{"id":28563,"date":"2022-04-27T19:58:50","date_gmt":"2022-04-28T02:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=28563"},"modified":"2022-04-27T19:58:50","modified_gmt":"2022-04-28T02:58:50","slug":"applying-kahneman-to-developing-a-fact-based-world-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/applying-kahneman-to-developing-a-fact-based-world-view\/","title":{"rendered":"Applying Kahneman to Developing a Fact-Based World View"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daniel Kahneman in his book \u201cThinking, Fast and Slow\u201d[1]<\/a> introduced us in the fall semester to the contrasting fast thinking of intuition (which includes perception, memory, and the mental shortcuts of heuristics), naming it System 1, with the slow thinking of effortful deliberation or System 2. Hans Rosling, in his book, \u201cFactfulness: Ten Reasons We\u2019re Wrong about the World\u2014and Why Things are better than You Think\u201d takes Kahneman\u2019s concepts and operationalizes them to help the reader \u201c\u2026get the big picture right, and improve [one\u2019s] sense of how the world works, without\u2026having to learn all the details.\u201d[2]<\/a> Classified variously under both medical and social science umbrellas, Rosling desires for readers to \u201c\u2026feel more positive, less stressed, and more hopeful as [they] walk\u2026into the world.\u201d[3]<\/a> His book is a type of environmental psychology, helping readers pay better factual attention to their environment and thus develop a worldview that acknowledges positive, incremental gains the world has made, even while challenges remain.[4]<\/a> Rosling does include Kahneman\u2019s book in his sources list, and multiple times he obliquely references Kahneman\u2019s concepts, saying at the conclusion of his Introduction, \u201c\u2026if you are ready for critical thinking [System 2] to replace instinctive reaction [System 1]; and if you are feeling humble, curious, and ready to be amazed\u2014then please read on.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

Rosling then develops his tools for Factfulness in ten chapters with a concluding chapter that explores how his practices can make a difference in the fields of education, business, and journalism. His appendix shares the 13 questions (and responses from around the world) to his Gapminder Test. Thorough notes, sources, biography, and index sections complete the book.<\/p>\n

Rosling gave me words for the interpretation work my husband and I do between Middle Eastern and USA contexts. As I read \u201cThe Single Perspective Instinct,\u201d I was reminded of a woman who asked us after our presentation sharing the current contexts of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon and the work of both Christian and Muslim partners in those countries, \u201cBut what you share about the Middle East is so different from what I hear on the news. Who am I supposed to believe?\u201d Rosling would say to her, \u201cFactfulness is\u2026recognizing that a single perspective can limit your imagination, and remembering that it is better to look at problems from many angles to geta more accurate understanding and find practical solutions.\u201d[6]<\/a> At the time, I responded to her with something along the lines of, \u201cWe have discovered by living in the Middle East, that often our US-based media are taking up only one dimension of what is happening at any given time, and then they repeat that ad nauseum to the point that we believe that story is the only story about the region. What we\u2019ve learned by being on the ground in this part of the Middle East is that the story is much more complex, and that there is some amazingly positive work happening. Local people are deeply committed to a better future for the coming five and more generations. So, we are hoping today you have gained a glimpse into the \u2018something more\u2019 that God is up to through local faith communities across these three countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

I realize now that my response to her question also drew from Rosling\u2019s section on \u201cThe Destiny Instinct.\u201d He writes, \u201cFactfulness is\u2026recognizing that many things (including people, countries, religions, and cultures) appear to be constant just because the change is happening slowly, and remembering that even small, slow changes gradually add up to big changes\u2026remember slow change is still change.\u201d[7]<\/a> Perhaps the place I have most seen this gradual change at work in Lebanon is through the stead, patient work of civil society organizations who have been at work since the 1990s to build capacity in local communities for representative governance, democratic decision making across a population with many religious and ethnic differences regarding practical solutions to shared problems, and empowering women to run for office. The fruit is starting to show in an increasing number of women running for public office (and winning) at local levels and local governance that is transparent and accountable. Some of those local people are running for national positions in the upcoming May parliamentary elections. It leaves me curious to see what will happen and how this election may open the way for a resolution to the current economic collapse in Lebanon.<\/p>\n

Rosling\u2019s eight other tools include: the gap instinct, the negativity instinct, the straight-line instinct, the fear instinct, the size instinct, the generalization instinct, the blame instinct, and the urgency instinct. In each of these, I discovered a mirror to ways I have fallen prey to one of the other of these instincts and ways I have experienced them in others. Rosling has given me practical ways to develop my toolbox for addressing these instincts in myself and to inviting others to stretch into new habits, ways to move from instinctive system 1 thinking into deliberate critical thinking of system 2 thinking.<\/p>\n

I also valued his closing chapter and recommendations for education. In this section he expands on what he means by both humility and curiosity. \u201cBeing humble, here, means being aware of how difficult your instincts can make it to get the facts right\u2026It is quite relaxing being humble, because it means you can stop feeling pressured to have a view about everything, and stop feeling you must be ready to defend your views all the time.\u201d[8]<\/a> About curiosity he writes, \u201cBeing curious means being open to new information and actively seeking it out. It means embracing facts that don\u2019t fit your worldview and trying to understand their implications.\u201d[9]<\/a> As I focus-in on my most viable prototype for my NPO and work on creating a staged developmental model, I hope I can create a space where my stakeholders experience and develop both humility and curiosity towards one another and one another\u2019s contexts.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Kahneman, Daniel. 2013. Thinking, Fast and Slow<\/em>. 1st pbk. ed. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Rosling, Hans; Ola Rosling, and Anna Rosling\u202fR\u00f6nnlund. 2020. Factfulness: Ten Reasons We\u2019re Wrong about the World–And Why Things Are Better Than You Think.<\/em> Flatiron Books, 6.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid., 17.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid., 184.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid., 17.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid., 202.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Ibid., 184.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Ibid., 249.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daniel Kahneman in his book \u201cThinking, Fast and Slow\u201d[1] introduced us in the fall semester to the contrasting fast thinking of intuition (which includes perception, memory, and the mental shortcuts of heuristics), naming it System 1, with the slow thinking of effortful deliberation or System 2. Hans Rosling, in his book, \u201cFactfulness: Ten Reasons We\u2019re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2303,2298,2052],"class_list":["post-28563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fact-based-worldview","tag-hans-rosling","tag-kahneman","cohort-lgp11"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28564,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28563\/revisions\/28564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}