Extensive listening: Why you think you're right -- even if you're wrong

Perspective is everything, especially when it comes to examining your beliefs. Are you a soldier, prone to defending your viewpoint at all costs, or a scout, spurred by curiosity?

Julia Galef examines the motivations behind these two mindsets and how they shape the way we interpret information, interweaved with a compelling history lesson from 19th-century France.

When your steadfast opinions are tested, Galef asks: "What do you most yearn for? Do you yearn to defend your own beliefs or do you yearn to see the world as clearly as you possibly can?"

You can read a full transcript of the talk here.

Talking point: Choices

This week's talking point is choices. Before getting together with the members of your conversation group, go over the questions below so that ideas flow more easily when you meet up with your friends and you can work out vocabulary problems beforehand.

When you have to make a difficult or important choice, which of these things do you do?
-put it off as long as you can
-make a list of pros and cons
-make a quick decision depending on how you feel
-discuss it with good friends
-think very carefully

Do you tend to give things a lot of thought or do you usually make hasty decisions?
Have you ever made a hasty decision and later regretted it?
Are you good at making decisions or are you often indecisive?
Talk about a difficult decision you have made in your life.
What are some of the best and worst choices you’ve made in your life?
Have you ever made a decision that had negative consequences? What happened?

Which of the different quotes do you prefer? Say why.
1 Your life is a result of your choices. If you don’t like your life, then make better choices.
2 No matter how long you have travelled in the wrong direction, you always have the choice to turn around.
3 Sometimes the wrong choices bring us to the right places.

Does your country offer enough choices regarding education, jobs, homes and lifestyles?

Choose the three factors which are the most important to you when choosing a place to live.
-location & facilities
-price
-age of property
-decoration
-state of repair
-number of bedrooms
-modern kitchen and bathroom
-size

To illustrate the point you can watch the video Decision Making Skills: 5 Decision Making Tools. You can activate the CC on the player to read the subtitles.

Talking point: Turning points in life

This week's talking point is turning points in a person's life. Before getting together with the members of your conversation group, go over the questions below so that ideas flow more easily when you meet up with your friends and you can work out vocabulary problems beforehand.

• Talk about a time when your life took a turn for the better or for the worse.
• What are the most important decisions you have made in your life?
• Have you ever made a decision that turned your life around?
• Have you ever regretted (not) doing something in your life?
• What are some of the turning points in your country’s history?
• What (bad) habit(s) would you like to get rid of?
• Describe how the habit started and developed.
• What bad habits do you find annoying in other people?

To illustrate the point you can watch this video on Heleen, who was living happily in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, but decided to leave everything behind and move to a farm upstate New York.


Leaving Williamsburg from Charles Schwab on Vimeo.


My parents found a building in south Williamsburg, right under the Williamsburg Bridge in 1982. They were able to get it for a fairly good price probably because the neighbourhood was so bad. There were gangs, and drugs and it definitely wasn’t a good area.
They renovated the entire building. The backyard was really my mum’s project. They took out the cement. She made a pond. She put in plants and ivy. She really turned it into this incredible green space. Which was such a rarity in such a down-and-out gray neighbourhood and although I don’t remember it, I’ve seen so many photos of myself playing in the backyard and spending many days there in this beautiful oasis.
So in 1992 the City of New York was going to repair the Williamsburg Bridge, they needed to sandblast to get rid of all the lead paint. Unfortunately, they didn’t follow the proper precautions and all the kids in the neighbourhood got lead poisoning, including myself. My lead levels were through the roof. I needed to get out of the city as soon as possible.
She came here and she didn’t have a job, she didn’t have friends, she had a young child and she had to completely start over again. It was also difficult because my dad was still working in the city, so she was essentially alone for a lot of the time. Eventually they separated because they were living two very different lives.
Although it was really hard on my parents, I think my mom’s decision to ultimately move here was the best thing that could have happened for both of us. I had such an idyllic childhood. The countryside was my backyard. During the summer when I had time off from school, I would spend all day outside and I got to use my imagination, and I really got to be a kid a lot longer than I think I would have if I’d lived in the city.
Now that I live in LA, I just love coming back here. I come back as much as I can to see her so happy, to get fresh air and to just be in this incredible nature. Even though the garden in Williamsburg was so beautiful, what she has here is unparalleled: Giving riding lessons, breeding horses, going on trail rides, it gives her so much joy.

Reading test: How do we really make decisions?

In this week's reading comprehension activity we are going to practise a different kind of multiple choice activity. Read the article How do we really make decisions? on the BBC's web page and say whether the statements below are true (T), false (F) or the information in the sentence is not mentioned in the article (NM).

1 We always make our decisions using solid reasoning.
2 We are aware of the mistakes we make, but we can’t help making them over and over again.
3 The ‘stranger within’ or ‘hidden autopilot’ is a recent discovery in psychology.
4 Most of the mistakes we make come from decisions taken by our intuitive mind.
5 Our logical mind has nothing to do with our biases.
6 The example of the chocolate box shows how irrational some of our decisions are.
7 Confirmation bias means that negative events are more easily remembered than positive ones.
8 Behavioural economics is the part of psychology that studies the way we respond to economic losses.
9 Loss aversion is very much to blame for the current economic crisis.
10 The evolutionary origins of the logical and intuitive systems have been studied for long.
11 As humans cannot change themselves, they’ll continue making the same mistakes.

Key:
1F; 2F; 3NM; 4T; 5F; 6T; 7F; 8F 9T; 10NM; 11F

Talking point: Making decisions

Do you find it difficult to make decisions?
What helps you to make good decisions?
Do you usually turn to someone for help before making a decision
How long do you take to make up your mind before making a decision?
Have you experienced decision fatigue?
Do you think that being tired erodes your willpower?
Do you remember an important decision you made that you know regret?
Do you remember an important decision you made that you are really happy about?

Get together with your conversation group and discuss all the ins and outs of decision-making for you. Before you get together to talk, you may like to gain some insight into the topic through The New York Times article Do you suffer from decision fatigue?

During your discussion with your friends you will be stating your views all the time. Remember to use some of the following expressions when you express your opinion:

In my opinion/view …
Personally, I think …
I really don’t think …
[It seems] to me …
As I see it …
I reckon …
As far as I'm concerned

To be perfectly honest …