Читать книгу Creative Synergy - Bunny Paine-Clemes - Страница 42

A paradigm, of course, is “a set of associations, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline.”⁶⁹ Business professors define successful writing as succinct: the one-page memo and the executive summary. English professors want everything spelled out in depth: their mantra is “be specific.”

What’s more, even professors in the same field disagree about paradigms. Sternberg observes, “In general, scientists who are not well trained in one another’s techniques are likely to be suspicious of other’s techniques and of the conclusions drawn from them. These scientists probably will continue to do research within their own paradigm, which keeps supporting their views and thereby reinforces their confidence that they are right and that those who adhere to a paradigm from some other field are misguided . . . The history of psychology may be viewed as a history of failed paradigms.”⁷⁰

Our paradigms influence our view of reality. Jurors may hear the same evidence yet argue about what it means. One believes that police plant evidence; another believes that they are guardians of the public good. One has experience as a homemaker; another, as an electrician. All of them have different assumptions based on different backgrounds and experience. They view reality through different paradigms. Richard Ogle reminds us that such paradigms are used in “framing” reality but “can’t be constructed” “linearly, step by step.”⁷¹ They may be implicit assumptions rather than conscious thoughts.