mental frameworks and values

I ran across an article that argues “…that when people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it.” “Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities” (Kruger and Dunning, 1999: 1121).

All of this seems self evident to me. There will always be someone more competent than myself – it is like your older sibling who will always be your older sibling and you may never catch up because they have a head start (assuming all other experiences etc remain equal).

The study tests for humour, grammar and logic, and what cognitive dissonance exists in self-perception in these areas. It is fascinating in that it does not address what mental frameworks we hold. And I’m thinking of those people whose skills, training and mental frameworks are based on a professional training that existed for librarians 20 or even thirty years ago that have not been able to (or may not desire to) move with the changes in emphasis and perspective in the field. These people have been trained in a different time for the needs of that time and are competent to that time frame. It is only when one time travels forward, or even backwards for that matter (Woohoo! Punch cards anyone? Oops, suddenly I’m incompetent) that one recognizes the inadequacies of skills and training – assuming one is competent enough to recognize change and incorporate it into a newly revised mental framework.

And there’s an important point – if all it takes improving skills to increase metacognitive competence then why are those librarians isolated in their own category instead of being in with the rest of use? Because it takes more than improving skills to shift, revise and reintegrate new realities. Some might say it requires certain behavioural characteristics. I would add it also takes a willingness to change. Further, you can force exposure to our cognitive frameworks but these librarians won’t shift from their cognitive frameworks. The relevant question is why? I don’t know. Fear?

When change challenges any values on which we sustain our images of ourselves that our flexibility and the capacity to adapt comes to a screeching halt. If one was taught that knowledge of specific tools and attention to detail are the hallmarks of an x librarian and we have constantly prided ourselves on these, then any challenge to these is doomed to failure.

How about a Cataloguing Department whose managers have emphasized for decades that the best way to serve the library’s users is dependent on the accuracy of MARC records? How does that Department then deal with students and reference librarians who state the emphasis is on finding answers, not necessarily items, and that a comprehensive description of the item is less important than a skeleton record with a link to the content of that item, in order to find the answer as expeditiously as possible. Another example might be one of the new library positions: a mix of administration, collections, acquisitions and project management with a dependence on flexibility, the ability to turn on a dime, the capacity to manage experts when you lack the in-depth knowledge of those you are managing, and the ability to bring together members across functional units to achieve specific goals for the life of the intended purpose. How do we reconcile ourselves to the ephemeral nature of this change?

I’m not sure I’m communicating well but I hope this at least brought about a few new thoughts.

Kruger, Justin and David Dunning. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, v. 77(6): 1121-1134.