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Posted 10-2-98
Mindlessness may or may not be a common phenomenon, but it's at least one that's understood. Psychologist Ellen Langer is trying to raise awareness and use of its opposite, mindfulness.
"When we're taught about the world, we're taught about it in such a way that we freeze our understanding of it," she said in a recent address which Case Western Reserve University's University Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education (UCITE) hosted.
"The world is there, but until we act on it, it doesn't have any meaning to us," Langer added. "Once we act on it, the way we form categories ... will determine the way we're going to use those categories ever onward."
For example, introducing an object or thought authoritatively leaves others less likely to question whether the object or theory is as described.
"When you take information in mindlessly, it' s not that you couldn't use the information in some creative way -- but it has to occur to you to use it in a creative way before you're going to begin to use it," Langer said.
"Everything we teach, we tend to teach with a certain amount of certainty -- and in teaching with that certainty, what we're doing is almost precluding the possibility that people will use that information creatively and make it their own," she added.
For example, words such as "clearly" and "obviously" raise red flags for her. "Whenever I hear those words, I know there's mindlessness lurking there, because things are too complicated to be so clear and obvious," she said.
"People try to eliminate doubt. Doubt is what enables choice. Choice leads to mindfulness. Certainty leads to mindlessness."
Langer, the first woman to receive tenure in Harvard University's psychology department, has addressed mindfulness in her research and writing. Her 1989 book, Mindfulness, has been published in 13 countries. Langer's latest book, released in 1997, is The Power of Mindful Learning.
"When I'm talking about being mindful, you're actively drawing distinctions, creating categories. When you're being mindless, you're relying on distinctions that have already been drawn in the past," she said.
"When you're mindful, there's an openness, a receptivity to information. When you're mindless, there's a certainty that precludes looking for new information. Why look if you already know?"
The difference is subtle but important. "When you're mindless, your behavior is rule- or routine-governed. When you're mindful, your behavior ... is guided by these rules and routines, rather than being determined by them."
Langer advocated taking a wider perspective in teaching, to see what's right in a different answer, rather than characterizing a different answer as a wrong one.
"There's no such thing as a wrong answer, independent of context," she said.
"Whatever answers people give us are acceptable from some perspective, and it might be to our advantage to turn our whole teaching enterprise inside out to find out what is correct about what they're saying, rather than insist that they understand what we're saying."
Based on Langer's 25 years of research, mindfulness leads to a wide array of benefits:
"At any moment, no matter what you're doing, you're doing it either mindfully or mindlessly -- and the difference between the two states of mind seems to be real," she said. "The consequences are enormous for one's physical health, one's psychological well-being, and for competence in general."
Mindfulness increases health, longevity, immune system strength, competence (of many types), creativity, memory, and charisma. At the same time, it has decreased study subjects' arthritis symptoms and burnout level.
How does mindlessness arise, if it carries few benefits?
"When people become mindless, they become mindless by default, rather than by design," Langer said. "When you become mindless, what you're doing is confusing the stability of your mindset with the stability of the underlying phenomenon."
According to Langer, mindlessness often develops over time, as people pay less attention to tasks they've performed repeatedly, since they feel more comfortable with and competent at them.
Mindlessness can also come from a single exposure to an activity or thought. This is "more pernicious," she said.
"Any time you're giving information about anything in a way that leads you to accept it unquestioningly, what happens is that you take in that package and it never occurs to you to open it up and tie it up differently, to use the information in some other way."
For example, people often learn new sports or activities by learning the basics -- for example, how to hold and swing a golf club or tennis racket. But this approach doesn't leave people as open to personalizing their style -- such as shoulder problems or a difference in height compared to their instructor -- and thus leaves them less able to adapt to changing circumstances in games.
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