Five Perspectives on Dialogue for Development
The five frameworks for dialogue reviewed here are based on the work of Chris Argyris, David Bohm, David Johnson and Roger Johnson, Jack Mezirow, and Paulo Freire. Each approaches dialogue from a different discipline; thus collectively, they afford the possibility of a richer and more complex understanding of a way to talk with each other than might be gained from only one perspective. You will certainly note differences among the five, as well as underlying commonalities. I invite you in reading through these to stay open to differing perspectives, to differentiate the concepts, and, at the end, to attempt with me to integrate the ideas into a meaningful whole.
Argyris: Organizational Learning
Chris Argyris has for twenty years been steadfast in his conviction that organizational members can learn to interact in ways that improve their own and their organization’s learning. Through extensive data collection of some 6,000 cases, Argyris has found that organizational members consistently interact in ways that limit rather than facilitate their own learning. This “normal” way of interacting, which he has referred to as Model I, is characterized by such strategies as: (1) asking questions in such a way as to get the other person to agree with one’s own view, (2) advocating one’s own view in a manner that limits others’ questioning of it, and (3) privately evaluating the other person’s view and attributing causes to it.
These and similar strategies are intended to persuade others to one’s point of view, to minimize any negative feelings that may arise, and to appear rational and reasonable. Such goals do not seem inappropriate; it is, however, apparent how such strategies can limit learning. For example, if the questions I ask are designed to get the other person to agree with my own view, they will do little to elicit the other person’s view. Thus, I will not learn how the other person reasons about the situation nor how the other’s view may differ from my own. When I advocate my own view in a way that discourages others’ questioning it, if my view is wrong, I will not be able to discover that. Likewise, when I privately evaluate the other’s view and privately attribute cause to it, I cannot determine if my evaluation is accurate or if the attributions I make are correct. In other words, although each of these strategies may be effective in my “winning,” they severely limit my learning.
Argyris has pointed out that people have a tendency to draw inferences very quickly from what they see and hear. This is done with such speed that they are often not aware that the conclusions they have reached are inferences, and moreover they quickly lose track of the data (what was said or done) that caused them to draw the inference. The ability to quickly draw inferences serves people well; it is a critical part of intelligence and effectiveness in functioning in a fast-paced world. But it also gets them into trouble. Because people tend to see their conclusions as “truth” or accurate, no effort is made to check them out—people make an hypothesis, sometimes on the basis of quite scanty data, and proceed to function on it as though it were true. For example, someone may infer that a frown means that the boss does not want to hear a different perspective, or that Fred’s being late so many times means he is not very interested in the job, or that the group expects new members to just listen and not contribute.
The set of interaction practices (Model II skills) that Argyris suggested are a way to overcome the negative consequences of the tendency to quickly draw inferences from scanty data include: (1) actively inquiring into the other’s views and the reasoning that supports them; (2) advocating one’s own view and reasoning in a way that encourages others to confront it and to help the speaker discover where the view may be mistaken; and (3) publicly stating the inferences that one makes about others and the data that leads to those inferences, and inviting others to correct the inferences if they are inaccurate.
Using such strategies, people may discover more adequate views than those they began with. With the help of others, individuals may also uncover assumptions that they were unaware of and which will afford them the opportunity to test whether those assumptions are valid. As Argyris has pointed out many times, people require others to help them discover, invent, and especially produce new actions.
However, people will have to give up some of their goals in order to interact using Model II strategies. For example, a person will “win” using Model II strategies only if his or her reasoning and conclusions are in fact not fallacious. There is the risk of losing. There is the risk of being embarrassed if one’s view is inaccurate, and the risk of embarrassing others if their views are not supported by their reasoning. When a person gives up the strategies that prevent others from expressing negative feelings, he or she risks having to experience those feelings.
Although Model II strategies are easily stated, they are very difficult to implement; they engage ingrained patterns for protecting oneself from embarrassment and threat. Those ingrained patterns automatically produce certain behaviors. For example, a person can ask “leading” questions and make inferences about other people without even realizing it; people may unwittingly design ways to state their views so that they are untestable, to prevent the embarrassment of discovering they are wrong.
To become skilled at interacting using Model II strategies individuals must: (1) identify the learning-limiting behaviors that they currently use, (2) uncover the tacit assumptions that mediate those behaviors, (3) alter those assumptions and design appropriate new behaviors, and (4) practice those new behaviors until they become automatic.
The first and second steps are greatly facilitated by others. Because meaning structures often may be tacit and related behavior automatic, they are difficult, if not impossible, to recognize in oneself. They are often, however, readily apparent to others.
For Model II skills to be developed, these steps must be engaged in repeatedly, as subsequent learning-limiting behaviors and tacit meaning structures are uncovered. To become skillful enough to use Model II skills in situations of even mild threat takes considerable time: Argyris has said up to a year before behavior becomes automatic enough to use in situations of mild threat.
One way to facilitate the process of learning Model II skills is to ask a person to write about a difficult situation that he or she would have preferred to have handled better. The page is divided horizontally into two columns. In the right-hand column, the person records, as accurately as possible, the conversation that occurred in the course of the situation. In the left-hand column, the person records the thoughts and feelings that he or she had but did not express during the conversation. The case is then analyzed by a group of colleagues who are also attempting to learn the Model II skill set. The case analysis is both an opportunity for the group to practice the Model II skills themselves and an opportunity to assist the case writer in identifying the ways that the person may have limited his or her own learning.
In the aggregate the cases can provide useful insight into the defensive routines that limit the learning of the organization. Argyris (1993) has also developed a corresponding interview process that is useful in collecting data related to defensive routines. The defensive routines are displayed in causal maps that can be confirmed or disconfirmed by organizational stakeholders.
Argyris has acknowledged that Model II interaction is normative, not value-free; it is not a set of interaction skills that one could use as the means to achieve any given end. The normative end is, in fact, learning. The claim Argyris made for Model II skills is that the use of the skill set increases the amount of learning that results from the interaction. Learning, then, is the goal of Model II and its highest value.
There are values embedded within the three governing variables that Argyris articulates for Model II: valid information, free and informed choice, and internal commitment to the choice.
When in conversation with others, people typically state their conclusions but less frequently offer the original data that led to those conclusions. In using the term valid information, Argyris implied that people need to offer others both their conclusions and the original data that led them to those conclusions. Valid information gives others the opportunity to determine for themselves whether the data warrant the conclusion.
Valid information further requires that people make a concerted effort to gain directly observable data and reasoning from others. Then both parties have valid information. Finally, complete data must be offered, as opposed to withholding certain elements that might influence the other in ways the speaker would not prefer. Valid information requires that people make available to others all of the relevant data and that they report the data as accurately as they can. Underlying the idea of valid information is the scientific concept of a “community of inquiry guided by such norms as intersubjectively verifiable data, explicit inferences, and public falsifiability” (Argyris, Putnam, & Smith, 1985).
The second and third governing variables, free and informed choice and internal commitment to that choice, are both based upon the first. For a choice to be informed, the individual must have all of the relevant information; for it to be free, the individual must not be coerced or make the choice out of fear or even because of the anticipation of extrinsic rewards. If someone agrees with another’s opinion because he or she anticipates that the agreement will gain favor with that person, a free choice has not been made. A person makes a free and informed choice when the data support the choice, the logic is reasonable to him or her, and the choice is in concert with his or her own objectives and values. Internal commitment is a natural outgrowth of free and informed choice. People are most likely to be committed to those choices they make freely.
Bohm: Developing Shared Meaning
In contrast to Argyris’ Model II idea, David Bohm’s concept of dialogue is relatively technique-free. Despite this, the two ideas are surprisingly similar in terms of the goal toward which they strive: to uncover and examine the tacit theories-in-use (which Bohm referred to as “programs”) that mediate actions.
Bohm (1985) was a theoretical physicist, professor at the University of London, and a fellow of the Royal Society. His ideas of dialogue grew out of his experience and knowledge of physics; he described the world as an “unbroken flowing whole.” He provided compelling evidence from quantum physics for this view, contrasting it with the more mechanistic view of Newtonian physics and with the earlier Aristotelian view of the world as an integral organism. Yet Bohm acknowledged that quantum physics is also a “view” and, as with previous views, is ultimately based on a leap of faith. The starting point of any view is metaphysical, and only beyond that initial leap of faith is it based in logic or science. Thus he held his own view as a “program” to be continually examined and questioned. He said, “We have to have enough faith in our world-view to work from it, but not that much faith that we think it’s the final answer” (Bohm, 1985, p. 4).
According to Bohm, people typically deal with the world not as a whole but as though it were multiple fragments, one fragment being unrelated to others. His objection to a fragmentary view of the world was that it disposes people to think of the divisions between things as absolute and final rather than as having a limited utility and validity. Holding a fragmentary view, the person begins to act on the world as though it were indeed fragmented and in so doing creates a fragmented world that seems to exist independent of his or her actions. To use Argyris’ term, people create a situation that is “self-sealing.” A fragmentary view of the world is exemplified, for example, in viewing the boundaries of countries as authentic or manifest. Such a view makes it possible to see the people of France and Germany as two entities rather than people divided by an arbitrarily drawn line, a line that, given different conditions, might be placed very differently. When the mechanistic explanation of reality is taken to its ultimate implication, people are left with a universe which is basically indifferent to humankind and in which there is meaning only to the extent that individuals can construct meaning in their own eyes. It is this fragmentary view of the world that Bohm hoped to overcome through dialogue.
Society, to work, must be based on shared meaning, which Bohm likened to the cement that holds society together. At present, society has an incoherent set of meanings, a poor quality cement, so it is falling apart. His goal, then, was to develop not higher individual intelligence but higher social intelligence. The first task in creating such shared meanings is simply to apprehend the meanings of others. That, in and of itself, will bring a certain order. Bohm said that dialogue is a way to apprehend the meaning of others and to thereby experience the wholeness of the world rather than the fragments into which understanding is broken.
Bohm (1990) contrasted dialogue with discussion. Dialogue comes from the Greek word dialogos, meaning “through”; dialogue is like a stream running between two banks. He noted that it is the stream that counts; the banks merely give form to the stream. The stream is analogous to the free flow of meaning between people. Discussion, on the other hand, has the same root word as percussion or concussion, meaning “to break things apart or to analyze.” Discussion leads to separate points of view; dialogue leads to shared meaning.
Bohm referred to the products of thinking as “programs.” People are unaware of these programs, not of their content but of their nature. The programs people construct appear to them to be in some sense reality or truth. Bohm pointed out that thinking (the production of programs) is a slow process whereas the recall and use of programs is swift. Thinking cannot keep up with thought (programs). Thus the programs that people have constructed cannot be changed through thinking alone.
Bohm compared these programs to the bright lights of Las Vegas. The lights, in their nearness, prevent people from knowing or seeing the stars beyond the lights. The lights constitute reality, blotting out the larger universe. If the lights are “dissolved,” then the stars appear and that new reality is apparent. Bohm suggested that dialogue is a way to uncover and “dissolve” programs.
Bohm’s concerns about the pervasiveness of programs made him unwilling even to specify the conditions of productive dialogue, seeing such conditions themselves as “programs” that have to be examined. According to him, “One of the difficulties is that the thoughts contain all sorts of presuppositions which limit us and hold us in rigid grooves. What we have to do is discover these presuppositions and get rid of them—get free of them. I don’t think that we can establish conditions for a dialogue, except to say that we both want to make a dialogue” (1985, p. 37).
His guidance for dialogue, then, is minimal. To create a dialogue requires a group that will meet without purpose or a specified goal so that its members can talk freely. The group needs to be large enough that subcultures can develop within it. In a small group, Bohm said, people can hide their deeper ideas through politeness and avoidance; in a large group, of twenty or thirty people, subgroups will form and raise the deeper issues. But he noted that, as soon as people try to talk about things that are of such importance, they get excited and quit hearing each other.
Bohm suggested that participants in dialogue suspend their assumptions—that is, that they consider what both their and others’ assumptions mean without judging or attempting to come to any compromise. When all the participants in a group agree to suspend their assumptions and attempt to apprehend the meanings of others, they are already in the act of sharing meaning. Bohm said it is not necessary that everyone hold the same opinions for shared meaning to emerge, that the joint agreement to apprehend the meaning of others is more important than the content of the opinions and assumptions themselves. “When you listen to somebody else, whether you like it or not, what they say becomes part of you” (Bohm, 1992, p. 119). So in a dialogue everybody’s ideas are held by all. There is a common pool of information. Out of this social intelligence comes something new.
It is holding on to assumptions and defending them that get in the way of dialogue. He eschewed persuasion and attempts to convince others, maintaining that if something is right there is no need for persuasion. “Truth,” said Bohm (1990, p. 22), “does not emerge from opinions; it must emerge from something else—perhaps from a more free movement of this tacit mind.”
Bohm suggested that dialogue be an exchange that is conducted without an agenda and without a leader. He used the analogy of an empty space in which anything may come in. In describing dialogue, Bohm related a story about a North American Indian tribe of hunter-gatherers. From time to time the whole tribe would come together in a circle and talk. No one appeared to have called the meeting or to have led it; the group made no decisions and seemingly had no agenda. Yet when the meeting ended people knew what to do because they now understood each other. They might then get together in small groups and make plans or decide to do something.
Bohm realized that dialogue is not easy. It is difficult to hear an assumption that contradicts one’s own; it is difficult to see some people dominating the dialogue while others say nothing. As with Argyris’ Model II skills, a certain vulnerability is demanded. “An idea must be vulnerable—you have to be ready to drop it, just as the person who holds the idea must be vulnerable, I think. He should not identify with it” (Bohm, 1985, p. 40).
Mezirow: The Conditions for Rational Discourse
Jack Mezirow (1991) has described himself as an adult educator, coming out of the emancipatory tradition of Paulo Freire and Saul Alinsky. His hope is that, through learning and reflection, adults can free themselves of what William Blake in his poem “London” called “mind-forg’d manacles.” As did Argyris and Bohm, Mezirow has pointed out the need for adults to help each other uncover their tacit assumptions. Mezirow’s focus has been more individual than the other theorists. I include his concepts here because he has provided clear guidance about the conditions under which dialogue can occur and because he has differentiated that which can be validated through proof from that which must rely on dialogue for validation.
Drawing heavily on the work of Jurgen Habermas, Mezirow (1991) framed three kinds of learning, one of which, “communicative” learning, requires interaction with others of the type discussed above. It will be helpful first to differentiate the three types and then to explain why communicative learning requires dialogue.
The most familiar type of learning described by Mezirow is “instrumental”—that is, learning that leads to the control and manipulation of the environment, which in this definition includes other people. Instrumental learning is based in empirical knowledge and involves predictions about observable events. It involves cause-and-effect relationships that can be proven or disproved. Knowledge is produced by testing hypotheses that lead to greater control over situations. Quality control is an application of instrumental learning.
Communicative learning is associated with the practical rather than the empirical. It is learning to understand what others mean and to make oneself understood. The goal of communicative learning is to gain insight and to reach common understanding rather than to control. Most of the problems and issues people deal with in organizations fall into this category, including intentions, social concepts, politics, reasons, feelings, and beliefs.
Using communicative learning, one cannot “prove” something with empirical evidence. It cannot, for example, be proven that Jones would be the best person to fill the vice-president slot or that a report has sufficient depth to satisfy a client’s needs. According to Mezirow (1991, p. 76), “We are continually confronted with having to determine the validity of reports, predictions, explanations, arguments, and denials as well as the implicit claims of validity involved in justifying commands, requests, excuses, and recommendations.”
With communicative learning, validity can be determined in one of two ways. The first is to rely on force, tradition, or authority, as in a religious dogma or the rights of kings. The second way is to rely on a broad consensus of those who are informed, rational, and objective. But even here the idea is not one of simply voting but rather an opinion that is reached through a deliberation in which each person has the opportunity to hear, influence, and challenge others. Consensual validation is based on the assumption that any unbiased group that had available to them the same information would arrive at a similar conclusion. It is the assumption at the heart of the Enlightenment: that the human mind is capable of using logic and reason to understand the world rather than having to rely on the interpretation of someone who claims authority through force, tradition, or divine right.
Consensual validation is recognizable as the process employed in a jury of peers. A group of objective individuals reviews the evidence and arguments and renders a decision, which, hopefully, is the same as another jury would render hearing the same evidence. Although less formalized in most situations, the same principles apply; people believe something is valid if, after examining the available data, a group of reasonable individuals comes to a consensus.
Because consensus may also be reached through coercion, it is necessary to construct standards related to objectivity. According to Mezirow (1991, pp. 77-78), those include: (1) Have accurate and complete information. (2) Be free from coercion and distorting self-deception. (3) Be able to weigh evidence and assess arguments objectively. (4) Be open to alternative perspectives. (5) Be able to become critically reflective upon presuppositions and their consequences. (6) Have equal opportunity to participate (including the chance to challenge, question, refute, and reflect and to hear others do the same). (7) Be able to accept an informed, objective, and rational consensus as a legitimate test of validity.
The third type of learning is “emancipatory.” The goal of emancipatory learning is to identify and reflect on distorted meaning perspectives. Mezirow has pointed out, as did Bohm (in his view of programs), that individuals understand the world through a frame that they have constructed and that frame is often distorted by institutional, linguistic, and environmental forces that have been taken for granted by the individual. An example might be that women cannot succeed in upper management or that wealthy people should have greater protection under the law than the poor. Emancipatory learning is achieved through critical self-reflection but, as with Bohm’s concept of dissolving programs, requires others to provide perspective.
It is Mezirow’s (1991) concern that people have taken instrumental learning as the model for all learning and that they fail to understand that only instrumental learning can be validated through empirical means. For all other learning people must rely on each other and on establishing conditions that assist their ability to think together rationally.
Mezirow has focused on the individual and the ways institutions—including government, corporations, and educational organizations—impart distorting assumptions to the individual. His goal has been to free the individual of such assumptions through critical reflection; to do that he or she must also make institutions aware of their tacit assumptions.
Johnson and Johnson: Cooperation and Productivity
David Johnson and Roger Johnson (1989) are the foremost researchers on the relationship among learning, cooperation, and productivity. They have based their work on Morton Deutsch’s (1949) theory of social interdependence. Over the last twenty years they have conducted more than forty studies to understand the conditions for and the outcomes of cooperation, particularly as it relates to learning. In addition they have conducted a meta-analysis of a hundred years of research with over five hundred studies related to this topic. Much of Johnson and Johnson’s own work has been conducted in educational settings, although confirmation of their findings has involved all sectors. The conclusions presented here are primarily drawn from their meta-analysis.
There are three ways individuals can take action: cooperatively, competitively, and independently. Through cooperative action, individuals promote the success of others; through competitive action, they obstruct the success of others; independent action has no affect on others’ success. Each of these three types of action can be understood as forms of social interdependence.†
Although Johnson and Johnson have said much about all three conditions, I will limit my discussion to their findings on cooperation, because it is that situation in which dialogue is critical. Four benefits of cooperative action are supported in their meta-analysis: productivity, reasoning strategies, process gain, and transfer of learning.
Productivity. In the more than 185 studies that have compared the impact of cooperative and competitive situations on achievement, the evidence is overwhelming that greater productivity is attained through cooperation. When cooperative situations are contrasted with individualistic situations (226 studies), the results are similar. These findings hold for both individual achievement and a total group’s achievement.
Reasoning strategies. A second benefit is the improved quality of reasoning strategies that individuals employ in a cooperative situation. Reasoning strategies include, for example, integrating new information with prior knowledge, identifying concepts underlying data, problem solving, and metaphoric reasoning. The use of such strategies is increased in cooperative situations as well as the quality of the strategies themselves. In addition, metacognition, or knowledge about one’s thinking processes, is more frequently in evidence in cooperative situations than it is in competitive or independent situations. Metacognition is critical because it leads to the generalized improvement in learning capability.
Process gain. A third benefit is process gain—that is, in cooperative situations, new ideas or solutions are generated which would not have occurred if individuals were working independently. Again, there is significantly more process gain through cooperative situations than either competitive or independent situations.
Transfer of learning. The final benefit noted in this meta-analysis is transfer of learning. By “transfer of learning,” Johnson and Johnson meant what an individual learned in the group situation that he or she is able to use in another situation, one that no longer involves the original group. The transfer finding is most significant when the knowledge gained is at a higher rather than lower cognitive level. With low-level cognitive knowledge there is little difference in whether the learning took place independently, competitively, or cooperatively. However, with more complex understandings, cooperative situations produce greater transfer.
Conditions for Positive Outcomes from Cooperation. These four findings, drawn from hundreds of studies, provide strong evidence that cooperative situations produce greater learning and achievement than do competitive or independent situations. Not all cooperation is effective, however, as anyone who has participated in a group situation can attest. The benefits described above do not occur by simply putting organizational members in a group and instructing them to reach a given outcome. There are a number of ways in which such benefits may be derailed in a group situation—for example, some members may do less than their share of the work, a free-rider effect; members who are viewed as having greater expertise or authority may be deferred to; and groups may create dysfunctional divisions of labor and certain individuals may dominate the interaction. Thus, it is only under certain conditions that cooperative efforts achieve the beneficial outcomes: (1) positive interdependence, (2) social skills, and (3) promotive interaction. It is the third of these that requires dialogue. Before discussing promotive interaction, I must frame that critical factor in terms of the other two.
Positive interdependence. Positive interdependence implies that individuals are linked with others in a way that one cannot achieve without others achieving as well. Moreover, in order to achieve the outcome, each individual must coordinate his or her activities with others. Simply being a member of a group does not automatically lead to higher levels of achievement, nor does group discussion alone, nor does a mere exchange of information; there must also be positive interdependence. For positive interdependence to exist, all individuals must be oriented toward an outcome (outcome interdependence) and the means through which that outcome is reached—such as resources, roles, and tasks—must be interdependent (means interdependence) as well.
Social skills. Cooperation requires individuals who are skilled in interpersonal and small-group interaction. Such skills might include conflict resolution, communication, trust-building, and decision making, to name a few. The group must periodically reflect on how well it is interacting and on what it might do to improve the way the group is functioning. It is clear, however, that social skills in the absence of positive interdependence and promotive interaction do not increase productivity and achievement.
Promotive interaction. Johnson and Johnson (1989, p. 63) defined promotive interaction as “individuals encouraging and facilitating each other’s efforts to achieve, complete tasks, and produce in order to reach the group’s goals.” The interaction is described as “face to face” and although electronic or other technologically mediated interaction may produce the same results, that has not been tested through these studies.
All three of the conditions of cooperation are necessary for increased productivity and achievement; however, of the three, promotive interaction is clearly the most critical. Johnson and Johnson (1989, p. 63) described nine elements of promotive interaction: (1) providing each other with efficient and effective help and assistance, (2) exchanging needed resources such as information and materials and processing information more efficiently and effectively, (3) providing each other with feedback in order to improve subsequent performance of assigned tasks and responsibilities, (4) challenging each other’s conclusions and reasoning in order to promote higher-quality decision making and greater insight into the problems being considered, (5) advocating the exertion of effort to achieve mutual goals, (6) influencing each other’s efforts to achieve the group’s goals, (7) acting in trusting and trustworthy ways, (8) being motivated to strive for mutual benefit, and (9) having a moderate level of arousal characterized by low anxiety and stress.
Many of these elements are self-explanatory; however, it may be useful to expand on some of these.
Information exchange and cognitive processes. Individuals exchange their data, conclusions, reasoning, and questions with others in promotive interaction. Although the cognitive benefits to the receiver of such an exchange are apparent, there is evidence that it is the speaker who makes the greatest cognitive gains from the exchange. Recent studies have shown that the act of orally summarizing information works to strengthen the speaker’s understanding of that information. Such a finding would seem to bear out the insight of the Roman philosopher who said “Qui docet descit” (Whoever teaches, learns twice). Individuals organize information differently if they are going to present it to others than if they are trying to understand it solely for their own use. It is in the act of speaking that people tend to cognitively organize what they know.
A second beneficial action to the speaker is perspective-taking—that is, the act of paraphrasing the ideas and arguments of others. Perspective-taking is more than just being able to play back others’ argument in order to check with them for accuracy. It is the ability to comprehend and voice how the situation appears from another’s standpoint. Perspective-taking is the opposite of egocentrism—in which the individual is locked into a single view of the situation and is unaware of the limitations of that view or that other viable views may exist.
When one voices the perspective of another, that action inclines the other to disclose information more fully than if the perspective were not voiced. The additional information and the fuller comprehension of another perspective both work to increase the development of new knowledge on a complex issue. It is necessary, however, to hold both one’s own and others’ perspectives in mind at the same time to create new knowledge. Simply listening to another’s perspective is less facilitative of the creation of new knowledge than is the actual voicing of the other’s perspective. People place such a high value on information that it is almost counterintuitive to realize that the amount of actual information within a group is less important in reaching a high-quality solution to a problem than is actually voicing others’ perspectives.
Having placed the emphasis here on the speaker rather than on the receiver of information, I should at least acknowledge that the receiver also benefits cognitively. In particular, the receiver is able to incorporate the knowledge, skills, and reasoning of others into his or her own understanding.
Controversy. When promotive interaction occurs, an unavoidable outcome is controversy. When managed constructively, controversy promotes uncertainty about one’s own views, which leads to an active search for information, resulting in the reorganization of one’s understanding. The constructive, rather than a destructive, management of controversy depends upon the group’s social skills.
Controversy, as the term is used here, “exists when one person’s ideas, information, conclusions, theories, and opinions are incompatible with those of another, and the two seek to reach agreement” (Johnson & Johnson, 1989, p. 87). Embedded within this definition are positive outcome and means interdependence. The outcome interdependence is the hoped for agreement and the means interdependence is different information.
Controversy leads to increased productivity through the following process (adapted from Johnson & Johnson, 1989, pp. 91-92):
(1) When individuals are presented with a problem or decision, they hold an initial conclusion based on categorizing and organizing incomplete information, their limited experiences, and their specific perspectives.
(2) As each individual presents his or her conclusion and its rationale to others, the person engages in cognitive rehearsal, deepening the understanding of his or her position, and discovers higher-level reasoning strategies.
(3) When the person is confronted by other people with different conclusions based on their information, experiences, and perspectives, he or she becomes uncertain as to the correctness of his or her views. A state of conceptual conflict or disequilibrium is created.
(4) Uncertainty, conceptual conflict, and disequilibrium motivate an active search for more information, new experiences, and a more adequate cognitive perspective and reasoning process in hopes of resolving the uncertainty.
(5) As the person adapts his or her cognitive perspectives and reasoning through understanding and accommodating the perspectives and reasoning of others, a new, reconceptualized, and reorganized conclusion is derived. Novel solutions and decisions that, on balance, are qualitatively better are detected.
Johnson and Johnson differentiated controversy from concurrence-seeking, which they defined as a process in which group members inhibit disagreement or the critique of an opposing position in order to reach agreement. In controversy there must be both cooperation and conflict.
The conditions under which productivity is increased through controversy are as follows:
(1) A cooperative goal structure exists through which information is accurately communicated; individuals feel safe enough to challenge each other’s ideas; individuals value controversy rather than viewing it as a shortcoming; individuals are willing to deal with feelings as well as ideas and information; controversy is designed as win-win; and individuals recognize similarities in ideas as well as differences.
(2) There is heterogeneity of members. The greater the heterogeneity, the greater the amount of time members spend in controversy, thus the greater the productivity. Heterogeneity can exist in information, ability, reasoning strategies, and personality, as well as the more acknowledged differences of sex, race, background, and age.
(3) Relevant information is distributed among members. (Relevant in this case means “related to the task the group is working on.”) If one individual has all of the information, or if no one has relevant information, productivity will not be increased. However, the more information the group has distributed among its members the more productive the group will be.
(4) Members have the ability to disagree with each other without creating defensiveness. This condition is directly related to individuals’ social skills. Two skills in particular are needed: (a) the ability “to disagree with each other’s ideas while confirming each other’s personal competence” (Johnson & Johnson, 1989, p. 102), and (b) the ability to take the perspective of the other, which was discussed above.
(5) Members have the ability to engage in rational argument. Engaging in rational argument implies that members keep an open mind, are willing to be influenced by the cogent arguments of others, are able to use logical reasoning and to determine when reasoning leads to valid conclusions, are themselves able to organize their reasoning to present to others, and so on.
When these conditions are present, controversy produces increased productivity and achievement over concurrence-seeking groups, competitive debate, or individuals working alone.
A final and hopeful note should be added to this discussion of Johnson and Johnson’s work. They described a spiral in which trust is needed to achieve cooperation, but cooperation also leads to increased trust, which in turn leads to increased cooperation. In fact, the research shows that people seek out those with whom they have acted cooperatively, to again engage in cooperative action. Given the high correlation between cooperation and productivity, the spiral of cooperation may also be a spiral of productivity.
Paulo Freire is a Brazilian educator whose lifelong work has been the education of illiterate adults in the Third World, both through his own practice and through the development of theory that has influenced educators worldwide. The antecedents of his theoretical ideas can be found in the thinking of Jean-Paul Sartre; Erich Fromm; Jose Ortega y Gasset; Mao Tse-tung; Martin Luther King, Jr.; and Che Guevara. These thinkers, coupled with his own remarkable sociopolitical insights, led him to not only understand the political potency of bringing literacy to the disenfranchised but to advocate for the legitimate right of all people to participate in creating their own culture and world. His work with illiterate peasants in Brazil so threatened the existing order that he was jailed and subsequently exiled. Much of his work in Latin America has been through UNESCO and the Chilean Institute for Agrarian Reform. Freire was himself born into poverty and experienced firsthand the disenfranchisement of the poor and oppressed.
For Freire dialogue is the process through which human beings collectively transform their world. That transformation involves altering their taken-for-granted assumptions about their world and their relationship to it. This transformation is not conceived of as a one-time change—that is, as a change from an incorrect position to a more correct one—but rather as integral to human development. It is the process of evolving new meaning as humans interact with their world in ways that change the world and are in turn changed by it. “To exist humanly, is to name the world, to change it” (Freire, 1970, p. 76). Dialogue, then, is a creative process, one in which meaning is created or re-created.
It is also a social process. Although meaning is constructed in the minds of individuals, it is through dialogue—the process of communicating, challenging, and affirming meaning—that the world is transformed. Naming the world, transforming it, is the way humans find significance, thus it is an “existential necessity.” As such, it cannot be the privilege of an elite few but rather is the right of everyone. For this reason, the naming cannot be done alone, nor for others, for that robs them of their words.
Freire’s use of the term naming is appropriate. To give a name to something, whether that something is a concrete object, a newly conceived concept, or an action, is a way of making it available for dialogue. As long as the “something” is taken for granted it is not available for dialogue. Likewise, renaming allows people to see a familiar something in a new way. Thus in proposing that all people have the right to participate in naming of the world, Freire is talking about the power to reconceptualize the world, to think in new ways about it.
Dialogue, according to Freire (1970, p. 75), is about both reflection and action: “To speak a true word is to transform the world.” By transforming the world Freire means to alter it in ways that allow people to be more human. His emphasis in this quote is, however, on the term true. True words, spoken in dialogue with others, alter the world. This action and reflection occur simultaneously, not sequentially. In fact, Freire did not dichotomize acting and reflecting; together they are praxis.
Dialogue is also, according to Freire, not a technique used to help achieve some preferred result. Rather it is part of the historical progress of human beings becoming more human, more aware, and more conscious. However, for Freire, as for the other theorists I have discussed above, dialogue is not just talk; the term is reserved for a way of interacting that is more true, more open, more human.
Freire often referred to the “non-dialogic man,” individuals who attempt to indoctrinate others, requiring them to adjust to a reality that is already defined.
What does dialogue require of people? Those who engage in dialogue must come to it with humility, love, faith, and hope—a formidable list of characteristics, but one that exemplifies a relational, rather than technique, perspective.
Humility. Freire (1994, p. 71) wrote eloquently about the need for humility in this passage from Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
Dialogue cannot exist without humility. The naming of the world, through which people constantly re-create that world, cannot be an act of arrogance. Dialogue, as the encounter of those addressed to the common task of learning and acting, is broken if the parties (or one of them) lack humility. How can I dialogue if I always project ignorance onto others and never perceive my own? How can I dialogue if I regard myself as a case apart from others—mere “its” in whom I cannot recognize other “I”s? How can I dialogue if I consider myself a member of the in-group of “pure” men, the owners of truth and knowledge, for whom all non-members are “these people” or “the great unwashed”? … Someone who cannot acknowledge himself to be as mortal as everyone else still has a long way to go before he can reach the point of encounter. At the point of encounter there are neither utter ignoramuses nor perfect sages; there are only people who are attempting, together, to learn more than they now know.
Love. Freire (1970, pp. 77-78) wrote about dialogue as the creation and re-creation of meaning and suggests that creation is an act of love. Thus dialogue cannot exist in the absence of love of the world and of humankind. “Love is at the same time the foundation of dialogue and dialogue itself.”
Faith. In addition to humility and love, those who engage in dialogue need faith in the ability of people to make and remake their world. This is not faith in an elite group who have shown some particular aptitude, nor faith in the well-educated who have developed a certain expertise, but rather faith in the ability of average human beings to comprehend their world and, with others, to transform their world. Freire (1970, p. 79) said, “Faith in man[kind] is an a priori requirement for dialogue; the ‘dialogical man’ believes in other men even before he meets them face to face.… Without this faith in man, dialogue is a farce which inevitably degenerates into paternalistic manipulation.”
Hope. Freire said that dialogue requires hope. Without hope that things can change there is no need for dialogue. Hopelessness begets silence, not dialogue. If individuals do not expect anything to happen as a result of their dialogue, the dialogue will be empty and meaningless.
Critical thinking. Finally, dialogue requires individuals to engage in critical thinking. Freire differentiates critical thinking from naive thinking. Naive thinking sees the future as extrapolation from the past. The naive thinker’s focus is on accommodation to the anticipated future, which is seen as inevitable. The critic, by contrast, is focused on the continued transformation of reality.
† According to Johnson and Johnson (1989, p. 23), “Social interdependence exists when the outcomes of individuals are affected by each other’s actions. There are two types of social interdependence (cooperative and competitive) and the absence of social interdependence (individualistic efforts).”