Closed Minds?

Closed Minds? PDF Author: Bruce Smith
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0815701861
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Contrary to popular belief, the problem with U.S. higher education is not too much politics but too little. Far from being bastions of liberal bias, American universities have largely withdrawn from the world of politics. So conclude Bruce L. R. Smith, Jeremy Mayer, and Lee Fritschler in this illuminating book. C losed Minds? d draws on data from interviews, focus groups, and a new national survey by the authors, as well as their decades of experience in higher education to paint the most comprehensive picture to date of campus political attitudes. It finds that while liberals outnumber conservatives within faculty ranks, even most conservatives believe that ideology has little impact on hiring and promotion. Today's students are somewhat more conservative than their professors, but few complain of political bias in the classroom. Similarly, a Pennsylvania legislative inquiry, which the authors explore as a case study of conservative activism in higher education, found that political bias was "rare" in the state's public colleges and universities. Yet this ideological peace on campus has been purchased at a high price. American universities are rarely hospitable to lively discussions of issues of public importance. They largely shun serious political debate, all but ignore what used to be called civics, and take little interest in educating students to be effective citizens. Smith, Mayer, and Fritschler contrast the current climate of disengagement with the original civic mission of American colleges and universities. In concluding, they suggest how universities can reclaim and strengthen their place in the nation's political and civic life.

Closed Minds?

Closed Minds? PDF Author: Bruce Smith
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0815701861
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Contrary to popular belief, the problem with U.S. higher education is not too much politics but too little. Far from being bastions of liberal bias, American universities have largely withdrawn from the world of politics. So conclude Bruce L. R. Smith, Jeremy Mayer, and Lee Fritschler in this illuminating book. C losed Minds? d draws on data from interviews, focus groups, and a new national survey by the authors, as well as their decades of experience in higher education to paint the most comprehensive picture to date of campus political attitudes. It finds that while liberals outnumber conservatives within faculty ranks, even most conservatives believe that ideology has little impact on hiring and promotion. Today's students are somewhat more conservative than their professors, but few complain of political bias in the classroom. Similarly, a Pennsylvania legislative inquiry, which the authors explore as a case study of conservative activism in higher education, found that political bias was "rare" in the state's public colleges and universities. Yet this ideological peace on campus has been purchased at a high price. American universities are rarely hospitable to lively discussions of issues of public importance. They largely shun serious political debate, all but ignore what used to be called civics, and take little interest in educating students to be effective citizens. Smith, Mayer, and Fritschler contrast the current climate of disengagement with the original civic mission of American colleges and universities. In concluding, they suggest how universities can reclaim and strengthen their place in the nation's political and civic life.

Open Borders--Closed Minds

Open Borders--Closed Minds PDF Author: Robert Klein Engler
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1300949937
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
This book is a collection of articles about immigration and illegal immigration to the United States of America. These articles have appeared online and in print and are gathered for the first time in one place. Open Borders--Closed Minds has two objectives: to open the minds of United State citizens about the problems and dangers of uncontrolled immigration and to persuade our elected officials to close and secure the nation's borders.

The Psychology of Closed Mindedness

The Psychology of Closed Mindedness PDF Author: Arie W. Kruglanski
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1135471533
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
The fundamental phenomenon of human closed-mindedness is treated in this volume. Prior psychological treatments of closed-mindedness have typically approached it from a psychodynamic perspective and have viewed it in terms of individual pathology. By contrast, the present approach stresses the epistemic functionality of closed-mindedness and its essential role in judgement and decision-making. Far from being restricted to a select group of individuals suffering from an improper socialization, closed-mindedness is something we all experience on a daily basis. Such mundane situational conditions as time pressure, noise, fatigue, or alcoholic intoxication, for example, are all known to increase the difficulty of information processing, and may contribute to one's experienced need for nonspecific closure. Whether constituting a dimension of stable individual differences, or being engendered situationally - the need for closure, once aroused, is shown to produce the very same consequences. These fundamentally include the tendency to 'seize' on early, closure-affording 'evidence', and to 'freeze' upon it thus becoming impervious to subsequent, potentially important, information. Though such consequences form a part of the individual's personal experience, they have significant implications for interpersonal, group and inter-group phenomena as well. The present volume describes these in detail and grounds them in numerous research findings of theoretical and 'real world' relevance to a wide range of topics including stereotyping, empathy, communication, in-group favouritism and political conservatism. Throughout, a distinction is maintained between the need for a nonspecific closure (i.e., any closure as long as it is firm and definite) and needs for specific closures (i.e., for judgments whose particular contents are desired by an individual). Theory and research discussed in this book should be of interest to upper level undergraduates, graduate students and faculty in social, cognitive, and personality psychology as well as in sociology, political science and business administration.

The Myth of the Closed Mind

The Myth of the Closed Mind PDF Author: Ray Scott Percival
Publisher: Open Court Publishing
ISBN: 0812696859
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Religious zeal, suicide terrorism, passionate commitment to ideologies, and the results of various psychological tests are often cited to show that humans are fundamentally irrational. The author examines all such supposed examples of irrationality and argues that they are compatible with rationality. Rationality does not mean absence of error, but the possibility of correcting error in the light of criticism. In this sense, all human beliefs are rational: they are all vulnerable to being abandoned when shown to be faulty.

Open Minds, Closed Minds and Christianity

Open Minds, Closed Minds and Christianity PDF Author: Colin Bower
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Christianity
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description


The Closed Partisan Mind

The Closed Partisan Mind PDF Author: Matthew D. Luttig
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501768913
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 157

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Book Description
The Closed Partisan Mind traces the roots of partisan polarization to psychological closed-mindedness in the electorate and the changing perception of politics created by polarized political leaders and the new media environment. American politics today can be defined by the intense and increasingly toxic divide between Democrats and Republicans. Matthew D. Luttig explores why so many Americans have endorsed this level of political conflict. Luttig illustrates how the psychological need for closure leads people, regardless of whether they identify as Democrat or Republican, to express more polarized political attitudes. This association between closed minds and partisan polarization is a new phenomenon and can be traced to broader changes in American society, such as the creation of ideologically distinct political parties and a fragmented media environment. These developments have simplified politics into a black-or-white, us-versus-them conflict—making politics appeal to those with closed minds. Today, strong partisans do not just cheer for their political party to win elections. Instead, more akin to religious true believers, strong partisans use their affiliation as a means of understanding right and wrong, friend and enemy, true and false. The Closed Partisan Mind reveals that these dynamics have manifested in both a new type of partisanship and a new type of partisan. The emergence of this new closed partisanship illustrates the dangers that polarization has wrought on society, politics, and the minds of Americans.

Open Minds

Open Minds PDF Author: Wolfgang Prinz
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026230094X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
A novel proposal that the cognitive architecture for volition and cognition arises from particular kinds of social interaction and communication. In Open Minds, Wolfgang Prinz offers the novel claim that agency and intentionality are first perceived and understood in others, and that it is only through practices and discourses of social mirroring that individuals come to apply these features to themselves and to shape their architectures for volition and cognition accordingly. Developing a (social science) constructive approach within a (cognitive science) representational framework, Prinz argues that the architectures for agency (volition) and intentionality (cognition) arise from particular kinds of social interaction and communication. Rather than working as closed, individual systems, our minds operate in ways that are fundamentally open to other minds. Prinz describes mirror systems and mirror games, particular kinds of representational mechanisms and social games that provide tools for aligning closed individual minds with other minds. He maps the formation of an architecture for volition, addressing issues of agency and intention-based top-down control, then outlines the ways the same basic ideas can be applied to an architecture for cognition, helping to solve basic issues of subjectivity and intentionality. Addressing the reality and efficacy of such social artifacts as autonomy and free will, Prinz contends that our beliefs about minds are not just beliefs about their workings but powerful tools for making them work as we believe. It is through our beliefs that our minds work in a particular way that we actually make them work in that way.

Revelation in Context

Revelation in Context PDF Author: Irene Belyeu
Publisher: Xulon Press
ISBN: 1597818763
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description


Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say

Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say PDF Author: Cheryl Cran
Publisher: Trafford
ISBN: 9781553690238
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 158

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Book Description
Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say - Surefire Ways to Get The Results You Want is a book on how to communicate with conscious awareness. Have you ever had a conversation and felt that you were coming across clearly and understandably and yet the other person looks completely confused and frustrated? This book provides methods to prevent ever being misunderstood again! When we communicate consciously and with outcome based principles we can create incredible results with others. This book provides ways to achieve results through the words we choose, the knowledge of the communication cycle, preventing conflict through proactive awareness and much more. Most of us have based our communication on habit and have not intellectualized the importance of having a plan before we open our mouths. Words are powerful and this book goes into the many benefits of becoming a conscious communicator such as improved relationships, increased job satisfaction, happier customers, productive teams and increased morale. Through assertive techniques and specific examples of words that create positive impressions and words that create negative perceptions this book brings the reader to awareness and through awareness positive change in their communication approach. This book is an easy read and an excellent reference tool for all those wanting to create greater satisfaction in their work and personal relationships.

The Limitations of the Open Mind

The Limitations of the Open Mind PDF Author: Jeremy Fantl
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192535323
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
When should you engage with difficult arguments against your cherished controversial beliefs? The primary conclusion of this book is that your obligations to engage with counterarguments are more limited than is often thought. In some standard situations, you shouldn't engage with difficult counterarguments and, if you do, you shouldn't engage with them open-mindedly. This conclusion runs counter to aspects of the Millian political tradition and political liberalism, as well as what people working in informal logic tend to say about argumentation. Not all misleading arguments wear their flaws on their sleeve. Each step of a misleading argument might seem compelling and you might not be able to figure out what's wrong with it. Still, even if you can't figure out what's wrong with an argument, you can know that it's misleading. One way to know that an argument is misleading is, counterintuitively, to lack expertise in the methods and evidence-types employed by the argument. When you know that a counterargument is misleading, you shouldn't engage with it open-mindedly and sometimes shouldn't engage with it at all. You shouldn't engage open-mindedly because you shouldn't be willing to reduce your confidence in response to arguments you know are misleading. And you sometimes shouldn't engage closed-mindedly, because to do so can be manipulative or ineffective. In making this case, Jeremy Fantl discusses echo chambers and group polarization, the importance in academic writing of a sympathetic case for the opposition, the epistemology of disagreement, the account of open-mindedness, and invitations to problematic academic speakers.