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This is the first in a mini-series of posts I am calling ‘Unknown Knowns’.
Here’s some telling (US-centric) research around a critical behavioral intervention of our time - galvanising action to offset climate change.
The activist non-profit World War Zero looked for how attitudes on the theme “Climate change will cause massive damage unless we act now” varied by generation.
The findings are alarming (at baseline emotional level of ‘news’ these days?), to say the least. While fully 95% of younger voters agreed with the above statement, only 36% of older voters agreed! The older generation showed higher agreement (82%) with a more detached view “The free market can do a lot to address climate change.” A majority (9 in 10 among older voters) then agreed that they are “open to hearing from young people about climate change.”
This is a good demonstration of a mindset that has been called, paradoxically, the Unknown Known: the things we know but don’t know that we know.
The older generation most participated - aware or not - in the industrial system underpinning the climate mess. They own most of its assets, capture detailed information about it, and take most of the profits that accrue from it. And so they are in the best position to make real change about it. But they seem least open to even admitting it is a massive problem. And they will not hear of it unless their own grandchildren come home complaining about it - and tell them “how dare you!”.
Indeed, among the words Older Gen. said would potentially sway them were ‘connection', ‘fondness’ and ‘passion’ coming from the younger generation. Hardly logical or scientific criteria.
This got me thinking about all the ways we humans practice the fine art of denial. The pinnacle of it being the finer art of self-deception - which indeed seems to be age-experience-education-income-and-cultural sophistication-proof.
In fact, this from linked article: “A 2015 metastudy showed that ideological polarization over the reality of climate change actually increases with respondents’ knowledge of politics, science and/or energy policy. The chances that a conservative is a climate science denier is significantly higher if he or she is college educated.”
This is a huge, multi-dimensional topic; I hope to be exploring it across volumes of this newletter. For this one, I’m taking a quick look at some theories, thinkers and ideas around this fascinating (very human?) behavioral pattern.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
The theory that hands-down cuts to the heart of denial and self-deception, developed by social psychologist Leon Festinger. In summary:
Cognitive Dissonance theory posits that individuals seek to maintain consistency among multiple cognitions (e.g. thoughts, behaviors, attitudes, values, beliefs). Inconsistent cognitions product unpleasant states that motivate individuals to change one or more cognitions to restore consistency with other cognitions (i.e. consonance).
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291356571_Cognitive_Dissonance_Theory_Festinger
One of the core values of this theory: it forever alters what you consider as ‘cognition’. We typically see ‘cognition’ as something mental, a ‘process in the mind’. For Festinger, ‘behavior’ or action / doing is also a cognition. By re-framing it as such he helps us see ourselves more holistically - as thinking-doing-knowing-feeling-sensing beings - who experience a perpetual internal demand for ‘consonance’ or consistency between our cognitions. It shows how we may deny or alter the facts to avoid cognitive dissonance and maintain or reach a new state of cognitive consonance.
Might it be, then, that an older generation’s main priority is being comfortable with their self-perception in their ageing years? That they would not risk introducing deep dissonance into that perception of self - by admitting to a climate change they helped accelerate? Much less troubling to believe the problem isn’t real.
Splitting
Self-deception tendencies can have traumatic and pathological dimensions. In words of psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz, Splitting is “an unconscious strategy that aims to keep us ignorant of feelings in ourselves that we are unable to tolerate.”
Splitting, says Grosz’s in his revealing book ‘The Examined Life’, can manifest itself in mundane ways, as in the display of apparent boredom.
“Boredom can be a useful tool for the psychoanalyst. It can be a sign that the patient is avoiding a particular subject; that he or she is unable to talk about something intimate or embarrassing.”
Splitting-like tendencies - the rupturing of self-perception into discrete units with the potential for cross-interaction - can be seen across psychological literature. Daniel Kahneman’s ideas on ‘experiential self’ and ‘reflective self’ have exceptional relevance for behavior design. The unique, esoteric-sounding Bicameral Mind theory (bicameral means ‘two-chambered’) by Julian Jaynes is now being seriously explored for it’s fascinating and far-reaching implications on self-awareness, introspection, consciousness and human behavior.
Splitting and cognitive dissonance provide crucial inroads into how we study and work with concepts pertinent to behavior design - such as the self, self concept, self integration, identity, as well as adjacent concepts of great import such as agency.
“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself
I am large, I contain multitudes.”
- Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
The Johari window
I have used this popular and effective tool in multiple interventionist settings. I’ve run it to help stakeholders in a team overcome their unknown knowns through exercises such as generative self-awareness, collaborative trait-mapping and double-loop learning. Recommended arrow in your interventionist quiver.
Here’s a good video on how to use the Johari Window.
The mechanics of denial
Last but not least, this recent book investigates a number of nuances in how denial works.
A really important adaptive trait - if you are living in a small group - is to be able to integrate yourself into that group’s worldview. We are actually very good at adapting our beliefs to our situation.
The whole point of denial is that it allows us to maintain beliefs that are emotionally satisfying. It is therefore all too easy to continue on this path by treating incoming information in a biased manner.
- Adrain Bardon, ‘The Truth About Denial’
In this video, author Adrain Bardon touches beautifully on the key points I wanted to discuss myself. Happily, he does the heavy lifting for me.
I think you begin to see how ‘Unknown Knowns’ bring non-trivial influence to the long-term health of individuals, organisations and societies. They underpin critical issues of our time such as misinformation, filter bubbles, and a whole lot more.
I hope to get into designing behavioral interventions to counter self-deception, denial, blind spots and other unknown knowns in forthcoming volumes of Behavioral.
Stay tuned, stay cool and take care!
- Ashwin