Welcome to Collaborate, the Social Spaces community blog. Collaborate incorporates over 1,000 Thriving Too blog posts that we have written over the last 4 1/2 years, and continues to aim shamelessly to prove the case for optimism by revealing and promoting the explosion in positive actions from around the world. This blog is also used to question, think out loud, stimulate conversation, tentatively share early ideas ... and wrestle publicly together with the complex ideas and challenges that are shaping the future.
The Social Spaces project aims to transform society at community level through surfacing new emergent knowledge, using a transdisciplinary approach to analyse and understand that knowledge, and developing innovative approaches to spread these new ideas and methods.
This Saturday, I spent a very enjoyable afternoon staring at a brick wall and bits of pavement in Dalston.
Or to be more precise, I was being amazed by the yellow and grey lunar landscapes of ancient lichens viewed through a spyglass, which have managed to find a foothold in the harsh urban landscape and thrive despite unfavourable conditions. And the amazing resurrection properties of a certain type of moss which instantly returns to green springy life from a freeze-dried state when spritzed with a little water.
Thank you to the wonderful Alan and Marion Rayner who brought their warm infectious enthusiasm for all things natural through the 'Naturemoments' tour at FARM:shop in Dalston - and opened our eyes to the patterns, colours and teeny tiny universes playing out beneath our feet. If we'd only stop to look a little more closely...
I went to the dentist yesterday which, as might be expected, was not the highlight of my day. The good news is that I don't need any fillings, and that the Wellcome Collection is just round the corner, so I nipped in to see their Image Awards. Above is "Aspirin Spirals" by Spike Walker. Fascinating stuff. And an interesting way of viewing the exhibition online.
Bah. It's a bank holiday, but I have a cold and the sky is grey with clouds. Still, I guess we might as well all learn to appreciate them a bit more...
It takes a brave person to try and replicate 'The Milgram Experiments'. Professor Jerry Burger has recently published his new obedience study 'Replicating Milgram' (His research paper is on his webpage). Researchers have been reluctant to replicate Milgram's study on ethic grounds. Many participants from the original study needed counselling after the experiment. Participants were asked to administer an increasing scale of shocks to an invisible, but audible, participant. The film below is one of several you can watch on youtube, showing both people who refused to administer the shocks and those that continued to 500 volts.
The results of the experiments were shocking in the 1960s. The prompting by the official was so small, and yet 82.5% continued after hearing cries of pain at 150 volts, and 79% continued to 500 volts which is a lethal dose. Following the World War II it is not surprising how the public responded to the experiment results.
But are we any different today? Prof. Burger doesn't think we are.
While the experiments that Prof. Burger conducted in 2006 are not exactly comparable due to ethical considerations, Prof Burger says:
"Our partial replication of Milgram's procedure suggests that average Americans react to this laboratory situation today much the way they did 45 year ago. Although changes in societal attitutes can affect behaviour, our findings indicate that the same situational factors that affect obedience in Milgram's participants still operate today."
This shouldn't be a surprise at all. Most people don't believe that they would obey in similar circumstances, but we have lots of evidence from life that they do. What is different with the recent experiments is that we now have a lot more studies which help us to understand and interpret them than we did in the 60s. Most notably all the research into emotions and conscious and unconscious levers.
It is all so much more subtle than we thought.
So when asked about obedience we don't always think necessarily about a raised eyebrow, or a tone of voice, or even the persuasiveness of our own thoughts. We imagine instead a direct order to do something. I also believe that it is very strongly linked to research on discreet but powerful influence. As an example of these subtle emotional mechanisms, Prof. Daniel Kahneman explains this research in an Edge Article:
"You give people a pencil, and have them watch cartoons. First, they watch with a pencil in their mouths horizontally, and then with a pencil in their mouths sticking straight out. And they are rating how funny the cartoons are. Cartoons are a lot funnier if you have a pencil in your mouth horizontally, than if you have the pencil sticking straight out. Nothing has been mentioned about mood or anything else. You are creating a facial shape that is the shape of a smile, or more of a frowning shape. That influences emotions."
There is one detail of the Replicating Milgram research which highlights an important aspect that I discussed in an article on Informed Autonomy:
I believe very strongly that knowledge changes how we behave.
If we understand how we work as human organisms then we can make better judgements and behave less instinctively and more intentionally. One of the criteria that Prof. Burger used when selecting participants for his obedience research was that non-one should know about Milgram's original study.... because it would naturally have altered their behaviour.
Neuroscience continues to produce studies which highlight our unconscious decision making. I am fascinated however with the complexity of Dual Processing which Professor Roy Baumeister and his colleagues have researched, including studies which measured blood sugar levels following self-control tasks. Prof Baumeister et al write:
"Indeed, a
dual process approach to emotion may be useful in resolving some of the most
fundamental disagreements that seem to have stymied progress in emotion theory.
In particular, the long-standing debate over whether emotion depends on
cognition is regarded by both sides as having been resolved in their favor.
A dual process
approach would allow both sides (each of which can point to abundant convincing
data) to be correct without contradiction. In other words, maybe conscious
emotion is inextricably intertwined with cognition, whereas automatically affective
reactions require nothing more than a perception and an association."
With this type of understanding, it it hard not to support giving young people the type of knowledge that will help them guide their own behaviours and understand our increasingly complex world.Including academic literacy, of course, but also emotional literacy, media literacy, ethical literacy, and transliteracy.
Gosh things go out of commission quickly now-a-days. Mobile phone upgrades every 2 minutes, washing machines programmed to implode 3 days out of warranty and plenty of shiney new gizmos and gadgets to spend your hard earned cash on and then leave to make dusty piles in the loft.
So what on earth are we all supposed to do with our obsolete copper radiofrequency cavities I ask you?
Dr Zimbardo, of Stanford Prison experiment fame, is leading a new study into Heriosm and Altuism.
Researchers from the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology and Stanford University are seeking participants for a new study on pro-social behavior. The goal of this research is to examine how people views ideas such as altruism, heroism, and other helping behaviors. While much research in psychology is done in laboratory settings, this study is designed to gather responses from the general public, allowing the researchers to gain a better understanding of how pro-social activities are widely perceived.
To take part in the study please complete the survey by clicking here. The survey takes about 15 - 30 minutes to complete.
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