Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care

Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Open-Mindedness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Open-Mindedness. Show all posts

Friday, November 10, 2023

Attitudes in an interpersonal context: Psychological safety as a route to attitude change

Itzchakov, G., & DeMarree, K. G. (2022).
Frontiers in Psychology, 13.

Abstract

Interpersonal contexts can be complex because they can involve two or more people who are interdependent, each of whom is pursuing both individual and shared goals. Interactions consist of individual and joint behaviors that evolve dynamically over time. Interactions are likely to affect people’s attitudes because the interpersonal context gives conversation partners a great deal of opportunity to intentionally or unintentionally influence each other. However, despite the importance of attitudes and attitude change in interpersonal interactions, this topic remains understudied. To shed light on the importance of this topic. We briefly review the features of interpersonal contexts and build a case that understanding people’s sense of psychological safety is key to understanding interpersonal influences on people’s attitudes. Specifically, feeling psychologically safe can make individuals more open-minded, increase reflective introspection, and decrease defensive processing. Psychological safety impacts how individuals think, make sense of their social world, and process attitude-relevant information. These processes can result in attitude change, even without any attempt at persuasion. We review the literature on interpersonal threats, receiving psychological safety, providing psychological safety, and interpersonal dynamics. We then detail the shortcomings of current approaches, highlight unanswered questions, and suggest avenues for future research that can contribute in developing this field.


This is part of the reason psychotherapy works.

My summary:

Attitudes are evaluations of people, objects, or ideas, and they can be influenced by a variety of factors, including interpersonal interactions. Psychological safety is a climate in which individuals feel safe to take risks, make mistakes, and be vulnerable. When people feel psychologically safe, they are more likely to express their true thoughts and feelings, which can lead to attitude change.

There are a number of ways that psychological safety can promote attitude change. First, feeling psychologically safe can make people more open-minded. When people feel safe, they are more likely to consider new information and perspectives, even if they challenge their existing beliefs. Second, psychological safety can increase reflective introspection. When people feel safe to be vulnerable, they are more likely to reflect on their own thoughts and feelings, which can lead to deeper insights and changes in attitude. Third, psychological safety can decrease defensive processing. When people feel safe, they are less likely to feel threatened by new information or perspectives, which makes them more open to considering them.

Research has shown that psychological safety can lead to attitude change in a variety of interpersonal contexts, including romantic relationships, friendships, and work teams. For example, one study found that couples who felt psychologically safe in their relationships were more likely to change their attitudes towards each other over time. Another study found that employees who felt psychologically safe in their teams were more likely to change their attitudes towards diversity and inclusion.

Sunday, April 25, 2021

Training for Wisdom: The Distanced-Self-Reflection Diary Method

Grossmann, I., et al.  (2019, May 8). 
Psychological Science. 2021;32(3):381-394. 
doi:10.1177/0956797620969170

Abstract

Two pre-registered longitudinal experiments (Study 1: Canadians/Study 2: Americans and Canadians; N=555) tested the utility of illeism—a practice of referring to oneself in the third person—during diary-reflection for the trainability of wisdom-related characteristics in everyday life: emotional complexity (Study 1) and wise reasoning (intellectual humility, open-mindedness about how situations could unfold, consideration of and attempts to integrate diverse viewpoints; Studies 1-2). In a month-long experiment, instruction to engage in third- (vs. first-) person diary-reflections on most significant daily experiences resulted in growth in wise reasoning and emotional complexity assessed in laboratory sessions after vs. before the intervention. Additionally, third- (vs. first-) person participants showed alignment between forecasted and month-later experienced feelings toward close others in challenging situations. Study 2 replicated the third-person self-reflections effect on wise reasoning (vs. first-person- and no-pronoun-controls) in a week-long intervention. The present research demonstrates a path to evidence-based training of wisdom-related processes.

General Discussion

Two interventions demonstrated the effectiveness of distanced self-reflection for promoting wiser reasoning about interpersonal challenges, relative to control conditions. The effect of using distanced self-reflection on wise reasoning was in part statistically accounted for by a corresponding broadening of people’s habitually narrow self-focus into a more expansive sense of self (Aron & Aron, 1997). Distanced self-reflection effects were particularly pronounced for intellectual humility and social-cognitive aspects of wise reasoning (i.e., acknowledgement of others’ perspectives, search for conflict resolution). This project provides the first evidence that wisdom-related cognitive processes can be fostered in daily life. The results suggest that distanced self-reflections in daily diaries may cultivate wiser reasoning about challenging social interactions by promoting spontaneous self-distancing (Ayduk & Kross, 2010).

Sunday, August 25, 2019

Chances are, you’re not as open-minded as you think

David Epstein
The Washington Post
Originally published July 20, 2019

Here is an excerpt:

The lesson is clear enough: Most of us are probably not as open-minded as we think. That is unfortunate and something we can change. A hallmark of teams that make good predictions about the world around them is something psychologists call “active open mindedness.” People who exhibit this trait do something, alone or together, as a matter of routine that rarely occurs to most of us: They imagine their own views as hypotheses in need of testing.

They aim not to bring people around to their perspective but to encourage others to help them disprove what they already believe. This is not instinctive behavior. Most of us, armed with a Web browser, do not start most days by searching for why we are wrong.

As our divisive politics daily feed our tilt toward confirmation bias, it is worth asking if this instinct to think we know enough is hardening into a habit of poor judgment. Consider that, in a study during the run-up to the Brexit vote, a small majority of both Remainers and Brexiters could correctly interpret made-up statistics about the efficacy of a rash-curing skin cream. But when the same voters were given similarly false data presented as if it indicated that immigration either increased or decreased crime, hordes of Brits suddenly became innumerate and misinterpreted statistics that disagreed with their beliefs.

The info is here.

Sunday, December 3, 2017

Lack of Intellectual Humility Plagues Our Times, Say Researchers

Paul Ratner
BigThink.com
Originally posted November 12, 2017

Researchers from Duke University say that intellectual humility is an important personality trait that has become in short supply in our country.

Intellectual humility is like open-mindedness. It is basically an awareness that your beliefs may be wrong, influencing a person’s ability to make decisions in politics, health and other areas of life. An intellectually humble person can have strong opinions, say the authors, but will still recognize they are not perfect and are willing to be proven wrong.

This trait is not linked to a specific partisan view, with researchers finding no difference in levels of the characteristic between conservatives, liberals, religious or non-religious people. In fact, the scientists possibly managed to put to rest an age-old stereotype, explained the study’s lead author Mark Leary, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke.

The article is here.