Working Group Session: Supporting deep dialogue and deliberation

in socio-technological systems

Tom Murray tommurray.us@gmail.cominfo: tommurray.us, socialDeliberativeSkills.com

Agenda: 1.5 hr. working session

• 10 min Theme of the workshop • 20 min Discussion questions to seed the field • 7 min presentation: UMass research--Murray • 7 min presentation: NCDD resources--Murray • 7 min presentation: Justify system--Fry • Remainder – open discussion

Interdependent Quadrants(Wilber’s Integral Theory)

singular

plural

interiors exteriors

I (skills, etc.)

IT (material/

visible)

WE (cultural)

ITS (systems/

infrastructure)

Small group discussion: Why do/don’t people get along? Causes of peace and non-peace...

1.   - 2.   - 3.   - 4.   - 5.   ....

Technology Supporting Peace & Justice1 — Systemic change

Supporting grass-roots movements • organizing actions and information flow

Citizen Reporting & Monitoring •  of crimes, conflicts, social injustices, of

governments, social trends, industry

Eliminating precursors to war & unrest, • building precursors to peace: economic stability and

growth, education, health care, nutrition…

e-Civic engagement •  participatory budgeting; community forums

Technology Supporting Peace & Justice2 — Supporting Dialogue and Deliberation

Discussion, Argumentation, Critical Thinking,

Voting & Decision Making tools

Supporting Mutual Understanding and Mutual Regard.

This

Ses

sion

This

Con

fere

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<- UMass

Dialog—Deliberation—Conflict ResolutionWhat are the general skills?

• Civic engagement/public dialogue •  International & inter-group conflict • Labor/management, consumer

disputes alternative dispute resolution

•  Interpersonal disputes / mediation • Deliberative decision making

(school, work, home)

SoftwareContent vs. Structure/Tools

(& Beliefs vs. Skills)

A. What SKILLS are needed for dealing with differences and conflict?

1.   - 2.   - 3.   - 4.   - 5.   ....

B. Example of a simple tool supporting a skill...

Rationality: Clear,

reasonable arguments and explanations,

decision making

Leadership: organizing, inspiring, teaching,

‘politicking’

Group process skills:

facilitation, mediation

Communication skills • Nonviolent

Communication • Appreciative

Inquiry • Others?

Skill domains

>> technology supporting each?...

Supporting Deeper Deliberative Dialogue Through Awareness Tools

Tom Murray University of Massachusetts www.SocialDeliberativeSkills.com MIT Build Peace Conference April, 2104

Working Group Session: Supporting deep dialogue and deliberation in

socio-technological systems

Global Citizen Skills • “A good deal of research ...evidence of people’s

inability to understand and fairly consider other people’s perspectives, to think critically about their own position” (Rosenberg)

• “In times of increased global interdependence, producing interculturally competent citizens who can engage in informed, ethical decision-making when confronted with problems that involve a diversity of perspectives is becoming an urgent educational priority…however these skills…are what corporations find in shortest supply among entry-level candidates." (King & Baxter)

• Engaging reciprocally with the perspectives where "reasonable people can reasonably disagree" (King & Kitchener)

Social Deliberative Skills:Social/Emotional/Reflective

• 1. Social perspective taking (cognitive empathy, reciprocal role taking...)

• 2. Social perspective seeking (social inquiry, question asking skills...)

• 3. Social perspective monitoring (self-reflection, meta-dialogue...)

• 4. Social perspective weighing (reflective reasoning; comparing and contrasting views...)

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11/13/11 2:56 PM[CURRENT] WEEK 1: Discuss the pros and cons of leg...

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[CURRENT] WEEK 1: Discuss the pros and cons of legalizing marijuana.[CURRENT] WEEK 1: Discuss the pros and cons of legalizing marijuana.To focus the conversation, we invite you to assume you are on an advisory panel for the statelegislature, having some preliminary conversations online, and you will eventually be draftinga group recommendation. Consider not only your own preferences but what is best for thestate (or society).

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CONTRIBUTE YOUR THOUGHTS

14:53 EDT Sunday, November 13 by tomm

tomm has joined the conversation

23:53 EDT Saturday, November 12 by ines-v

ines-v added a resource: 'Getting a Fix'

23:52 EDT Saturday, November 12 by ines-v

I have to disagree with your third point that marijuana is a gateway drug. Ofall the people I know that smoke marijuana, they do not do any hard drugs.I do agree that gateway drugs exist, however I feel like that typicallyhappens from one hard drug to another when one doesn't seem to beenough. But if you want to talk about gateway drugs we would also have tomention alcohol and cigarettes which many people consume and smoke.Alcohol and cigarettes are also drugs and often considered gateway drugs.They are both legal so that option is void in regards to marijuana.

You also mentioned cancer and other lung related issues. Marijuana is anatural plant. Cigarettes are made up of extremely harmful chemicals thatcause lung related issues and cancer much faster than marijuana ever could.Yet, they are still legal. If anything, cigarettes should be illegal whenconsidering public health. Marijuana is a lot safer than cigarettes.

I do appreciate you playing Devil's advocate though!

I'd like to explain how I see it differently (ines-v)

18:26 EDT Friday, November 11 by arthur-x

It seems like the vast majority is supportive of the legalization of marijuana,so I'm going to play devil's advocate in order to bring the opposition's sideto the table.

First off, research has demonstrated that marijuana use reduces learningability by limiting the capacity to absorb and retain information. A 1995study of college students discovered that the inability of heavy marijuanausers to focus, sustain attention, and organize data persists for as long as 24hours after their last use of the drug. Earlier research, comparing cognitiveabilities of adult marijuana users with non-using adults, found that users fallshort on memory as well as math and verbal skills. Although it has yet to beproven conclusively that heavy marijuana use can cause irreversible loss ofintellectual capacity, animal studies have shown marijuana-inducedstructural damage to portions of the brain essential to memory and learning.

Furthermore, when someone is under the influence of marijuana, theyshould not be allowed to operate heavy machinery like motor vehicles,right? Sure, if marijuana becomes legalized, Congress will definitely enactlaws to prevent drivers from being under the influence of marijuana. But,with all the strict laws already in place against driving under the influenceof alcohol, drunk driving is still a HUGE problem with thousands of deaths

ines-v

arthur-x

joseph-t

laura-t

rtwells

matthew-s

tomm

DIALOGUE TABLE

Everyone (no demographics set)

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Opinion Sliders

Experimental Trials

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REFLECTIVETOOLS SLIDERS VANILLAExperimental_group

All PairsTukey-Kramer0.05

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Linguistic Features – LIWC��� ���

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80+ features

5 categories

Linguistic process (e.g.,

total words per sentence, % of

pronouns)

Psychological process (e.g.,

affect, cognition)

Paralinguistic dimensions (e.g., assents, fillers)

Punctuation (e.g., quotation marks,

exclamation marks)

Contents (excluded from

this study)

100+ features

8 categories

Narrativity

Referential cohesion

Syntactic simplicity

Word concreteness

Causal cohesion

Verb cohesion

Logical cohesion

Temporal cohesion

Discourse Features – Coh-Metrix���

E-commerce: LIWC Automated Text Analysis

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Neurtal

Seller

Buyer

Text Analysis Pane

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Dashboard Text Tagging

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Future: Additional MetricsCommon problems encountered in online facilitation • Low or no participation of individuals or groups, or

silences or lulls on the part of individuals, the entire group, or sub-groups

• Conversation domination by an individual or group •  Inappropriate or disrespectful behavior • Off-topic conversation • Tension-filled disagreements, or high emotional

content • Too much agreement or politeness • Misunderstanding due to missing communication

skills normally available in face-to-face communication

Social Network Measures • In-degree (prominence) • Out-degree (influence) • Degree centrality/hub (key player)

• Closeness centrality (independence)

• Betweeness centrality (potential of control)

Code Frequencies in Several Domains

 Exp. Group Total_���SD_Skill

Intersubjective���speech acts

Vanilla (N = 8) 0.29 (0.07) 0.20 (0.09)

Reflective Tools (N = 8) 0.40 (0.08) 0.30 (0.08)

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•  A significant difference and main effect between Total-SD-Score and grouping, F(1, 14) = 6.89, p = 0.02*, d = 1.46 (a large effect) in favor of the Reflective Tools group

•  A significant relationship between Intersub and grouping, F(1, 14) = 4.81, p = 0.05*, d = 1.05 (a large effect) in favor of the Reflective Tools group

Presentation #2 — National Coalition for Dialog & DeliberationTechnology Resources

see NCDD.org

collaboration.grantcraft.org

by Laura Blackncdd.org/rc/item/6612

Examples: • Group brainstorming and decision-

making • Citizen engagement and e-government • Inter-group and inter-cultural commun. • Argumentation and Debate tools • Idea network visualization tools • Conflict Resolution tools • Gaming for skill building

Facilitate.com – Decision making

ConsiderIT

Zing: Large Group Brainstorm

Structured Dialog (consrv / liberal)

The Public Conversations Project

CitiZing 6/5/10 12:13 PMActivities - CitiZing!

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Parks and Trails Legacy Project

Join Project

Home About Blog Online Activities Calendar Workshop Summaries Participants

OngoingIntroduce Yourself

Apr 13 to Jul 1Discussion: What's Your Vision?

Apr 13 to Jul 1Survey: Vision for Parks and Trails

Aug 1 to Oct 1Rate Key Ideas from Survey & Discussion

Dec 1 to Dec 31Final Revisions and Comment on Draft Plan

Mar 1, 2011 to Dec 31, 2011Final Plan Unveiled - Help Advocate For It!

Acsentum – Civic Dialogue Circles

Gaming for skill building

AgreeDis.org

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CPSR’s e-LiberateRobert’s Rules for online deliberation

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Actics.com

DebateGraph

Compendium

MctIBISMulticentric Issues-Based Info. Sys.

Dispute Resolution/mediation Juripax Intake > and see: Modria.com

Supporting Deeper Deliberative Dialogue Through Awareness Tools

Tom Murray University of Massachusetts www.SocialDeliberativeSkills.com

tommurray.us@gmail.com

THANK YOU

extra slides

Online Deliberation and DR Potential Pros •  Lower emotional reactivity •  More time to think about what

you will say •  Permanent record of

conversation •  More access, over distance •  Lower cost (travel) •  More people from more places

can participate •  Easy to configure different

processes to meet needs •  Efficiency--easy to get online

and participate •  Faster fuller access to links on

web to reference and info •  Easy and safer for participants

to report problems and rule-breaking / manipulation 

Potential Cons •  Less emotional info •  Less body language, tone,

gesture •  More impersonal •  Increases 'digital divide' for

those without computer access or skills/literacy

•  Less accountability than F2F •  In dialog with distance people,

more chance of confusion or error from unfamiliar cultures or jurisdictional rules

•  Vulnerable to cyber attacks/ hacks

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Text Coding

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Social Deliberative Skill:application of HOSs to me/you/we

Higher Order Skills •  argumentation •  critical thinking •  explanation & clarification •  inquiry/curiosity (question asking & investigation) •  reflective judgment •  meta-cognition •  epistemic reasoning

Apply these skills, not to EXTERNAL REALITY (“IT”/problem domain) but to the INTERSUBJECTIVE domain

Higher Order Skills applied to: SELF

goals; level of certainty; feelings, values, assumptions…

YOU goals, assumptions, feelings, values; perspective taking; "believing" & cognitive empathy…

WE agreements, goals; quality of the discourse/collaboration; differences and similarities in values, beliefs, goals, power, roles…

Project Overview

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Examples of Social Deliberative Skills/Behavior���From authentic dialogues in our online corpora���

“ I am probably extremely biased because I am under 21 years old and in college. I wonder if as a 45 year old I will feel differently. ” (self reflection)������“I can’t help but imagine what that is like, for her and for her family.” (perspective taking)������ 56

Samples from online dialogs

EBay (e-commerce): •  “This seller is fraudulent and should be

removed from eBay. Why should a eBay buyer have to be put through this.”

• “…my good feedback be tarnished by these bottom feeders. That lay and cheat honest people out for there hard earned money.”

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Workplace dispute:Intake summary Boss (Grieta) Moderator   “Ryker has created a situation in which a continuation of the

work relationship is no longer possible. What I am concerned, we are talking about terminating the work relationship. I will of course cooperate fully with a constructive mediation and hope for the best. It is unlikely that I myself can come to a solution with Ryke.r”

Employee (Ryker) Moderator “Since late last year it has been a mess in the company.

Management is unclear and inconsistent. The work relationship is disrupted. They want to get rid of me. I am literally "sick" of it. My confidence in the company has been shaken to such a point that I am not sure if I want to stay.”

Kitchener & King Reflective Judgment levels

59 From E. Whitmire / Information Processing and Management 40 (2004) 97–111