It’s clear that the world needs more intellectual humility. But how do we develop this virtue? And why do so many people still end up so arrogant? Do our own biases hold us back from becoming as intellectually humble as we could be—and are there some biases that actually make us more likely to be humble? Which cognitive dispositions and personality traits give people an edge at being more intellectually humble - and are they stable from birth, learned habits, or something in between? And what can contemporary research on the emotions tell us about encouraging intellectual humility in ourselves and others? Experts in psychology, philosophy and education are conducting exciting new research on these questions, and the results have important, real-world applications. Faced with difficult questions people often tend to dismiss and marginalize dissent. Political and moral disagreements can be incredibly polarizing, and sometimes even dangerous. And whether it’s Christian fundamentalism, Islamic extremism, or militant atheism, religious dialogue remains tinted by arrogance, dogma, and ignorance. The world needs more people who are sensitive to reasons both for and against their beliefs, and are willing to consider the possibility that their political, religious and moral beliefs might be mistaken. The world needs more intellectual humility. In this course, we will examine the following major questions about the science of intellectual humility: • How do we become intellectually humble? • What can human cognition tell us about intellectual humility? • How does arrogance develop, and how can we become more open-minded? • How do emotions affect our ability to be intellectually humble? All lectures are delivered by leading specialists, and the course is organised around a number of interesting readings and practical assignments which will help you address issues related to humility in your daily life. This course can be taken as a part of a series which explores the theory, the science and the applied issues surrounding intellectual humility. In the previous course on the theory behind intellectual humility, we considered how to define intellectual humility, the nature of an intellectual virtue, and how we know who is intellectually humble. If you are interested, complete all three courses to gain a broader understanding of this fascinating topic. Look for: • Intellectual Humility: Theory - https://www.coursera.org/learn/intellectual-humility-theory • Intellectual Humility: Practice - https://www.coursera.org/learn/intellectual-humility-practice
Inconsistency, explanation and belief revision
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From the course by The University of Edinburgh
Intellectual Humility: Science
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From the lesson
Humility, exploration, and the psychology of child development
Dr Cristine Legare argues that humility is intimately connected to a state of openness to new ideas, and looks at how we can foster this in children. It turns out that what psychologists say makes kids better at exploring, explaining and being open, is not necessarily how they're taught at school!
Meet the Instructors
Dr. Ian ChurchResearcher
Epistemology; Philosophy of Psychology; Philosophy of Religion
Professor Duncan PritchardProfessor of Philosophy
University of Edinburgh
Dr. Emma GordonPostdoctoral Researcher
University of Edinburgh
So let's talk a little bit about intellectual humility and belief revision.
We've established that explanation has a unique benefit on learning.
An explanation is part of this process,
and we know that revising beliefs or revising
explanation is at the core of intellectual humility.
After all, in order to be humble about what you know,
you have to be willing to be wrong.
You have to be willing to revise your beliefs.
Now, examining constraints on explanation I think
provides insight into the process of belief revision.
What kinds of context and information motivate children to revise their beliefs?
And this is a crucial part of understanding how
the development of intellectual humility proceeds.
So we know from Karl Popper
that observation is always selection.
It means a chosen object, a definite task,
an interest, a point of view, a problem.
When we generate an explanation,
we're always looking to explain something in particular.
We're not interested in explaining everything.
So a big part of what I want to understand and what I've
studied is what motivates children to explain,
what piques their curiosity?
This is crucial to understand how to get children to revise their beliefs.
We have to get them to engage in understanding in the first place.
We know that explanation is a selective process.
We also know that like adults,
children aren't interested in explaining everything.
They're not curious about everything.
Children are much more curious about some things than others.
And if we want to optimize learning,
it follows that we should know a lot about what children are curious about,
what piques their curiosity and their interest.
And examining what motivates explanation provides insight
into the process of scientific reasoning and belief revision.
So let's talk a little bit about what kinds of events motivate scientific reasoning,
and in particular motivate children to construct explanations.
We know that children explain events that have the potential to teach them something new.
Some particular inconsistency with
prior knowledge triggers childrens' explanatory reasoning.
Children are much more interested in explaining an
inconsistent versus consistent outcome.
And the quality of their explanations, sophistication of that explanation
for an inconsistent outcome is greater than for a consistent outcome.
We've also shown that children's explanations guide their exploratory behavior.
So the way children explain outcomes influences the sorts of behaviors that
they engage in to test whether their explanations are accurate or not.
We know that children preferentially
explore inconsistent outcomes that they have explained.
So there's a dynamic process between explanation and further exploration.
So I think explaining inconsistency is in fact a really crucial mechanism for learning.
Inconsistent outcomes pique children's curiosity,
motivate children to generate explanations which subsequently
guide their exploration and hypothesis testing behavior.
This generates new information which feeds
back into the kinds of explanations that they generate,
and the process by which they revise
their explanations in response to inconsistent or new information.
So to do this experimentally,
we control children's expectations and beliefs.
Let me give you an example of how we've done this using novel stimuli- these light boxes.
So to do this what we've done is we present children with outcomes that are
consistent with prior knowledge as well
as outcomes that are inconsistent with their prior knowledge.
We present those outcomes simultaneously to
children and then we ask them why. Why did that happen?
To do this, we use a novel task with novel causal properties and categories.
Now the benefit of this design is that we have
a number of different measures of children's explanation.
We can measure what they explain first,
the content of their explanations,
and how their explanations influence
the kinds of exploratory behaviors that they engage in.
So here's an example of an experimental task that we've used.
We use these novel light boxes,
and novel objects with novel labels.
This is to introduce new information to
children and to prime what their expectations are.
So first we have a training trial.
The TOMA training trial,
and here we put a 'toma' on each of the boxes individually.
And what you see is that tomas appear to activate the box- they turn the light box on.
Next, we have a training trial for 'blickets'.
And here we placed the blicket on each of the objects, again, independently.
And as you can see the blickets do not appear to turn the light box on.
Next, we have a trial where we simultaneously place one toma and one blicket on each box.
As you can see, the toma activates the box exactly as you would expect.
And the blicket does not activate the box.
And we asked the child, why did that happen?
Then there's another trial where once again a toma and a blicket
are placed on each of those boxes simultaneously.
And what you see here is that the blicket does not activate the box,
again totally consistent with what you would expect,
but in this case the toma does not activate the box,
which is inconsistent with your expectation.
And once again we ask the child,
why did that happen?
And following that explanation,
we give them an opportunity to engage directly with the objects.
So once again, we can analyze what they explained first,
the content of their explanations,
and the kinds of hypothesis testing behaviors that
they engage in and their attempt to understand why
that inconsistent outcome doesn't appear to work.
Nothing. This one lighted up,
and this one did not. So that means... What's making this light up?
And what we found is that explanation guides exploratory behavior.
Children preferentially explore inconsistent outcomes they have explained.
Children also are more likely to first explain that inconsistent outcome suggesting
that inconsistency piques children's curiosity and motivates their explanations.
Always, because this needs to be like this.
And this needs to be like that. That's why. Why are the boxes on the wrong way?
We also found that causal explanation in exploratory behavior work in
tandem to guide hypothesis generation or the generation of
explanation and subsequent exploratory behavior or hypothesis testing.
Oh because the light goes only to here, not here.
Oh the bottom of this box has electricty in here but this doesn't have electricity.
It's lighting up. So when you put four.
Here we need put four of these when to make it light up
and two on this one to make it light up.
So what you can see here is the interplay of inconsistency, explanation, and exploration.
You can see this child respond to inconsistent information and in that process
generate multiple different potential explanations that he then explores or tries out.
When faced with information that's inconsistent with his expectation,
he revises his beliefs and tailors
his exploratory behavior to understanding new outcomes.
And there is an iterative process here by which inconsistent information,
explanation, and exploration are all working in an interconnected way.
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