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Changing Minds By Howard Gardner  Generically,
mind change entails the alteration of mental representations. All
of us can develop mental representations quite readily from the beginning
of life. Many such representations are serviceable, some have notable
charm, others are misleading or flatly wrong. Mental representations
have a content: we think of these contents as ideas, concepts,
skills, stories or full-fledged theories (explanations of the world).
These contents can be expressed in words – and in a book, that
medium is customarily used. However, nearly all contents can be expressed
in a variety of forms, media, symbol systems: these systems
can be exhibited publicly as marks on a page and can also be internalized
in a "language of the mind" or a particular "intelligence."
We also encountered a paradox of mind changing. Mind changing occurs all the time, especially among the young, and until death we cannot stop the process. Yet certain ideas develop very easily in life and prove surprisingly refractory to change. The trick in "psychosurgery" (i.e., mind changing) is to accept the changes that will happen anyway, acknowledge that certain other changes may be impossible, and concentrate one's efforts on those changes of mind that are important, won't occur naturally, but can be achieved with sufficient effort and motivation. With this generic view of mind changing as a background, I teased out a number of crucial dimensions. These can serve as a checklist when one is considering candidates for mind changing: Present content and desired content One should begin by determining what is the present (current) content – be it an idea, a concept, a story, a theory, a skill – and what is the desired content. Once the desired content has been identified, the various competing countercontents must be specified. The more explicitly one can lay these out, the more likely that one can arrive at a strategy suitable for mind changing in the particular instance. Both contents and countercontents may be presented in various formats. Size of audience The challenge of mind change is quite different, depending on whether one is dealing with a large audience or a tiny audience. Large audiences are affected chiefly by powerful stories, rendered by individuals who embody their stories in the lives that they lead; intimate audiences can benefit from approaches that are much more individually contextualized. Of special interest are the changes that take place in one's own mind, involving the most intimate kinds of conversation with oneself. Type of audience When one is dealing with an audience that is large and heterogeneous, one is dealing with the unschooled mind. Expertise cannot be assumed. Simple stories work the best. On the other hand, when one is dealing with individuals who share knowledge and expertise, one can assume a mind that is schooled and relatively homogeneous with respect to other minds in the group. Stories or theories related to such groups can be more sophisticated, and counterarguments can and should be addressed directly. Directness of change Political, business and educational leaders bring about change through the messages that they convey directly to their representative audiences. Creative and innovative individuals bring about change indirectly, through the symbolic products – art works, inventions, scientific theories – that they fashion. In general, mind changes due to indirect creations take longer, but their effects have the potential to last for a far longer period of time. In general, we remember the artistic creators of bygone civilizations far more vividly than we recall the political leaders. Levers of change and tipping points Classically, change takes place through compulsion, manipulation, persuasion or through some combination thereof. In this book I have directed attention to deliberate and open attempts at mind change. I have also stressed the classic forms of persuasion: talk, teaching, therapy and the creation and dissemination of new ideas and products. We must recognize, however, that in the future, these low-tech agents may well be supplanted by new forms of intervention: some will be biological, involving transformation of genes or brain tissue; some will be computational, entailing the use of new software and new hardware; and some will represent increasingly intricate amalgams of the biological and the computational realms. Perhaps the greatest challenge is to determine when the desired content has in fact been conveyed and whether it has actually been consolidated. Alas, there are no formulas for this step: each case of mind changing is distinctive. It is helpful to bear in mind that most mind change is gradual, occurring over significant periods of time; that awareness of the mind change is often fleeting, and the mind change may occur prior to consciousness thereof; that individuals have a pronounced tendency to slip back to earlier ways of thinking; but that when a mind change has become truly consolidated, it is likely to become as entrenched as its predecessor. Every example of mind changing has its unique facets. But in general, such a shift of mind is likely to coalesce when we employ the seven levers of mind change: specifically, when reason (often buttressed with research), reinforcement through multiple forms of representation, real world events, resonance, and resources all push in one direction – and resistance can be identified and successfully countered. Conversely, mind changing is unlikely to occur – or to consolidate – when resistances are strong and most of the other points of leverage are not in place. The ethical dimension As Niccolo Machiavelli pointed out dramatically, skills in bringing about change need not (in fact, he argued, should not) have a moral dimension. Indeed, most of the processes outlined in this book can be carried out for amoral ends, for immoral ends or for impressively moral ends. Given the complexity of forces in the world, it is tempting to throw up one's hands and to declare that the possibilities for positive, deliberate changes of mind are modest. That may be true. But unless one is willing to become a full determinist – and no one ever leads his or her own life that way – we must continue to believe that the will is free and that individuals can make a difference. The human mind is a human creation, and all human creations can be changed. We need not be a passive reflector of our biological heritage or our cultural and historical traditions. We can change our minds and the minds of others around us. The cognitive perspective provides a way of thinking and an array of tools. It is up to us whether we choose to use these, and whether we do so in ways that are selfish and destructive or in ways that are generous and life-enhancing. |
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