In a society characterized by freedom of conscience and freedom of expression, individuals bear “burdens of judgment,” as the American philosopher John Rawls wrote. Without the government or an official church telling people what to think, we all have to decide for ourselves – and that inevitably leads to a diversity of moral viewpoints.
Author: James Steiner-Dillon | Source: The Conversation | Subjects: Concepts, Ethics | Integrity | Morality, Life & Society
Psychologist and law professor Dan Kahan and his collaborators have described two phenomena that affect the ways in which people form different beliefs from the same information.
The first is called “identity-protective cognition.” This describes how individuals are motivated to adopt the empirical beliefs of groups they identify with in order to signal that they belong.
The second is “cultural cognition”: people tend to say that a … [ Read more ]
Author: James Steiner-Dillon | Source: The Conversation (March 2, 2023) | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Ethics | Integrity | Morality, Excerpts, Intelligence | Knowledge, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy, Psychology | Behavior, Thought | Inquiry
Cognitive flexibility is a skill that enables us to switch between different concepts, or to adapt behaviour to achieve goals in a novel or changing environment. It is essentially about learning to learn and being able to be flexible about the way you learn. This includes changing strategies for optimal decision-making.
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Cognitive flexibility provides us with the ability to see that what we are doing is … [ Read more ]
Authors: Barbara Jacquelyn Sahakian, Christelle Langley, Victoria Leong | Source: The Conversation (June 21, 2021) | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Excerpts, Thought | Inquiry