American Psychology Association committee decisions about CE credit for Energy Psychology programs and their cognitive/brain processes
Phillip Warren
It would be even better to do this to the pseudo skeptics and their rant about Daryl Bem's paper: "Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Emotion" that is discussed by Dossey in "Why Are Scientists Afraid of Daryl Bem." Explore, May/June 2011, v.7, #3 pp 127-137 (see attached).
The article "Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults," Current Biology, 2011 April, pp. 1-4, is available at: http://jjjtir.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/political-orientations-are-correlated-with-brain-structure-in-young-adults.pdf
I wrote a paper "Cognition and Motivation" (available on my website http://www.REBprotocol.net ) which describes many aspects of cognitive styles as they impact various areas of life, one of which is attitude and belief formulation and change.
This issue "liberal vs conservative" or "liberal vs authoritarian" was reformulated by Milton Rokeach [(1960) The Open and Closed Mind, N.Y.: Basic Books] since he believed that the typical (and still common) approach of "liberal vs conservative/authoritarian " was too restrictive and loaded. Thus, I think a better approach is to use Rokeach's formulation since that's what it's all about. I don't see much acknowledgement of his more useful approach in contemporary debate.
The following information is taken from my paper pages 28, and 31-32. The chart comparing the Open vs Closed mindset is on page 33 (see my website).
Rokeach (1960) states in his discussion of
the existing approaches to authoritarian beliefs: "What was...lacking was a
theory that could tie together in a more general way the organization of belief
with the organization of cognition." (p. 17) Further he states: "...a basic
requirement is that the concepts to be employed in the description of belief
systems must not be tied to any one particular belief system; they must be
constructed to apply equally to all belief systems." (Rokeach, 1960, p. 6)
Rokeach writes "The
belief
system is conceived to
represent all the beliefs, sets, expectancies, or hypotheses, conscious and
unconscious, that a person at a given time accepts as true of the world he lives
in. The disbelief
system is composed of a
series of subsystems rather than merely a single one, and contains all the
disbeliefs, sets, expectancies, conscious and unconscious, that, to one degree
or another, a person at a given time rejects as false." (Rokeach, 1960, p.
33)
In my paper ("Cognition and Motivation") I
summarized that closed minded people would have these characteristics: They
would strongly reject information which conflicted with their present
information, treat the information as a unit and react to it on that basis, not
notice points which were contradictory on their side, be ignorant of the counter
arguments (forget or not see the point of the counter argument), be much
affected by fear appeals, and be much influence by the source of the
information. I think this captures APA and "pseudo skeptics" rather
well.
The cognitive
basis of the open-closed mind. "...the ability
(or inability) to discriminate substantive information from information about
the source, and to assess the two separately." (p. 60) "...in any situation in
which a person must act, there are certain characteristics of the situation that
point to the appropriate action to be taken...The same situation also contains
irrelevant factors, not related to the inner structure or requirements of the
situation...A basic characteristic that defines the extent to which a person's
system is open or closed [is] ...the extent to which the person can receive,
evaluate, and act on relevant information received from the outside on its own
intrinsic merits, unencumbered by irrelevant factors in the situation arising
from within the person or from the outside." (p.
57)
The formation of new belief systems. The essence of the difference between open and closed persons in the formation of new systems lies in the ability to synthesize rather than analyze. There are several variables that determine the ability to form new systems: (p. 398)
a. The ability to remember or keep in mind all the new parts to be integrated.
b. A willingness to "play along" or entertain new systems. (see the cognitive style called Tolerance for Unusual Experiences -- TUE -- described and discussed in my paper)
c. Past experience, which determines whether a particular system is, psychologically speaking, new or not.
d. Presenting new beliefs to be formed into new systems all at once or gradually. In closed persons the formation of new systems is facilitated when the new beliefs are presented all at once; the new beliefs do not have to be reconciled with old ones. In open persons it makes no difference.
e. The degree to which there is isolation within the belief system. The less intercommunication between individual beliefs the more the formation of new systems is retarded.
With this orientation our EP community (as well as all frontier research and thought) has a good idea of the problems we, and all other growing tip types, face.
I have a section on the "Arrogant Ignorance" mindset available on my website, specifically at http://www.rebprotocol.net/pseudoskepticism%20.htm. It contains information on extreme scientific resistance to frontier science and new thinking, corruption of science and scientists and pathological and pseudo skepticism.
Cheers?,
"Emotional Freedom is in Your Hands with REB"
Chemical -- Electromagnetic -- Emotional/Cognitive sources
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