The MW Newsletter is a long-form resource whose aim is to bring substance and insight to your work and life. Help spread the word! If you know someone or some organization that would be interested in strategies and tips on creating meaning, why not share this newsletter? Dr Todd Mei Editor & Founder of Philosophy2u |
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Content for September 2024 Our focus this month is Cognitive Friction. What is Cognitive Friction? Practice: Adding Frictions to Decision Making Ideation: Fixing Friction Identity Formation: Seaside
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What Is Cognitive Friction? “All distances in time and space are shrinking. . . . Yet the frantic abolition of all distances brings no nearness.”
Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought * * * * *
One of the key philosophical principles for understanding others better is referred to as distanciation.
The basic idea is that creating a cognitive distance between yourself and the other person helps to create a space in which you might be better able to receive and then interpret what has been said. The principle can be stated as a paradox: By creating more distance between yourself and another, you create the real opportunity to become closer. Cognitive Friction is one technique to create this distance. As Joe Smart explains in his column on Practice, cognitive friction is a way of stopping yourself from reacting hastily. The act Adding Friction to Decision Making helps to create the distance to genuinely encounter the other person. Todd Mei explores the idea of Fixing Friction, not by resolving it but by holding it in tension with your other beliefs and values. Giacomo Savani contemplates the idea of resistance and pressure in his painting, Moving Mountains. |
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Practice: Adding Frictions to Decision Making I find friction in decision making to be a fascinating subject, and it ties into some topics I’ve discussed in previous newsletters and podcasts, especially around bias and instinctual reactions. Bias in Quick Decision Making We all have a natural bias toward making quick decisions. It's often necessary, especially from a survival perspective—see something, react quickly. But as I've been learning, that initial decision is often not the best one. Sometimes, we look back and think, "Why did I react that way?" Recently, I came across a fantastic TED Talk by Jennifer Eberhardt on racial bias and how to disrupt it. It was incredibly eye-opening, and it got me thinking about how we can apply similar concepts to decision making in general. Jennifer shared a personal story about her young son, who, while on a plane, saw a black man and said, “He looks like Daddy.” Jennifer asked why, and her son replied, “Because he’s black.” A moment later, he asked, “Are we in danger?” Jennifer was shocked, and this made her realize how deep racial stereotypes can run—even in children as young as five. Her TED Talk focuses on how racial prejudice is so ingrained that even those who don't understand it can unconsciously absorb it. Adding Friction to Stop-and-Search In her research, Jennifer found that police officers often made biased decisions during stop-and-search operations without consciously realizing it. To address this, her team added a simple question to the process: “What evidence do I have to suspect this person of criminal activity?” By forcing officers to pause and think for just one second, stop-and-search incidents dropped dramatically, particularly among black individuals. Crime rates remained unchanged, but relationships between the police and communities improved significantly. This idea of adding “friction”—a brief pause—into decision making was transformative. |
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How We Can Apply Friction Jennifer’s talk got me thinking about how we can add similar friction to our own decisions, particularly in a world where we're always reacting quickly—to posts on social media, to emails, or to things people say. Sometimes, it's easy to jump to conclusions and emotions, but how can we slow that down? This also connects to something I spoke about in a podcast regarding Mount Stupid, the phenomenon where we think we know the answer to something as soon as we see it, only to realize later how much more complex the situation actually is. It’s essential to step back and add a little friction to avoid reacting too quickly and from an uninformed place. Mindfulness and Breathing So how do we add that friction? One way is by slowing down and allowing ourselves to breathe—literally. Breathing exercises, mindfulness, and staying in the present moment are great tools for this. I've noticed that when I take a deep breath before reacting—whether it’s to something that makes me happy, angry, or sad—I’m able to make better, more thoughtful decisions. That pause helps me understand what’s really triggering my emotions and gives me the space to respond in a more measured way. A Personal Example A quick personal example: I practice Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA), which involves fencing and sword fighting. There are days when I feel exhausted or have had a bad day at work, and the last thing I want to do is gear up and spar. But I always remind myself: not going to class will only make me feel worse. By adding friction to the decision not to go, I create a system to make things easier on myself. For instance, I load all my gear in the car ahead of time. That way, the only decision I have to make is whether or not to get in the car. Once I’m there, I know I’ll enjoy it. The friction here is the moment of hesitation that leads to a healthier choice. ~ The big takeaway from this month's column is to consider how you can add friction to your decision making. How can you pause for a second before reacting emotionally or impulsively? Whether it’s breathing, questioning your assumptions, or just taking a moment to think, that small pause can make a huge difference in the outcome. Thank you for joining me on this exploration of friction in decision making. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and continuing this conversation next week. Take care. Joseph Smart OD&D Consultant, Smart Joseph Consulting joe@smartjoseph.com |
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Ideation:Fixing Friction More heat than light? Encountering ideas, beliefs, and actions that go against the grain of our habits and understanding often create more heated exchanges than provide illumination. It's quite natural to react adversely to unfamiliar ideas, not only because it's a form of self-preservation but also because it takes a lot more effort to sit back and examine what is either unfamiliar or challenging. Thinking of cognitive friction in this way unfortunately creates an either/or situation, where one of the options is not trying to understand what has come before oneself. It's either ignore what has emerged; or, confront what has emerged. Fixing Friction is not an either/or. Instead, it is a way of holding conflicting points of view or actions in tension. The technique is quite subtle because its focus is not on arriving at a compromise or resolution. The idea is that a lot more mental (and emotional) work has to be done before one can get there. Think of it as creating the conditions for better understanding. In other words: it uses or fixes the points of conflict to create a space for understanding without resolving those points of conflict. |
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Here's how it works: Identify the conflicting points or actions. Explain these conflicts to yourself as objectively as possible. (It helps to bracket the association of ideas with specific people or personalities in order to avoid the ad hominen bias.) Try to extract the significant insights, meaningful contributions, or relevant concerns of each view. Hold these insights, contributions, etc. together. Think of diagramming a constellation of the various points. Self-assessment: Ask yourself how the various points might fit together or sit in relation to one another. You might find that a conflicting point complements one of your own beliefs or is part of the process of arriving at your belief. Or more subtly, it's a necessary opposing force (i.e. mutually inclusive idea), such as "left" and "right".*
Sound overly abstract and impractical? Here are two examples: Philosophical Practice In his work on metaphor, the philosopher Paul Ricoeur wanted to understand the role of two opposing elements: literal meaning and non-literal meaning. Metaphorical meaning is non-literal since it often takes familiar senses of words, puts them together, and creates a novel idea or meaning. Consider when Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) writes, Hope is a thing with feathers perched in the soul The metaphorical meaning uses the familiar senses related to birds (feathers and perched) in order to describe hope in a specific way. Hope is not literally a bird, but its association with birds helps us to get a sense that it has to do with things like flight, or even resting and abiding in order to be free. Ricoeur notes that metaphor requires retaining, or holding (fixing), the literal meanings of words together in order to arrive at the metaphorical meaning. You can't get rid of the literal meanings; you need them as part of the process or arriving at a new understanding. He refers to this as the creative process of metaphorical tension. Business Practice As a consultant, part of my work involves reviewing content for its accuracy. But it's more than just fact-checking since the content is generated by subject-matter experts (SMEs) to try and "trick" prototypical AI chatbots. Because of this, there is somewhat of a conflict of interest: On the one hand, SMEs use expert knowledge, semantics, and different methods of reasoning to get the AI bots to respond incorrectly. Strategies range from manipulation of words to finding genuine gaps in the chatbots "knowledge" (i.e. dataset and training). For example, a chatbot might not be good at noting less obvious synonyms in a correct answer. So, it might recognize that the story of Genesis involves questions about "salvation". But it might not recognize this same answer when put in terms of "eschatology" or "soteriology". On the other hand, those responsible for vetting the content put forward by SMEs are concerned with whether the content is simply "gaming" the chatbots or genuinely finding knowledge gaps. Noting and maintaining these conflicts of interests and intents is important. The temptation is to use a rigorous vetting system to verify SME content. This is time-consuming and somewhat contradicts the effort to upgrade a chatbot datasets with as much quality content as possible. One way to achieve some expediency without sacrificing the quality of data: "fix" the idea of the SME as reliable unless red flags appear (e.g. poor grammar, plagiarism, etc.). Having this confidence allows one to use a quicker form of verification of content that can be conducted via the combination of manual searching and the use of existing AI chatbots to provide a more informed context (which is not the same as using other chatbots to verify content!). In my own consultation, I refer to this as alacridation, a combination of "alacrity" and "validation". It is very effective and efficient as long as a good vetting process for hiring SMEs is in place and there is a backend review process that gives a final assessment of the accepted content. So what frictions do you need to "fix"? If you'd like to continue this conversation, please reach out! Dr Todd Mei Founder and Consultant for Philosophy2u tsmei@philosophy2u.com * I've adapted these steps from the hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur. A main feature of his philosophical method is to hold various points of view in tension without resolving them. |
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Identity Formation:Moving Mountains(2022) __________________ by Dr Giacomo Savani _____________________________ Identity Formation is about the power of works of art to help us reflect and explore our relationship to ourselves, others, and the world around us. It derives from hermeneutics and critical theory. |
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"In the midst of things, in the thick of earths and bodies, the self is pressed up against the landscape, at one and the same time part of it, emergent from it and distinct from it, like a blister on a toe." John Wylie (2005): "A single day’s walking: Narrating self and landscape on the South West Coast Path", Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 30:2, 234–47, at 240. ~ Dr Giacomo Savani, Assistant Professor in Ancient History, University of Leeds (UK). Giacomo's Website |
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