Schemata and Schema and ... bears (oh my)!

[_Res Ipsa]

The easiest (?) way for the brain to resolve the CD is to either discount the new information, forget the new information, or interpret the new information in a way that makes it consistent with the schemata. Would that be similar to assimilation? Less commonly, the brain changes the schemata to accommodate the new information. (Accommodation, right?)

Start with this. The purpose of assimilation and accommodation is to reorganize the schema.

Assimilation as I understand it is the discovery of a new piece of information and understanding it as thoroughly as we are able.

Accommodation is where and how we choose to store it.

Spit balling a couple of examples:

MLKJr Schema:

MLKJr as a central figure in the Civil Rights movement.
MLKJr as a well respected figure in the 1960's.
MLKJr as a proponent of passive resistance (Ghandi).
MLKJr as a well educated person.
MLKJr as a Baptist minister.
MLKJr as a dynamic personality.

Discovery: MLKJr as adulterer.

How does that change our schema (mental construct) regarding MLKJr? Individuals will have individual responses to that likely based on how they prioritize characteristics they value or what biases they hold.

You could compare your schema regarding JSJr before, during and after your intellectual transition away from Mormonism. And, I think if you did that, you would see yourself taking in new information, first rejecting much of it, start taking it off the shelf for examination and research, then slowly reorganizing your schema about JSJr over time, and in the process of your doing it (I'm making up the terms of your transition here) you are simultaneously reorganizing your schema about doctrine, church leaders, church history and how they function, family members, friends, and business associates, etc.

It's just like how a computer program works. Your brain is a computer that is constantly updating itself.

:-D

With regard to the changing schemata of Mormonism, I would say that past the point of the transition away from Mormonism, there comes another transition in thinking the point of which is reconciliation. Example, some ex-Mo's don't see their families or Bishops as misleading them. And so the schemata of Mormonism changes once again and likely does so with every new piece of information one receives regarding Mormonism.

Constant updates. ;-)

Okay, that confuses me, because I had understood assimilation as incorporating new information without changing the schemata, and accommodation as incorporating new information by changing the schemata. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaget%27 ... evelopment

I agree with your notion of reconciliation. The CD involved with leaving Mormonism doesn't go away when you quit the church. Somehow you have to come to grips with how the church has affected you and how it now affects your relationships with family and friends. There's lots of ways people do that, including cutting folks off and walking away and dedicating themselves to fight the church. But, yeah, the process is ongoing 'til we check out for good.

[_Jersey Girl]

RI I just noticed your post while up in the night.;-) Let me check my reference texts and get back to you on the process. I'd rather take it from those sources and see if I can come up with direct Piaget refs rather than using the wiki entry if you don't mind. I have a full day on Tuesday but will try to get that done before long. Maybe my explanation was too brief to do justice to it. Just on the surface, I think the first explanation was sloppy. I also failed to tie equilibrium and disequilibrium into the assimilation and accommodation process. I believe that previously I only mentioned a physical example. I'll get back here.

[_Res Ipsa]

RI I just noticed your post while up in the night.;-) Let me check my reference texts and get back to you on the process. I'd rather take it from those sources and see if I can come up with direct Piaget refs rather than using the wiki entry if you don't mind. I have a full day on Tuesday but will try to get that done before long. Maybe my explanation was too brief to do justice to it. Just on the surface, I think the first explanation was sloppy. I also failed to tie equilibrium and disequilibrium into the assimilation and accommodation process. I believe that previously I only mentioned a physical example. I'll get back here.

Cool. No rush.

[_Jersey Girl]

Cool. No rush.

Yes, I hope to come up with a more suitable primary source explanation--Piaget himself--gleaned from psych or development texts. Until then, on with the day!

[_Res Ipsa]

Sounds awesome.

[_Jersey Girl]

Okay, that confuses me, because I had understood assimilation as incorporating new information without changing the schemata, and accommodation as incorporating new information by changing the schemata. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaget%27 ... evelopment

I haven't had time to pull out my books yet. I think my explanation was out to lunch and I honestly don't know where I was going with it or what the hell I was thinking about at the time. Anyway, I think you're thisclose to right.

Assimilation fits the new information (integrates, hello, Jersey) the existing schema where accommodation alters the existing schema. I still plan to go into my references to dig out a primary source if at all possible. I'd really like to have it posted here.

I agree with your notion of reconciliation. The CD involved with leaving Mormonism doesn't go away when you quit the church. Somehow you have to come to grips with how the church has affected you and how it now affects your relationships with family and friends. There's lots of ways people do that, including cutting folks off and walking away and dedicating themselves to fight the church. But, yeah, the process is ongoing 'til we check out for good.

I think this is a natural part of the adjustments we're forced to make when confronted with what puts us in conflict (not necessarily a negative though it's felt in negative terms--certainly can be part of personal growth and in my experience it usually does lead one in that direction) and essentially have to deal with it. In order to achieve reconciliation (acceptance in the KR grief stage model) or some semblance of balance (equilibrium) we make changes that hopefully lead to a perspective we can live with.

As you say, cutting people off or out to self protect, becoming part of advocacy or opposition, adaptations such as agreeing not to discuss the church at family dinners or declining invitations that put us in those positions or attending church with the still believing spouse and children.

I don't know how any of you do it, actually. But you do. It takes courage, sometimes it takes sacrificing one's inner life for the good of the whole--family. It's natural to want to keep the peace at home.

I am certain that you and others feel a sense of regret. I've heard from too many exiting and already ex'd LDS privately, expressing a regret for the time and money spent on the church. Not to mention a sense of spiritual confusion, but I believe that too, is eventually reconciled within the individual. People become atheistic, agnostic, they retain God belief and find a good fit in another church or they simply walk away and refuse to interact with religion on any level.

But here is the thing. We all have to "spells" cast before us in life that we need to address and un-do. We all have those situations in life wherein we look back and regret the time we wasted on a thing, relationship, organization, what have you or how much we invested our hearts in a relationship, or how much money we sunk into something.

But it's not a waste if one comes out at the end having gained wisdom and self insight. If we somehow manage to find our authenticity, then I say the journey was worth taking.

I don't think that many of us, particularly those of us from a different generation, ever once consciously or intentionally considered our own psychology or the psychology of others* or how our brain functions. It's so damned complex that it takes quite a vast sea of theorists and researchers to come up with at least some of the answers so why beat ourselves up for what we couldn't know or what our parents couldn't know or their parents before them?

You can't do that and live. You have to find that point of reconciliation and authenticity.

*I have been following two murder cases and just recently came across a piece of information about how empaths become empaths in childhood. I'm an empath and everyone who knows me knows it. What I discovered (so far) puts me in conflict because it explains how I likely functioned as a child and the dynamic isn't exactly comfortable to explore. This relates to what we've been discussing here in that I've got this new piece of information to fit into my schema about ME or find a new place for it that I can live with. That is no easy task.

Be present I say. Even when it hurts.

[_Lemmie]

I don't think that many of us, particularly those of us from a different generation, ever once consciously or intentionally considered our own psychology or the psychology of others* or how our brain functions. It's so damned complex that it takes quite a vast sea of theorists and researchers to come up with at least some of the answers

There I'll have to disagree with you. The only way to get out from under so much of the LDS church conditioning was to do just that, and pretty much every person I know who got out went through some version of this psychological process.

I just recently came across a piece of information about how empaths become empaths in childhood. I'm an empath and everyone who knows me knows it. What I discovered (so far) puts me in conflict because it explains how I likely functioned as a child and the dynamic isn't exactly comfortable to explore

I only know the term 'empath' the way this definition describes it:

(chiefly in science fiction) a person with the paranormal ability to apprehend the mental or emotional state of another individual.

Are you using the term some other way?

[_Jersey Girl]

I don't think that many of us, particularly those of us from a different generation, ever once consciously or intentionally considered our own psychology or the psychology of others* or how our brain functions. It's so damned complex that it takes quite a vast sea of theorists and researchers to come up with at least some of the answers

There I'll have to disagree with you. The only way to get out from under so much of the LDS church conditioning was to do just that, and pretty much every person I know who got out went through some version of this psychological process.

I'm mainly referring to the book that RI brought into the discussion on how the brain functions.

[_Jersey Girl]

I just recently came across a piece of information about how empaths become empaths in childhood. I'm an empath and everyone who knows me knows it. What I discovered (so far) puts me in conflict because it explains how I likely functioned as a child and the dynamic isn't exactly comfortable to explore

I only know the term 'empath' the way this definition describes it:

(chiefly in science fiction) a person with the paranormal ability to apprehend the mental or emotional state of another individual.

Are you using the term some other way?

I'm using the term how it's commonly used today as shorthand for people who have high levels of empathy. I'll see if I can dig up something about it.

[_Jersey Girl]

Uh, so I nabbed something from Psychology Today.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... ople-share

If you're interested, you can look up my MBTI (INFJ) or KTS (Idealist) it all fits together so far as traits are concerned.

Oh and by the way, INFJ's are thought to represent something like 3-5% of the population. That's right, we're all kinds of rare and special.

Or just odd.