Still a bit cold-ish but managed to go through the readings for the test a couple of times and chat to a couple of my team members about the readings before Test #2. My preferred study technique is to talk to someone about the material, usually that’s me talking to myself plus ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
maharetr kindly lets me tell her vital things about whatever I’m studying at the time (thank you for your patience, I hope your proxy MBA is worth it).
I had a quick chat to a couple of the guys, they said they thought Ethics should be a 2 day seminar and not an entire Unit. I’d have more sympathy if we hadn’t briefly discussed moral blindness earlier and one couldn’t think of how it could possibly apply to his life.
The resolution to appealing Test 1 was that we got the team score or individual score, whichever was highest. Yay! Test #2 we didn’t appeal but if we’d been able to come up with a sophisticated enough response it would have been a good idea. *makes notes for next time* we got 90/92.5 and could have got them all but our team managed to talk the two people who’d gotten it right out of their answer. *makes more notes for next time*.
We have an uneven balance of power, three quite confident people and three who are less so. I think one will find her feet quite quickly and is only quiet-ish because she came to the team a week late but the other two are suffering from age/culture inhibitions that aren’t going anywhere without some work. Yes, I judge! If it’s any consolation all I do with my judging is try to work out how to make it easier for everyone to work together happily. I can probably help but I have some conflicting drives that are mostly timescale driven and selfish.
Why study heuristics and biases?
In brief:
Moral Biases:
Social Proof: Groupthink, where people do it because everyone else is. Defuse: form other groups that think differently, name it, know your own values
False Consensus Effect: Where we assume other people think what we think. Defuse: Assume nothing, test assumptions, name it
Overoptimism: Irrational belief about positive outcome. Defuse: Facts! Counter arguments, and reframing.
Self-serving bias: being attracted to stuff that confirms what we already think and repelled by stuff that doesn’t. Defuse: Generate alternate interpretations of same data, name it.
Framing: how you pitch something, is it a ‘problem’ or a ‘challenge’? Defuse: reframe positive <-> negative, avoid cynicism, name it.
Process: the small steps that led to where we are now (peering over a cliff). Defuse: ask yourself if you’d be OK with it on the front page of a newspaper, name it, notice it. Take shameless advantage to ease people through difficult changes.
Sunk Costs: the way people hate to give up (escalation of commitment). Defuse: identify what we already gained
Loss Aversion: we hate losing more than we want to gain, we get attached. Defuse: do not cover up mistakes, name attachments, have ‘go-to’hell money (and enjoy it)
Cognitive Dissonance: when we don’t do what we say we’re doing: Defuse: find ways to align with accepted positions.
Tangible versus Abstract & Time Delay Traps: we’re not very good at delayed gratification (explained this to R. who was 13 at the time, he got it very quickly and since I was planning on sitting on him till he was squished he had a very satisfying ‘HORROR’ reaction when it kicked in). Defuse: reframe to make more vivid, use analogies, name it
Levers:
Watched the Dan Ariely TED talk asking Are we in control of our own decisions? You might like Our Buggy Moral Code as well - it’s just as good the second time around, dude is dead funny.
Read a case study and very quickly bounced around ways to engage. I noticed I was looking for ways to form relationships and other people were looking for proposals / actions / outcomes. We did a Stakeholder Analysis chart which I have never seen before.
Broke to discuss our project in our teams - we’re still a bit fuzzy but we ended up with a plan and clear knowledge of what we’re going to do between this week and next class. I raved a bit about this process tomaharetr and haven’t quite got the energy to reproduce it here but it feeds into my thoughts about our team dynamic above.
maharetr kindly lets me tell her vital things about whatever I’m studying at the time (thank you for your patience, I hope your proxy MBA is worth it).I had a quick chat to a couple of the guys, they said they thought Ethics should be a 2 day seminar and not an entire Unit. I’d have more sympathy if we hadn’t briefly discussed moral blindness earlier and one couldn’t think of how it could possibly apply to his life.
The resolution to appealing Test 1 was that we got the team score or individual score, whichever was highest. Yay! Test #2 we didn’t appeal but if we’d been able to come up with a sophisticated enough response it would have been a good idea. *makes notes for next time* we got 90/92.5 and could have got them all but our team managed to talk the two people who’d gotten it right out of their answer. *makes more notes for next time*.
We have an uneven balance of power, three quite confident people and three who are less so. I think one will find her feet quite quickly and is only quiet-ish because she came to the team a week late but the other two are suffering from age/culture inhibitions that aren’t going anywhere without some work. Yes, I judge! If it’s any consolation all I do with my judging is try to work out how to make it easier for everyone to work together happily. I can probably help but I have some conflicting drives that are mostly timescale driven and selfish.
- Short term we’re not actually going to be assessed by each other so other than the need to be able to work together to produce one (good) report and one (good) presentation there’s no incentive to maintain relationships and ensure we all have the best possible experience. Part of me is working out how much energy I’m willing to invest in a team that’s not ‘mine.’ This says to me we probably need the compulsory SPARK assessment to stop us reflexively being jerks since assignment group work does not mimic real life team work. *coughs* assuming other people think the same way I do of course.
- Medium term we may end up working together in other units and I want future goodwill.
- Long term these may be future work colleagues / contacts so there’s a slight incentive to maintain / build except I see no overlap of speciality/fields.
- Longest term I want to be the kind of person to treats people with care and interest regardless of my future relationship with them. There’s still the question of how much energy I can/will put in and how best to direct that.
Why study heuristics and biases?
- …because people are surprisingly susceptible to insidious, seeping evil. I’m looking at *you* Google, speak to us more about what you’ve been doing in China. By which we mean that while individuals are rarely hiding tiny, evil horns and cloven feet we are inclined to do things that accord with what’s going on around us - even if it’s not ethical.
- …it would be a good thing if we understood this better, both for ourselves and how we interact with others.
In brief:
Moral Biases:
- Moral Myopia: near sighted or completely blind to ethical dilemmas
- Moral Muteness: none or obscured communication of moral concerns
- Moral Imagination: being able to think outside the circumstances
- Theories about the World: Consequences (ignoring low-probability events, limiting search for stakeholders, ignoring possibility pubic will find out, discounting the future, undervaluing collective outcomes) Judgement of Risk (denying uncertainty, trading off, reframing risks) and Perception of Causes (focus on hassling people, focus on events, focus on omissions)
- Theories about Other People: Ethnocentrism, Stereotypes, Person projections
- Theories about Ourselves: Illusion of superiority (favourability, optimism, control) Self-serving bias, Overconfidence
Social Proof: Groupthink, where people do it because everyone else is. Defuse: form other groups that think differently, name it, know your own values
False Consensus Effect: Where we assume other people think what we think. Defuse: Assume nothing, test assumptions, name it
Overoptimism: Irrational belief about positive outcome. Defuse: Facts! Counter arguments, and reframing.
Self-serving bias: being attracted to stuff that confirms what we already think and repelled by stuff that doesn’t. Defuse: Generate alternate interpretations of same data, name it.
Framing: how you pitch something, is it a ‘problem’ or a ‘challenge’? Defuse: reframe positive <-> negative, avoid cynicism, name it.
Process: the small steps that led to where we are now (peering over a cliff). Defuse: ask yourself if you’d be OK with it on the front page of a newspaper, name it, notice it. Take shameless advantage to ease people through difficult changes.
Sunk Costs: the way people hate to give up (escalation of commitment). Defuse: identify what we already gained
Loss Aversion: we hate losing more than we want to gain, we get attached. Defuse: do not cover up mistakes, name attachments, have ‘go-to’hell money (and enjoy it)
Cognitive Dissonance: when we don’t do what we say we’re doing: Defuse: find ways to align with accepted positions.
Tangible versus Abstract & Time Delay Traps: we’re not very good at delayed gratification (explained this to R. who was 13 at the time, he got it very quickly and since I was planning on sitting on him till he was squished he had a very satisfying ‘HORROR’ reaction when it kicked in). Defuse: reframe to make more vivid, use analogies, name it
Levers:
- Reason: logic, analogies, taxonomies
- Research: gathering data, due diligence, examples
- Resonance: empathy / charisma / relationship / identity
- Representational Re-descriptions (yes it’s a mouthful, I felt embarrassed for them): use a wide variety of ways to represent ideas
- Resources and Rewards: temporary effect but shiny!
- Real World Events: GFC had a fantastic effect on budget controls
- Resistances: not a lever but good to know what people are doing and look for ways to circumvent.
Watched the Dan Ariely TED talk asking Are we in control of our own decisions? You might like Our Buggy Moral Code as well - it’s just as good the second time around, dude is dead funny.
Read a case study and very quickly bounced around ways to engage. I noticed I was looking for ways to form relationships and other people were looking for proposals / actions / outcomes. We did a Stakeholder Analysis chart which I have never seen before.
Broke to discuss our project in our teams - we’re still a bit fuzzy but we ended up with a plan and clear knowledge of what we’re going to do between this week and next class. I raved a bit about this process to
maharetr and haven’t quite got the energy to reproduce it here but it feeds into my thoughts about our team dynamic above.