hey, it's not that decision makers are biased against creativity - honestly, they try to help creativity; shooting down innovative ideas helps weed out the weak ones, right?  After all, any good idea worth it's salt will be intuitive and have a demonstrable track record, right?

Lord, help us, we know not what we do; we're just feeling our way blindly towards the light...


The Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire But Reject Creative Ideas

Abstract

People often reject creative ideas even when espousing creativity as a desired goal. To explain this paradox, we propose that people can hold a bias against creativity that is not necessarily overt, and which is activated when people experience a motivation to reduce uncertainty. In two studies, we measure and manipulate uncertainty using different methods including: discrete uncertainty feelings, and an uncertainty reduction prime. The results of both studies demonstrated a negative bias toward creativity (relative to practicality) when participants experienced uncertainty. Furthermore, the bias against creativity interfered with participants’ ability to recognize a creative idea. These results reveal a concealed barrier that creative actors may face as they attempt to gain acceptance for their novel ideas.

Do people desire creative ideas? Most scholars would propose that the answer to this question is an obvious ‘yes,’ asserting that creativity is the engine of scientific discovery (Hennessey & Amabile, 2010), the fundamental driving force of positive change (George, 2007), and associated with intelligence, wisdom, and moral goodness (Niu & Sternberg, 2006; Sternberg, 1985). However, while people strongly endorse this positive view of creativity, scholars have long been puzzled by the finding that organizations, scientific institutions, and decisions-makers routinely reject creative ideas even when espousing creativity as an important goal (Ford & Gioia, 2000; Staw, 1995; West, 2002). Similarly, research documents that teachers dislike students who exhibit curiosity and creative thinking even though teachers acknowledge creativity as an important educational goal (Dawson, D'Andrea, Affinito, & Westby, 1999; Runco, 1989; Westby & Dawson, 1995). We offer a new perspective to explain this puzzle. Just as people have deeply-rooted biases against people of a certain age, race or gender that are not necessarily overt (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995), so too can people hold deeply-rooted negative views of creativity that are not openly acknowledged. Revealing the existence and nature of a bias against creativity can help explain why people might reject creative ideas and stifle
scientific advancement, even in the face of strong intentions to the contrary.

Creative ideas are both novel and useful (Hennessey & Amabile, 2010), and novelty is the key distinguishing feature of creativity beyond ideas that are merely well done (Amabile, Barsade, Mueller, & Staw, 2005). Yet the requirement that creative ideas contain novelty can also promote a tension in evaluators’ minds when they judge whether to pursue an idea. Indeed, evaluators have a hard time viewing novelty and practicality as attributes that go hand in hand, often viewing them as inversely related (Rietzschel, Nijstad, & Stroebe, 2009). There are several reasons why. Practical ideas are generally valued (Sanchez-Burks, 2005). However, the more novel an idea, the more uncertainty can exist about whether an idea is practical, useful, error free, and reliably reproduced (Amabile, 1996). When endorsing a novel idea, people can experience failure (Simonton, 1984), perceptions of risk (Rubenson & Runco, 1995), social rejection when expressing the idea to others (Moscovici, 1976; Nemeth, 1986), and uncertainty about when their idea will reach completion (Metcalfe, 1986).

Uncertainty is an aversive state (Fiske & Taylor, 1991; Heider, 1958) which people feel a strong motivation to diminish and avoid (Whitson & Galinsky, 2008). Hence, people can also have negative associations with novelty; an attribute at the heart of what makes ideas creative in the first place.

Although the positive associations with creativity are typically the focus of attention both among scholars and practitioners, the negative associations may also be activated when people evaluate a creative idea. For example, research on associative thinking suggests that strong uncertainty feelings may make the negative attributes of creativity, particularly those related to uncertainty, more salient (Bower, 1981).

This evaluative process is not necessarily overt, making the bias against creativity potentially insidious. In fact, there is often strong normative pressure to endorse creative ideas (Flynn & Chatman, 2001) and a strong social desirability bias against expressing any view of creativity as negative (Runco, 2010). This resulting state is similar to that identified in research on racial bias; a conflict between an explicit preference towards creativity and unacknowledged negative associations with creativity (Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986). In other words, uncovering a bias against creative ideas requires a method more subtle than simply asking directly. Therefore, we decided to employ a measure that assesses explicit attitudes in addition to implicit attitudes which are less susceptible to self-presentation biases and normative pressures (Greenwald, Poehlman, Uhlmann, & Banaji, 2009). In two studies, we test whether uncertainty measured and manipulated in two different ways, promotes a greater bias against creativity relative to practicality. In the second study we investigate whether this bias deters peoples’ ability to recognize creative ideas.

EXPERIMENT 1

Method
Participants and Design

Participants (N = 73) were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: uncertainty (n = 28) or baseline (n = 45). 51% were men (mean age= 22.74 years). Each participant took an implicit attitude test (IAT) as well as an explicit attitude test to assess their bias against creativity relative to practicality.

Procedure and Materials

Participants in the uncertainty condition were told that they might receive additional payment based on a random lottery (not performance). Participants in the baseline condition were not given the opportunity to receive extra money. A pilot study (N = 82) verified that the uncertainty manipulation evoked significantly higher uncertainty feelings than a baseline condition. All participants took an openness to experience inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992), a trait which is highly related to creativity (Feist, 1998).

Participants’ automatic mental associations with creativity versus practicality were assessed using the Implicit Association Test (IAT) (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). This measure relies on test-takers' speed of response to represent the strength of their mental associations. The IAT measures participants’ reaction times when rating pairings between an attitude object (e.g., creativity or practicality) and an evaluative dimension (e.g., good or bad). In the computerized version of the IAT, this pairing is achieved by using the keyboard (say, a left key) to be pressed in response to items from the two paired categories, creativity+bad, while  another key (say, the right key) is pressed for the other pair, practicality+good. The speed at which this pairing is completed compared to opposite pairing is interpreted as a measure of the strength of the implicit evaluation. Our IAT used words that reflected creativity (e.g. novel, creative, inventive, original) versus practicality (e.g. practical, functional, constructive, and useful). In addition our IAT used words that reflected good (rainbow, cake, sunshine, laughter, peace, heaven) versus bad (vomit, hell, agony, rotten, poison, ugly). The block order was counterbalanced such that half of the participants performed the creative + good component first, whereas the other half performed the creative + bad component first. The IAT effect was formed by subtracting response latencies for the creative + good task from the creative + bad tasks. We scored the IAT using the D statistic (Greenwald, Nosek, & Banaji, 2003), a method less influenced by procedural variables, such as order or counterbalancing, as well as cognitive ability (Cai, Sriram, Greenwald, & McFarland, 2004). The implicit bias score was calculated by subtracting creativity from practicality attitudes; higher values indicate more bias against
creativity relative to practicality.

Participants also rated their explicit positive and negative associations with creativity and practicality. Specifically, participants rated their attitudes towards creativity and practicality on a 7-point scale ranging from 1=strongly negative, 4 = neutral, and 7= strongly positive.

Participants assessed attitudes towards creativity (e.g., creative, inventive, original, and novel;
alpha = .77), and practicality (e.g., practical, functional, constructive, useful; alpha = .88). Participants indicated positive associations (i.e., above the scale mid-point) with both creativity (M=5.37, SD=.75) and practicality (M=5.43, SD=.91). Explicit bias was calculated by subtracting creativity from practicality associations (M=.06, SD=.91).

Results and Discussion

Table 1 shows descriptives for all major variables. An ANCOVA controlling for openness to experience revealed no significant differences in explicit bias when comparing the high (M=.02, SD=.83) and low uncertainty conditions (M=-.11, SD=.96), F(1, 70)= .07, P=.78. However a second ANCOVA also controlling for openness to experience revealed that participants in the uncertainty condition showed an implicit bias against creativity relative to practicality (M=.15, SD=.54) which significantly differed from participants in the baselinecondition who showed an implicit bias in favor  of creativity relative to practicality (M=-.23, SD= 47), F(1, 70)= 13.13, P=.001; condition accounted for 11% of the variance in implicit bias.

Discussion

Experiment 1 shows that people hold ambivalent attitudes towards creativity. While participants in the baseline condition evidenced positive implicit associations with creativity relative to practicality, participants in the uncertainty condition exhibited an implicit bias against creativity relative to practicality. In Experiment 2 we wished to extend these findings to show that the motivation to reduce uncertainty when problem solving can activate the creativity bias. Specifically, scholars propose that effective creative problem solving includes both generating many novel options and subsequently reducing uncertainty by identifying the single best option from the set (Cropley, 2006). We propose that this latter orientation towards identifying the optimal solution may prime an uncertainty reduction motive or intolerance for uncertainty and thereby evoke the creativity bias. Additionally, we explore whether the creativity bias might also deter the recognition of a creative idea.

EXPERIMENT 2

Method

Participants and Design

140 undergraduate students (55% female; mean age= 20.66) were randomly assigned to
one of two conditions: high tolerance for uncertainty (n = 70) and low tolerance for uncertainty
(n = 70).

Procedure and Materials

Participants in the high tolerance for uncertainty condition were told to write an essay supporting the statement, “For every problem, there is more than one correct solution” while those in the low tolerance for uncertainty condition were asked to write an essay supporting the statement, “For every problem, there is only one correct solution.” A three item manipulation check assessed uncertainty when evaluating an idea (e.g., “I feel uncertain about this idea),” anchors from 1 = not at all, 7 = very much so (alpha = .78). Participants in the low tolerance condition were significantly more uncertain (M=4.36, SD=1.23) than those in the high tolerance condition (M= 3.87, SD=1.33; F(1, 133)=5.14, P=.025). After being exposed to the experimental manipulation, each participant took the same implicit and explicit creativity-practicality bias tests used in Experiment 1. Subsequently, participants were asked to rate a creative idea which we pre-tested using a different sample of undergraduates (N = 36) who rated this idea (a running shoe with nanotechnology that adjusted fabric thickness to cool the foot and reduce blisters) as being highly creative (M=5.82, SD=.80), novel (M=5.62, SD=1.02), and practical (M=5.85, SD=.92) on a 7-point scale ranging from 1=not at all to 7=extremely so. Before exposure to the manipulation, participants also took the openness to experience inventory.

Participants rated the idea using the creativity scale, employing the same six synonyms for creativity used in both the implicit and explicit bias tests (M=5.41, SD=1.05, alpha=.78).

Results and Discussion Bias Against Creativity

Table 2 shows descriptives for all major variables. An ANCOVA controlling for openness to experience revealed that participants in the low tolerance for uncertainty condition were not significantly different in their level of explicit bias against creativity (M= .20, SD=.81) as compared to participants in the high tolerance condition (M= .22, SD=.94), F(1, 133)= .14, P=.71. However, a second ANCOVA controlling for openness to experience revealed that participants in the low uncertainty tolerance condition were more implicitly biased against creativity relative to practicality (M= .07, SD=.43) than participants in the high uncertainty tolerance condition (M= -.16, SD=.46), F(1, 133)= 7.87, P=.007, who exhibited positive associations with creativity relative to practicality. A third ANCOVA controlling for openness to experience identified that participants in the low tolerance condition rated the idea as less creative (M= 5.06, SD=1.06) than participants in the high tolerance condition (M= 5.76, SD=.93), F(1, 137)= 15.48, P=.000.

A hierarchical regression showed that the relationship between experimental condition and creativity ratings (B = -.64, t (134) = -3.81, p < .001) became less significant when including implicit bias in the model (B = -.56, t (134) = -3.30, p < .01). A 95% bootstrapped confidence interval of the indirect effect of condition on creativity ratings through implicit bias did not include zero [-.24, -.02], demonstrating partial mediation (Preacher & Hayes, 2004). Mediation analyses controlled for both explicit bias and openness to experience at each step indicating that relatively low levels of uncertainty tolerance led to higher levels of the implicit bias that in turn contributed to lower ratings of creativity controlling for participants’ explicit bias and general openness to experience.

Discussion Bias Against Creativity

Experiment 2 both replicated the finding that uncertainty promotes negative associations with creativity relative to practicality, and extended this finding by showing that the bias against creativity interfered with participants’ ability to recognize a creative idea.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Robert Goddard, the father of modern rocket propulsion, endured ridicule and derision from his contemporary scientific peers who stated his ideas were ludicrous and impossible. This example is not unique, and would puzzle creativity theorists as research shows that expert raters who are themselves creative are even more likely to accurately recognize and assess creativity (Hennessey, Amabile, & Mueller, 2010; Runco & Smith, 1992). Our results show that regardless of how open minded people are, when they feel motivated to reduce uncertainty either because they have an immediate goal of reducing uncertainty, or feel uncertain generally, this may bring negative associations with creativity to mind which result in lower evaluations of a creative idea. Our findings imply a deep irony. Prior research shows that uncertainty spurs the search for and generation of creative ideas (Audia & Goncalo, 2007; Tiedens & Linton, 2001), yet our findings reveal that uncertainty also makes us less able to recognize creativity, perhaps when we need it most.

Beyond merely having a preference for the status quo or familiar ideas (Eidelman, Crandall, & Pattershall, 2009; Zajonc, 2001), our results suggest that people have ambivalent feelings towards creativity. On one hand, participants in the baseline and uncertainty tolerance conditions demonstrated positive implicit associations with creativity relative to practicality. Additionally, 95% of participants in the high uncertainty and uncertainty intolerance conditions rated their explicit attitudes towards creativity as positive- higher than ‘4’ the mid-point of a 7-point scale- and statistically equivalent to practicality. On the other hand, the implicit measure Bias Against Creativity identified that participants in each high uncertainty condition associated words like “vomit,” “poison,” and “agony,” more so with creativity than practicality. Because there is such a strong social norm to endorse creativity and people also feel authentic positive attitudes towards creativity, people may be reluctant to admit that they do not want creativity; hence, the bias against creativity may be particularly slippery to diagnose. The implicit measures may have picked up negative associations with creativity under conditions of uncertainty because the methodology is more resistant to social desirability bias (Greenwald et al., 2009).

If people hold an implicit bias against creativity, then we cannot assume that organizations, institutions or even scientific endeavors will desire and recognize creative idea even when they explicitly state they want them. This is because when journals extol creative research, universities train scientists to promote creative solutions, R&D companies commend the development of new products, pharmaceutical companies praise creative medical breakthroughs, they may do so in ways that promote uncertainty by requiring gate-keepers to identify the single “best” and most “accurate” idea thereby creating an unacknowledged aversion to creativity. In addition, our results suggest that if people have difficulty gaining acceptance for creative ideas especially when more practical and unoriginal options are readily available, the field of creativity may need to shift its current focus from identifying how to generate more creative ideas to identifying how to help innovative institutions recognize and accept creativity.

Future research should identify factors which mitigate or reverse the bias against creativity.

REFERNCES
Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context: Update to "The Social Psychology of Creativity."
(Vol. 317). Boulder, CO, US: Westview Press.

Take A Bite Out Of Life: Live Consciously

 

"Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."


Think different; live consciously.

Mental Fitness (Brain can be trained in compassion, study shows)

 

An article that is, essentially, embracing the concept of mental fitness.  Gordon, I'd say you owe me a beer.

 

 

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Until now, little was scientifically known about the human potential to cultivate compassion—the emotional state of caring for people who are suffering in a way that motivates altruistic behavior.
A new study by researchers at the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center of the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows that adults can be trained to be more compassionate. The report, published Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, investigates whether training adults in compassion can result in greater altruistic behavior and related changes in neural systems underlying compassion.

"Our fundamental question was, 'Can compassion be trained and learned in adults? Can we become more caring if we practice that mindset?'" says Helen Weng, lead author of the study and a graduate student in clinical psychology. "Our evidence points to yes."

In the study, the investigators trained young adults to engage in compassion meditation, an ancient Buddhist technique to increase caring feelings for people who are suffering. In the meditation, participants envisioned a time when someone has suffered and then practiced wishing that his or her suffering was relieved. They repeated phrases to help them focus on compassion such as, "May you be free from suffering. May you have joy and ease."

Participants practiced with different categories of people, first starting with a loved one, someone whom they easily felt compassion for like a friend or family member. Then, they practiced compassion for themselves and, then, a stranger. Finally, they practiced compassion for someone they actively had conflict with called the "difficult person," such as a troublesome coworker or roommate.

"It's kind of like weight training," Weng says. "Using this systematic approach, we found that people can actually build up their compassion 'muscle' and respond to others' suffering with care and a desire to help."

Compassion training was compared to a control group that learned cognitive reappraisal, a technique where people learn to reframe their thoughts to feel less negative. Both groups listened to guided audio instructions over the Internet for 30 minutes per day for two weeks. "We wanted to investigate whether people could begin to change their emotional habits in a relatively short period of time," says Weng.

The real test of whether compassion could be trained was to see if people would be willing to be more altruistic—even helping people they had never met. The research tested this by asking the participants to play a game in which they were given the opportunity to spend their own money to respond to someone in need (called the "Redistribution Game"). They played the game over the Internet with two anonymous players, the "Dictator" and the "Victim." They watched as the Dictator shared an unfair amount of money (only $1 out of $10) with the Victim. They then decided how much of their own money to spend (out of $5) in order to equalize the unfair split and redistribute funds from the Dictator to the Victim.

"We found that people trained in compassion were more likely to spend their own money altruistically to help someone who was treated unfairly than those who were trained in cognitive reappraisal," Weng says.

"We wanted to see what changed inside the brains of people who gave more to someone in need. How are they responding to suffering differently now?" asks Weng. The study measured changes in brain responses using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) before and after training. In the MRI scanner, participants viewed images depicting human suffering, such as a crying child or a burn victim, and generated feelings of compassion towards the people using their practiced skills. The control group was exposed to the same images, and asked to recast them in a more positive light as in reappraisal.

The researchers measured how much brain activity had changed from the beginning to the end of the training, and found that the people who were the most altruistic after compassion training were the ones who showed the most brain changes when viewing human suffering. They found that activity was increased in the inferior parietal cortex, a region involved in empathy and understanding others.

Compassion training also increased activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the extent to which it communicated with the nucleus accumbens, brain regions involved in emotion regulation and positive emotions.

"People seem to become more sensitive to other people's suffering, but this is challenging emotionally. They learn to regulate their emotions so that they approach people's suffering with caring and wanting to help rather than turning away," explains Weng.

Compassion, like physical and academic skills, appears to be something that is not fixed, but rather can be enhanced with training and practice. "The fact that alterations in brain function were observed after just a total of seven hours of training is remarkable," explains UW-Madison psychology and psychiatry professor Richard J. Davidson, founder and chair of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds and senior author of the article.

"There are many possible applications of this type of training," Davidson says. "Compassion and kindness training in schools can help children learn to be attuned to their own emotions as well as those of others, which may decrease bullying. Compassion training also may benefit people who have social challenges such as social anxiety or antisocial behavior."

Weng is also excited about how compassion training can help the general population. "We studied the effects of this training with healthy participants, which demonstrated that this can help the average person. I would love for more people to access the training and try it for a week or two—what changes do they see in their own lives?"

Both compassion and reappraisal trainings are available on the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds' website. "I think we are only scratching the surface of how compassion can transform people's lives," says Weng. Provided by Association for Psychological Science

Rise of the Domesticated Ape

Compassion, like physical and academic skills, appears to be something that is not fixed, but rather can be enhanced with training and practice. "The fact that alterations in brain function were observed after just a total of seven hours of training is remarkable," explains UW-Madison psychology and psychiatry professor Richard J. Davidson, founder and chair of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds and senior author of the article.

"There are many possible applications of this type of training," Davidson says. "Compassion and kindness training in schools can help children learn to be attuned to their own emotions as well as those of others, which may decrease bullying. Compassion training also may benefit people who have social challenges such as social anxiety or antisocial behavior."

 

The first reaction of many reading this article will be "The horror!  The horror!"  Communists!  Social Engineers, committing sociology in our schools and on our streets!  Man is born independent and free and must remain that way, unfettered by the chains of civilization!

 

Which, you know, is true and all, except where it comes to complex consumer goods (requiring centrally-coordinated labour and accommodation to make), education (basic social skills like reading, writing, math and work skills ranging from widget-making to project management) healthcare (which is reengineering human evolution, for Pete's sake) and the like are concerned.

 

Here's the thing, Randian purists; our "natural", pre-civilization state as a species was lived on the plain, being chased by predators and picking each other's lice as a pass time.  Individual strength (and luck) allowed for survival in the face of predators and the acquisition of goods that would otherwise go to weaker members of the species (today we call "take what you want by force" crime, but whatever).  Natural disasters, bad storms, plagues, etc. were all things that were beyond control.

 

The double-horror to which Conrad refers in Heart of Darkness is the primal, bestial, emotional creature that lies in the heart of men (and women).  This is the reactionary self, the selfish persona, the hyper-focused perspective we are told is desirable for success in a competitive world.  Charity begins at home, etc.

 

But that's not the history of history, is it?  Civilization began with an altruistic urge; the same neurochemical-motivated urge can be witnessed in a host of other species, ranging from apes to elephants to those rascally birds and bees.  Environment plays a big factor; for the same reason human societies in rugged, hard-to-access mountainous terrain are more likely to be and stay tribal than on flat, lush flood plains, animals under certain environmental threats are more likely to be selfish.

 

As homo sapiens have increasingly flexed our altruistic, forward-thinking and planning abilities, we have strained that part of our brain that is more developed in humans than any other species.  Think about that for a second; the brain of a modern human is more capable of altruism than our ancestors would have been, or our nearest relatives like bonobos and chimps are (though they're starting to catch up).  Natural selection has increasingly favoured altruism and pro-social behaviour as favourable adaptations.

 

It's worked, too - for all our many continued faults we have cured illnesses, extended life, helped the blind see and can even return the clinically dead back to the living.  Where there were barren wombs before the genesis of life can now take hold.  All of these innovations have been possible as a result of collaboration, critical thinking and evidence-based policy development.  Cooperation, social co-habitation, public transit, shared communications systems, mass media, all of it is only possible because we have it in ourselves to give to each other and gain something personal through the process.

 

To become more than the sum of our parts, collectively, we've had to tame the selfish beast within.

 

But we still have crime, greed, reactive behaviour, leaders without vision and strategists without plans.  Some of this is genetic - inherited from parents or attributable, at least in part, to faulty cognitive wiring.  What we find, though, is that certain environmental conditions (poverty, abuse, access to social programs and positive role models, social inclusion, etc.) create conditions that favour selfish, aggressive behaviour.  This is why slums are breeding grounds for crime; it's also why from a strictly free-market business model, criminals are actually the fittest operators.  If you put differing people in those same conditions, they will face the same likelihood of succumbing to the same pressures. 

 

Of course, nobody who doesn't have to proactively moves into a slum because the property's cheap, right?  There are real risks to being the only rich guy on the block; unless you want to protect yourself with firewalls and drones, giving a bit back is the surest way to build your own sustainable safety.

 

Our "natural" state is selfish; everything from "Johnny, share your toys with your brother" to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", even including the language we speak and the fashions we prefer are all a matter of social programming.  That's why so many reactive people are suspicious of education; it's like a contagion, softening the aggressive edges that are designed to help us survive in the wild. 

 

Whatever our programming might lead us to feel, though, we're selfish actors living in a social setting; in urban environments, everything from driving to work to having clean streets and accessing public transit requires social skills that must be leaned.

Humans are the domesticated ape - it's us that's made it so.  Even wilderness survival has to be trained.

 

With all this in mind - why not explore the potential of social-emotional learning, positive psychology, occupational mental health design and restorative justice?  Whatever we might feel about "social engineering" the evidence weight far more heavily on the side of proactive, prosocial approaches (including training) than selfish, laissez-faire ones (including tough-on-crime policies in the absence of committing sociology).  We can train our youth to be more resilient, adaptive and effective in a modern economic context.  We can empower our cognitive labour, reducing presenteeism and increasing both output and innovation.  We can manage down our growing mental-health crisis.  We can even start addressing the root causes of crime, starting in the Justice system but moving out to touch the front line and our varied communities.

 

It's literally our future.

 

The Heart of Darkness lies behind us;  the way forward is consciously touched by fire.

 

It's SOCIAL Economics, Smarty-Pants!

However, theory is only theory. In the textbook version of free trade, time does not exist and all parties always win immediately. But in the real world of free trade, entire generations can be savaged as jobs and capital slosh around the world.

 

A free-market economy implies a math-based level of social balance where everyone plays fairly by the same rules.  Can you think of one example anywhere in human history where things have actually played out this way?

 

Argue all you want about robust justice systems or more aggressive, better-armed law enforcement - building a better mouse trap simply encourages a smarter mouse. 

 

And that's just economics - how about social design?  Standardized testing implies standardized students with the same cognitive abilities, access to dietary needs and parenting influences.  One-size-fits-all transit systems don't take into account the roots causes of erratic driving behaviour, as per the picture above.  Even our model of democracy implies everyone's paying attention and Political Parties aren't looking for creative ways to bend the rules, putting the win ahead of the system.

 

Self-described smart people can tell us "it's the economy, stupid" all they want - but if they haven't taken the time to understand social economics, they're being too clever by half. 

 

We've got both an opportunity and a need to start designing social systems to better meet the needs and realistic behaviour patterns of citizens.  Until we start recognizing that people are emotional creatures first, rational creatures second, we're deluding ourselves when we say this time, it's going to work.

 

Of course, substantial change requires the people at the top to recognize it's their job to go out and aggressively advocate for ideas from the grassroots, not vice-versa.  Of course, the nature of aggressive confidence is such that those who need to reach out the most will be the least inclined to do so while those with the best hopes of fostering a sustainable society are least likely to fight others to realize it.

 

Getting to the root cause of social behaviour can mess with your head, can't it?

Is it Possible to View Mental Illness Positively? (Natalie Jeanne Champagne)

You can't live life from the margins, looking in.  That's why they call it lived experience.

 

This topic came to me at a rather ridiculous time—though this is often the case and I am usually somewhere without a pen!—when putting on mascara. Ah, yes. The best ideas plant themselves in my often scattered brain when I am doing anything other than wondering what I might write about.

That being said, with mascara wand in hand, I ran into my office, grabbed a pen, and scribbled it down. And then I thought: “Can we actually view our mental illness positively?” At this moment, as I write these words, I have no idea. But I want to give it a shot. After all, what’s the worst that could happen (cue somber music)?

Connecting Mental Illness to Positivity

OK. I like things organized. My damn closet is color coordinated and separated by season. If I am really bored, or anxious, by the length of each shirt. I have a closet relegated to pants. Which I also hang. Perhaps I should write a post on being exceedingly anal? That aside, this is why I like lists: they make tough subjects easier to first break down and second digest. They remind me of my closet: simple enough to avoid being overly complicated.

A few examples which I hope will connect to our mental health/illness and positivity:

• When we are first diagnosed we suddenly have to focus primarily on our health; physical and mental health. We practice self-care and, in doing so, learn about ourselves. It is a time that allows us, as we work toward recovery, to get to know ourselves. That is positive! Right? Right!

• We learn to embrace change. Or, to be honest here, we don’t have much of a choice. The diagnosis of mental illness forces change upon us and in doing so we learn to adapt to life.

• We understand empathy on a deeper level—the ability to put oneself in another’s shoes. Pain is part of recovering from mental illness and, having experienced this, we are often more understanding of other people. We know that life isn’t always fair and everyone needs a helping hand. Sorry for the cliche.

• We learn to trust. It can be hard letting people into your life but once we do, once we learn to trust, our relationships are enhanced. In turn, our ability to communicate with people.

• We appreciate life on a different level. When you have fallen so far from grace and climbed your way back into life, life itself means more. Waking up and feeling okay, like you can get through each day, is now special. We value life more.

• We have perspective! Perspective is an invaluable tool that allows us to think about things, about our recovery, in a new way.

Reading this over, I sort of smile. We can find things that are positive when connected to mental illness, and I think that in doing so we can recover in a more positive way.

Maybe it’s worth it to take a few minutes, reflect on life, and ask yourself the question: “What has been a positive change in my life after the diagnosis?” It’s worth a shot. Reflecting on life is positive in itself.