THINKER'S ALMANAC - September 4

What can a Pope from the 16th century teach us about skepticism?

Subject:  Counterarguments - Pope Sixtus V’s Devil’s Advocate  

Event:  Mother Teresa becomes a saint, 2016

The path of sound credence is through the thick forest of skepticism.  -George Jean Nathan

What is your position on vegetarianism?  If you are a vegetarian, your mind probably goes to making the case for why it is a healthy alternative to eating meat.  If, however, you are a carnivore, your mind probably turns to evidence that supports your diet.  

Most people’s first instinct is to find arguments that support their position rather than to seek out or even acknowledge evidence that challenges their position.  The general tendency to see what we want to see rather than seek out disconfirming evidence is called confirmation bias.

For hundreds of years, the Catholic Church had an established process for determining whether or not a candidate for sainthood would be canonized.  Much like the adversarial system of a court trial, there were two sides: one arguing the case for canonization and one presenting the case against it.   In 1587, Pope Sixtus V established the advocatus diaboli, or devil’s advocate, to search out any character flaws or other evidence that would counter the case for canonization. (The position was also called the Promotor Fidei, or promotor of the faith.)  In 1983, Pope John Paul II eliminated this position, removing this skeptical inquirer from the process.

Image by Yama Zsuzsanna Márkus from Pixabay

Therefore, on September 4, 2016, when Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997) was officially declared a saint by the Catholic Church, there was no official devil’s advocate to argue against her.  The church did, however, invite an atheist, Christopher Hitchens to present his case against Teresa’s canonization (1).

The devil’s advocate lives on in the English language as a handy reminder of how strategic thinkers can prevent confirmation bias and groupthink.  It is a helpful metaphor for injecting strategic skepticism into the thinking and decision-making process. We know the human mind often likes the path of least resistance and is often blind to alternative positions.  The devil’s advocate challenges us all to be skeptical and to build skepticism into our decision-making process, whether we are making decisions as a group or as individuals.

So, once again:  What is your position on vegetarianism?  And how can employing the devil’s advocate avoid the pitfall of confirmation bias and help you build a more sound position?

Challenge - Put on Your Thinking Caps:  Although it is always good to employ a Devil’s advocate in the thinking or decision-making process, often the Devil’s advocate is outnumbered; therefore, it can be an intimidating role.  One alternative approach is what thinking expert Edward De Bono calls parallel thinking.  For example, imagine your town council is proposing to replace all traffic lights with traffic circles.  Begin by having everyone in the room symbolically put on their yellow thinking cap.  The yellow cap symbolizes thinking that focuses exclusively on the value and benefits of the proposal.  After everyone has worked as a team to generate the positives of the proposal, they then symbolically take off their yellow cap and put on their black cap:  this is the devil’s advocate hat, where everyone intentionally focuses on reasons that the proposition will not work.  Parallel thinking eliminates the adversarial approach where people’s egos and emotions overwhelm rational thinking.  With parallel thinking, everyone is facing in the same direction at the same time rather than facing off against each other, and only one mode of thinking is permitted at a time.  This way you will still generate a number of pros and cons, but you’ll do it together as a team. What is a proposal that might be presented to your city council -- a change that would improve your community?  Work together with at least two people to try out the parallel thinking method.  Write out your proposal; then, flip a coin:  heads means everyone begins yellow hat thinking and tails means everyone begins with black hat thinking. 

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What is parallel thinking, and what does the thinking of Devil’s Advocate (Black Hat) contrast with Yellow Hat thinking?

ALSO ON THIS DAY:

-September 4, 1957:  On this day the Arkansas National Guard was called out to prevent nine black students from attending Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.  The students were eventually able to attend, however, when President Eisenhower federalized National Guard troops and ordered them to protect the group of students, who became known as “The Little Rock Nine.”

September 4, 1998:  On this day, two Ph.D. students from Stanford University, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, formally incorporated their new company Google.   The story of the word Google, however, long pre-dates the internet.  In 1938, while on a walk with his nephew in the New Jersey Palisades, mathematician Edward Kasner challenged the nine-year-old, Milton Sirotta, to come up with a name for a 1 followed by 100 zeroes.  Milton’s ready response was “googol.”  Kasner liked the word so much he introduced it to the world in 1940 in his book Mathematics and the Imagination. The change of the word’s spelling from googol to Google happened more than fifty years later.  Page and Brin originally called their search technology “BackRub”; however, in September 1997 they had a meeting to brainstorm ideas for a new name.  The story goes that at that meeting the name googol came up, but when it was typed into a computer to search for available domain names, it was misspelled as google.  The name was available and was purchased before the misspelling was discovered, so Google stuck (3).

September 4, 2001:  On this day Ruth J. Simmons, the 18th president of Brown University, presented the Opening Convocation Address.  At one point in her speech she challenged the students as follows:

You know something that I hate? When people say, “That doesn’t make me feel good about myself,” I say, “That’s not what you’re here for.” If you come to this place for comfort, I would urge you to walk to yon iron gate, pass through the portal and never look back. But if you seek betterment for yourself, for your community and posterity, stay and fight. Fight for the courage to be a true learner. Fight for the dignity of your intellect. (2)

September 4, 2018:  On this day The Coddling of the American Mind was published.  In the book, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt argue the goal of education should not be to make the student comfortable; instead, the goal should be to make students think.  As a result, it should “Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child.”

Sources:

1-Gilovich, Thomas and Lee Ross.  The Wisest One in the Room: How You Can Benefit From Social Psychology’s Most Powerful Insights. New York:  Free Press, 2016: 147-8.

2-Ruth J. Simmons. “Text of the President’s Opening Convocation Address.” 4 Sept. 2001.  Brown University News Service. 

3-Steinmetz, Sol and Barbara Ann Kipfer.  The Life of Language. New York:  Random House, 2006:  167.

 

THINKER'S ALMANAC - May 26

What can leaders do to prevent their followers from falling for groupthink?

Subject: Groupthink

Event:  Birthday of Irving Janis, 1918

One common finding is that when people of like minds discuss an issue together, they become more polarized.  That is, whatever view they had before the discussion, they are even more extreme in their support of it after the discussion. -Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach

Today is the birthday of psychologist Irving Janis, whose research has given us vital insights into the way groups work and more importantly the way groups fail to work.

After the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of southern Cuba in 1961, Janis studied the decision making of the Kennedy administration and its attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro by sponsoring a force of 1,400 Cuban exiles.  Despite the fact that Kennedy and his advisers were known as the “best and the brightest,” and despite the fact that they had all the information they needed to put together a more effective plan, they failed. 

                                                                            Image by WikiImages from Pixabay

The failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion began in Kennedy’s White House, and the name of the error that led to the failure was groupthink.  In order to make a good decision within a group of people there needs to be an environment that not only allows dissent but also one that encourages it.  Without dissenting voices it’s too easy for a false consensus to be reached, especially when people are looking to the boss or the president for approval.

As writer David McRaney puts it, humans are tribal animals who form groups and too quickly prefer a comfortable consensus to healthy debate:  “When groups get together to make a decision, an illusion of invulnerability can emerge in which everyone feels secure in the cohesion.  You begin to rationalize other people’s ideas and don’t reconsider your own.”

The secret to avoiding false consensus is for the group's leader to seek out alternative opinions before expressing his or her view. Furthermore, the groups can be broken up periodically into smaller groups for discussion and can also invite outsiders to present alternative opinions.  Finally, the leader should appoint a Devil’s Advocate (See THINKER’S ALMANAC - September 4) whose job is to generate counterarguments and to actively find faults with any plans or proposals.

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What kind of group behavior contributes to groupthink? What is the key to avoiding groupthink?

Challenge - Only You Can Prevent Groupthink:  Write a brief public service announcement targeted for leaders.  Define groupthink in your PSA and identify specific ways that a leader can structure a meeting so to prevent groupthink.

Sources:  

1-McRaney, David.  You Are Not So Smart. New York:  Gotham Books, 2011.

THINKER'S ALMANAC - May 19

What do colored hats help reduce adversarial thinking and increase cooperative thinking?

Subject: Parallel Thinking - Six Thinking Hats 

Event: Birthday Edward de Bono, 1933

A discussion should be a genuine attempt to explore a subject rather than a battle between competing egos. -Edward de Bono

You have heard of the Mad Hatter, but have you heard of the Colorful Caps of Cognition?  On this day in 1933, a man was born who has spent his life challenging people to “put on their thinking caps.”

De Bono is known for coining the term “lateral thinking,” which involves solving problems via indirect, creative approaches.  In Six Thinking Hats, he presents a different type of thinking, a type of thinking that might be even more radical and unorthodox than lateral thinking;  De Bono calls it parallel thinking. 

With parallel thinking, de Bono has the audacity to take on the Greek Gang of Three:  Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.  De Bono concedes that 2,400 years ago the GG3 established argumentation as an effective method for seeking the truth.  However, de Bono is concerned with the limits of argument because it is too negative, too ego-driven, and too limited for the creative exploration of ideas. Too often argumentative thinking puts us at each other’s throats; De Bono’s vision was to try to put us at each other’s side -- thinking together.

                                                        Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay 

De Bono’s antidote to the limits of the traditional adversarial method of thinking is the Six Thinking Hats method, which divides thinking into six distinctly different modes.  When working with a group to solve a problem, De Bono’s key rule is that everyone must employ the same mode of thinking at the same time. This is what he means by parallel thinking:  instead of facing off against each other with clashing claims and arguments in the traditional debate format, parallel thinking has everyone facing the same direction.  Everyone in the group puts on the same thinking cap, facing the issue as a team as they generate ideas and possible solutions.  This prevents anyone in the group from slipping into instinctive negative, adversarial thinking that shuts down the generation and exploration of ideas. Each of the six hats represents a different mode or perspective.  By everyone taking the same perspective at the same time, the thinking becomes more systematic and less chaotic.

First is the Blue Hat.  It’s the metacognition hat, the hat where we think about our thinking.  The Blue Hat allows everyone to organize their thinking, deciding the sequence in which they will wear the other five hats.

Here are the thinking modes and colors of the other hats, in no particular order:

-White Hat: Focus only on objective information and facts, not arguments. Identify the information you have, and ask questions about what information is missing and where you might find it. 

-Red Hat: Focus on feelings, emotion, and intuition. What feelings and emotions do you have regarding the issue?  Don’t worry about explaining your feelings or about needing to logically justify them; instead, just state them honestly.

-Black Hat:  Focus on critical thinking and judgment, looking for weaknesses and problems. This is where everyone in the group gets to play Devil’s Advocate.

-Yellow Hat: Focus on positive thinking, looking for the benefits and the value of an idea. This is where everyone forgets about the “cons,” focusing ONLY on the “pros.”

-Green Hat:  Focus on creative thinking, generating ideas and alternatives without judging them.

The goal of the Six Hats method is to reduce the chaos normally associated with thinking.  Instead of juggling multiple modes at the same time, the parallel thinking approach allows an individual or a group to focus the thinking in one direction at a time.  For De Bono, a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, the Six Thinking Hats method is not just theory; he has made practical applications of it for years, working with corporations, educators, and government leaders around the world.

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What makes Parallel Thinking different from typical thinking?  What six different types of thinking are used with Parallel Thinking?

Challenge - The Six Pack Thinking App:  Apply the Six Thinking Hats to the following proposition:  “The electoral college should be abolished.”  List ideas by trying on and thinking with one hat at a time.  Once you’ve created a list with ideas for each of the Six Hats, put on the Blue Hat again, and reflect on what ideas you produced that you might not have if you took a traditional approach of arguing for or against the proposition.

ALSO ON THIS DAY:

May 19, 1925:  Black nationalist leader Malcolm X was born on this day in 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska.  Born Malcolm Little, he considered Little his slave name, so he replaced it with an X to represent the lost name of his African tribal ancestors.  At 21 years of age, Malcolm began a ten-year prison sentence for burglary.  He made the most of his time, however, by reading and studying voraciously.  In his autobiography, Malcolm reflects on his prison studies:

I never have been so truly free in my life … the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive . . . . My homemade education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness, and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America. (2)

Sources:  

1-De Bono, Edward.  Six Thinking Hats.  New York:  Little, Brown and Company, 1985.

2-The Autobiography of Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley.  New York:  Ballantine Books, 1965.