Ellen J. Langer - The Power of Mindful Learning

Praise for The Power of Mindful Learning

The Power of Mindful Learning argues that traditional methods of learning can produce mindless behavior because they tend to get people to overlearn a fact or a task and suggest that there is only one way to do it. She argues that it is important to teach skills and facts conditionally, setting the stage for doubt and an awareness that different situations may call for different approaches or answers.... Landmark studies make the point scientifically.

The New York Times

Im a firm believer in the power of mindful learning. This book should be required reading for teachers at every level, both in academia and the business world.

Howard Stevenson, Harvard Business School

Like Freud, Piaget, Werner, and Vygotsky, Langer is well on her way to constructing a grand theory of human functioning with important implications for such diverse areas as education and learning, development and aging, group relations, and psycho- and neuro-pathology.... Never before has social psychology provided more subtle insights into neuropsychology and related fields than in Langers provocative work.... Her seemingly simple experimental manipulations point out profound truths about the human condition and how we as people can develop.

Contemporary Psychology

Praise for Ellen Langer

Ellen Langers insights span every field of human endeavor, including not least my own.

Atul Gawande, MD, Harvard Medical School, author of Complications,

All of us who write books about psychology for a popular audience are aware that we stand on the shoulders of giants, and Ellen Langer is one of those giants.

Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink

No one in the history of psychology has done more than Ellen Langer in showing the power mindfulness can give us over our health and happiness.

Philip Zimbardo, Stanford University, author of Shyness

Dr. Ellen Langer has always been a source of great inspiration to me. With elegant simplicity, she can completely change your life and transform your experience of reality.

Deepak Chopra, MD

Copyright 1997, 2016 by Ellen J. Langer, PhD

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address Da Capo Press, 44 Farnsworth Street, Third Floor, Boston, MA 02210.

Set in 10-Point Caslon by the Perseus Books Group

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Langer, Ellen J., 1947

Title: The power of mindful learning / Ellen J. Langer; with a new introduction by the author.

Description: Boston, MA: Da Capo Lifelong Books, 2016. | Series: A Merloyd Lawrence book | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015044939 | ISBN 9780738219097 (e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: Learning. | Attention. | Thought and thinking. | Cognition. | BISAC: PSYCHOLOGY / Creative Ability. | PSYCHOLOGY / Personality. | PSYCHOLOGY / Cognitive Psychology.

Classification: LCC LB1060 .L35 2016 | DDC 370.15/23--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015044939

Published as a Merloyd Lawrence Book by Da Capo Press

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Contents

E ach chapter of this book relies in part on the mindfulness of various students with whom Ive had the pleasure of working. Their contributions are noted throughout where our experiments are described. Even more extensive collaboration and thus special thanks are extended to Douglas DeMay and Paul Whitmore re chapter 1; to Mathew Lieberman re chapter 4; Becca Levy re chapter 5; and Justin Brown re our work on intelligence.

Taken as a whole, this book has benefited greatly from the comments and questions given to me by Roger Brown and Lenore Weitzman. Katherine Jaeger, Trina Soske, John Myers, Albert Carnasale, Marie Tatar, Phyllis Katz, and Nancy Hemenway also provided useful insights. I extend my gratitude to each for their advice and my appreciation of their friendship.

I also want to thank Sophia Snow and Brian Ericcson for their mindful technical help.

Last, but foremost, I am indebted to my editor and friend, Merloyd Lawrence, whose skill, patience, and wisdom helped me with each draft.

W hen I first wrote The Power of Mindful Learning, I strongly suspected what lay at the source of all kinds of mindlessnesspersonal, interpersonal, and societalbut hesitated to state it boldly. Now after more than forty years of research on the mindlessness of ostensibly thoughtful action, Im finally persuaded enough to state its cause in print.

Our schools are the problem. They unintentionally teach us to be mindless.

Schools do this in at least two ways. They teach us to evaluate each other and ourselves, and they teach us to seek or accept information as if it were absolute and independent of human creation. Both of these ideas were implicit in Mindfulness but not fully explained.

EVALUATION

Shakespeare warned us against being judgmental when he wrote Things are neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so. I would add that behavior makes sense from the actors perspective or else s/he wouldnt have done it. When we evaluate someone negativelyhes lazy, stubborn, gulliblewere evaluating the person from our observers perspective. It doesnt even occur to us that the person may instead be insufficiently motivated, steadfast, or trusting.