On behalf of the Minciu Sodas laboratory, I invite you to discuss with our Investigator Joe Damal the results from his investigation of the hypothesis Violence Does Not Alter Thinking.

Mentoring and Organizing

Tuesday, 7:00pm - 9:00pm, December 7th

6400 S.Kedzie, Chicago, IL 60629  (the building with the mural)

For more information about the evening, please contact me at (773) 925-9741 or ms@ms.lt.
Andrius Kulikauskas, Director, Minciu Sodas, http://www.ms.lt/mindchange.html

Agenda

Your participation will help Joe Damal and the rest of our laboratory understand how useful are the ideas that we have come up with.  With your help we hope to apply and explore the useful ones further.  Our agenda is:
  1. Introduction of investigation.
  2. Presentation of results.
  3. Discussion of results.
  4. Application of results.
  5. Future investigations, especially yours!
Introduction of investigation.  Joe's investigation started with the bold hypothesis Violence does not alter thinking and raised the question What does affect our thinking?  Together with myself and Martin Workman, he asked people - especially young people - three questions.  I encourage you to consider them yourself!
  1. What do you change your mind about?
  2. What is a true story where you changed your mind?
  3. Why did you change your mind?
Presentation of results.  Included with this letter are examples that we have collected of What affects our thinking?  The examples are grouped together to illustrate the eight different reasons that we found as to why we change our minds: Adventure, Realization, Potential, Future, Authority, Comfort, Morality, Commitment.  Joe and I worked together to come up with a model to account for and clarify these different reasons.  The picture on the next page shows how seven of these reasons can be thought of as different ways of relating a Source of opportunity with a Policy for change.

Discussion of results.  Our investigation is successful if it leads us to new bold hypotheses.  Your discussion of our work makes us aware of what is useful, new or missing. Some possible topics:

Application of results.  Our successful investigation relates our original belief (hypothesis) with a new belief (hypothesis).  This opens a path for building coalitions, which makes our investigations practical.  For example, our investigation is opening a path to relate mentors (who help change thinking) with organizers (who help encourage initiative).  We are working with a group of youth in the Southwest side of Chicago who have contributed to our investigation, and who have committed to be mentors (for themselves and others) and organizers (for themselves and others).  I think that many of us at this meeting will have experience both as mentors and organizers, and we are setting aside time at the meeting for you to meet others and share your endeavors, especially concerning youth.

Future investigations, especially yours!  As Director of the Minciu Sodas laboratory, I am very happy that we are active here in Chicago.  Our headquarters are in Lithuania, but I hope to establish a base in Chicago for future investigations.  I am very interested in beliefs you have that you would like to challenge and explore in public.  Our purpose is to become aware of related beliefs and build coalitions for practical work.

I thank Lafayette Ford, Program Manager, Youth Outreach Program, Chicago Public Schools, for being our sponsoring Investigator for this investigation.  I hope you can help with our discussion, both in this meeting and outside of it.

Andrius Kulikauskas