Part of what makes me hopeful about this project - and why we NEED a similar effort in the States - is that they are building on the seminal work of Robert Kegan in adult development (The Evolving Self), and of Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow in how humans change (How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work: Seven Languages for Transformation)- and more recently, why they do not (Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization (Leadership for the Common Good)).
Social Brain
Report: Steer: Mastering our behaviour through instinct
Giving people the tools to understand how our brains, behaviours and environments interact helps them make better decisions and tackle habits like smoking, binge-drinking and overeating; that's the conclusion of this report which represents the second stage of the RSA's Social Brain project.
Download and view Steer: Mastering our behaviour through instinct, environment and reason
Report: Changing the subject
How new ways of thinking about human behaviour might change politics, policy and practiceFor the last fifteen years the prevailing consensus in British politics has been that voters are best viewed as individual consumers and social policy best pursued through market mechanisms. This report argues that through this consumerist consensus we have given ourselves a world of ever-extending choice yet undermined our ability to choose well. This has yielded substantial ‘inequality of autonomy’ and withered social responsibilities.
Download and view Changing the Subject
Project briefing
Background to Social Brain project
There are three main strands to the idea that the brain is essentially social.
1) The brain, now it is finally beginning to be understood, turns out to unconsciously execute many of the decision-making processes that were previously thought to be self-consciously produced. The idea that all decisions flow from an executive rational subject, in principle capable of operating in isolation from others, now appears to be at worst false and at best unhelpful.
2) The brain has evolved to develop and function within social networks. For example, a deficit in the neurotransmitter Serotonin (which, amongst other things enables self-control) will result from unstable social environments lacking in qualities like empthy. Or, another example: mirror neurons are designed to enable (amongst other things) altruistic behaviour that facilitates social cohesion and allows an agent to successfully engage with others (and thus to achieve her own goals).
3) Even when we do make self-conscious decisions these are partly constituted by systematic biases that are fundamentally social. For example, behavioural economists have shown that people often indulge in herd behaviour. Game-theorists have also shown that it can be optimally rational to act altruistically because an agent’s good reputation amongst her fellows is massively important for her ability to successfully negotiate the social world. And as neuroscientists like Antonio Damasio have shown, these kinds of socially motivated biases have their basis in the neurology of the brain.
Project Design
In policy circles, the implicitly assumed model of decision-making in the last thirty years or so has been that of ‘rational-choice’. This model, imported from economics, represents people as perfectly rational and wholly self-interested. However, a slew of recent research in the neuro- and behavioural sciences has brought the usefulness of the model into question, showing that people are often systematically ‘irrational’ and not only self-interested. This means we should perhaps be more humble about our rational powers yet more optimistic about our ‘prosocial’ possibilities.
The first phase of the first year (until April 2010) of the RSA’s Social Brain project brings together experts from various disciplines to collaborate on producing a new model of decision-making that is informed by such research. The aim is to make the new model as clear and accessible as possible. The Steering Group’s work will be documented on an ‘openwiki’ that will be available for public viewing once it has been constructed.
The second phase of the first year of the project will involve designing, sometimes in partnership with other organisations, deliberative research that tests to what extent the new model generated in Phase One resonates with various cohorts. So for example, we might ask a group of pupils whether it changes how they would approach learning, whilst also asking a group of teachers whether it affects how they would approach teaching. We might ask a group of police officers how it relates to their doing their job. But we might also ask a group of offenders and victims of crime for their thoughts as well. Given that Phase One will give us insight into how we frame questions and engage participants, we will think very carefully about how we carry out the research of Phase Two.
The third phase of the first year of the project will consist of collating the research of Phase Two and presenting it in a final report. At this stage we will assess the practical import of the new model of decision-making generated in Phase One. We will also investigate how the research of Phase Two might inform other RSA work. For example, it might inform the work we do at the RSA academy school, as well as work in deprived communities resulting from our Connected Communities project.
In the following year (April 2010-April 2011), we hope to design and run an action research project that measures the effects of ‘metacognition’ – knowledge of how we think and behave - on various outcomes such as academic attainment, wellbeing and behaviour.
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