Week 11 post 1
“You must unlearn what you have learned,” Master Yoda from Star Wars.
https://medium.com/@chirathhettiarachchi/you-must-unlearn-what-you-have-learned-af4601dc87ca
When you are solving a particular problem your knowledge or expertise plays a vital role. Problems are usually delegated towards experts in the respective domains. The experience & knowledge is key in most of these situations
For an example when you are solving a problem, the well known method would be perfect. But if you start analyzing from the basics and think new, there might be better solutions. This unlearning or fresh thinking would lead towards innovation.
All the decisions are based on some core beliefs & cultural insights that they have been taught. Based on those learning they try to take decisions, while in a biased state of mind
Most of the social issues arise due to this restricted thinking, where they do not see the entire picture
This is not only applicable for us humans. It is also affecting our counterparts, Artificial Intelligence. Recently by mistake one of my pictures were tagged to a wrong person. And based on that input the algorithm kept on classifying the image wrong. No matter how many new pictures were newly fed and manually classified, there was no unlearning mechanism to undo.
whether you are a machine or a human, unlearning is of great importance. One of the main reasons is the fact that knowledge changes with time, and what we believe to be true today could easily be replaced by a better theorem.
https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/59/vol14no2_unlearning.htm
Unlearning: A Critical Element in the Learning Process
Prior knowledge is arguably the single most important factor in learning. Unless we as instructors engage prior knowledge—the good, the bad, and the ugly, we risk sabotaging the new learning we work so hard to put in place.
Before the new and far more devastating backhand can emerge, the older, less effective one must wither and die. Paradoxically, unlearning allows new learning to take hold.
Ways of Promoting Unlearning
Behaviorist Tradition.
In educational psychologists Gagne and Briggs’ classic eight-point lesson plan, a fusion of the behaviorist and cognitive traditions, instructors engage students’ prior knowledge early on before introducing new material.
Cognitive Tradition.
In the cognitive tradition, instructors have exploited the explanatory power of analogies to address students’ misconceptions, particularly in the sciences. The general idea is this: instructors develop two related analogies to a desired "target" or new learning that a student does not initially accept
The first analogy is an "anchor," an example comparable to the target, but one that the student can accept based on intuition or day-to-day experience. The second analogy is a "bridge," an intellectual midway point that shares features of both the target and the anchor.
Rather than simply pointing students to these analogies in a textbook (the traditional approach), the instructor actually engages students in a process of analogical reasoning in an interactive teaching environment
mediational learning theory
distinctive pedagogy which addresses the major issues of unlearning and relearning when individuals face change in their prior habits, skills, or concepts.
instructors can control and redirect proactive inhibition and thus control the unlearning process.
The multi-step process proceeds as follows:
presentation to students of a learning model that explains the need for mediational learning strategies;
eliciting of students’ knowledge, beliefs, and ideas of a concept;
differentiation of words used in a technical manner from their common sense usage;
explicit instruction of the concept with opportunities for students to rehearse important aspects of it;
and comparison of old and new concepts from multiple perspectives and the generalization of the new concept to at least six novel applications or problem solving situations.
Can Science Help People Unlearn Their Unconscious Biases?
These so-called implicit biases have been shown to have a broad array of downstream effects, ranging from hiring decisions to the quality of health care.
a growing cadre of psychologists and cognitive scientists is working to unravel the implicit stereotypes and biases we hold against others
“Correcting bias is actually more difficult than it seems. The first challenge is you have to be aware of your bias,” says Calvin Lai, a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University.
One well-established method of reducing intergroup prejudice is simply to interact with diverse groups of people. “In the 60 to 70 years of research on this idea of prejudice reduction, there has been this one idea that has stood firm as a gold standard, and that idea is intergroup contact,” says Lai.
For example, a 2008 study suggests that people who have more frequent interactions with gay, lesbian or bisexual individuals show more favorable attitudes toward homosexual men (as measured by explicit and implicit tests) and also reported more motivation to eliminate their internal prejudices
Psychologists have shown that the creation of a mixed-race group, such as a political party or an intramural sports team, can override pre-existing racial biases toward other group members.
Even being touched in a friendly manner by a member of another ethnicity has been shown to reduce implicit biases toward all members of that group, according to a 2014 paper.
in a study released just last month, researchers at the University of Queensland showed that exposure to people of other ethnicities can impact whether we feel their pain
“Research has shown that exposure to a female science professor by a female student is likely to change gender stereotypes about science and could potentially change career aspirations,” says Lai
Even meditation has been explored as a means of reducing bias. An April 2015 study indicated that a mindfulness meditation audio recording can induce listeners to rely less on previously established associations, producing a reduction in implicit race and age biases.
But not all researchers are as optimistic that unconscious biases can be readily diminished, especially in the long run. "My understanding of the present state of research on reducing implicit biases is that there is no established method of achieving durable reductions of implicit biases that were formed in childhood," says Anthony Greenwald, a professor of psychology at University of Washington and co-creator of the Implicit Association Test.
“Something as simple as encouraging more high quality intergroup contact is not something that is logistically easy to do, especially when people live in segregated neighborhoods,” he says
Greenwald does point to some encouraging recent findings that reveal how sleep might help facilitate unlearning of implicit social biases. Psychologists at Northwestern University conducted a training experiment that associated counter-stereotypical visual stimuli (such as pairing women's faces with words linked to math and science) with unique audio cues.
After training, the participants took a 90-minute nap, during which the unique sound was replayed subliminally. The result was a significant reduction in bias after training compared to participants who did not receive the audio cue.
“Rather than trying to change people at the individual level, we can think about trying to restructure the way that people make decisions,” says Lai.
“For example, when you look at a name on a resume, you gain information about a person’s race and gender that can quickly leak in and influence your judgment of that candidate without you ever realizing it. So simple levers that take implicit bias out of the equation, like blinding resumes so you don't see a person’s name, can do wonders.”
For example, when faced with repetitive parole hearings that weigh heavy on cognitive load, judges are more likely to choose the default option of “no parole” just prior to lunchtime, when they are most drained.
"People aren't going to act on implicit bias if they don't have the opportunity to let implicit bias influence decision-making to begin with,” says Lai.
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/ten_films_that_highlight_the_best_in_humanity
The Growth Mindset Award: The Last Jedi
“Pass on what you have learned. Strength, mastery. But weakness, folly, failure also. Yes, failure most of all. The greatest teacher, failure is. Luke, we are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters.” ―Jedi Master Yoda
The latest episode in the ongoing Star Wars saga is all about failure.
The most interesting thing you can say about failure in The Last Jedi is we don’t see a lot of nice, safe blunders, where everyone learns a valuable lesson afterward. No, these are bloody, emotionally devastating failures, of a kind that many people cannot live with.
How each of these characters responds to failure reveals a lot about them. When defeated, Ren breaks out his lightsaber and mindlessly destroys whatever’s within reach.
“In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point,” writes psychologist Carol Dweck.
When we met Rey in the previous movie, The Force Awakens, she was a lost and emotionally needy kid. In The Last Jedi, she is learning from her mistakes and she is starting to discover what she is truly capable of. Though she is the galaxy’s most powerful Jedi since Anakin Skywalker, Rey is also humble, in a way that makes her distinctly different from the other (ahem, male) heroes of Star Wars.
“Pass on what you have learned. Strength, mastery. But weakness, folly, failure also. Yes, failure most of all. The greatest teacher, failure is. Luke, we are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters.” — Jeremy Adam Smith
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_politics_of_empathy
The Politics of Empathy BY JILL SUTTIE
“Greed is out, empathy is in,” writes primatologist Frans de Waal
Though recent Wall Street and oil company shenanigans may suggest otherwise, de Waal, the C.H. Candler Professor of Psychology at Emory University and a Greater Good editorial board member, assures us that humans are by nature empathic—even when empathy does not serve our own individual interests.
Not only are we predisposed to help one another from birth, but this innate desire makes evolutionary sense.
“The ability to function in a group and build a support network is a crucial survival skill,” he writes.
So perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising to learn how rampant empathic behavior and cooperation are across the animal kingdom.
“Empathy is part of a heritage as ancient as the mammalian line,” writes de Waal. “Empathy engages brain areas that are more than a hundred million years old.”
De Waal doesn’t shy away from the political implications of these findings. Though many equate Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory with a “survival of the fittest” philosophy, de Waal argues that this idea was born of the economic theorist Herbert Spencer, not Darwin.
Spencer used Darwin’s theory of natural selection to support his view that a competition-based economy was best, even though Darwin himself wrote extensively on the benefits of cooperation among animals.
If we are born to care about the welfare of others and feel uncomfortable when others suffer, de Waal argues, doesn’t it make sense that we should support a welfare state? He points out that countries with high levels of mutual trust and support in the population tend to be the happiest countries on earth, and that even Adam Smith, the father of modern economic theory, warned against relying on greed as a motivator for social organizing.
“Human we are, and humane as well, but the idea that the latter may be older than the former, that our kindness is part of a much larger picture, still has to catch on,” he writes.
time is running out, according to Rifkin, the best-selling author who has served as an adviser to the European Union. Rifkin believes that we humans are in a race for survival, dependent on our ability to organize around an empathic approach to our planet.
A large part of The Empathic Civilization is an anthropological history of empathy, provided in sometimes mind-numbing detail.
He describes how as diverse communities come into greater contact with each other by moving from hunter-gatherer to agricultural-trading to industrial-technological cultures, they become more empathic toward strangers and create more open, democratic societies.
these same societies also tend to accumulate more wealth and use up more resources, producing higher levels of waste, which then spreads around the globe, concentrating in poorer communities and causing global warming. So while these societies may be more enlightened in some ways, they are more destructive in others.
Rifkin finds hope in the youth of today, who have been raised entirely in the age of the Internet. He argues that they are more empathic toward the environment, more supportive of immigration, favor a bigger government role in providing social services, and are generally more engaged with their local and global community.
“Living in a society where the essentials for a comfortable life are met but where the gap in wealth and income between people is relatively narrow is likely to produce the happiest citizens,” he writes.
In addition, some classrooms are shying away from a strict emphasis on competition between students, and social literacy—how to read the emotions of others and react appropriately—is being taught to children from a young age in many schools
If Rifkin and de Waal are correct, the next chapter of human history will be defined by our ability to nurture these empathic instincts and restructure our social, economic, and political systems in time to save the planet.
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