Overcoming Functional Fixedness

 

Train yourself and your team in overcoming functional fixedness. 

Functional fixedness is a cognitive bias that limits a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used. For example, if someone needs a paperweight, but they only have a hammer, they may not see how the hammer can be used as a paperweight. Functional fixedness is this inability to see a hammer's use as anything other than for pounding nails; the person couldn't think to use the hammer in a way other than in its conventional function.

This phenomenon was first described by Gestalt psychologist Karl Duncker in 1935. In a classic experiment, Duncker gave participants a candle, some tacks, and a box of matches and asked them to attach the candle to the wall so that it would burn without dripping wax on the floor. The solution involved using the box as a platform for the candle. However, many participants failed to see this solution because they were fixated on the box's traditional function as a container.

Functional fixedness can hinder problem-solving and creativity, as it prevents people from seeing novel or unconventional uses for objects. 

However, there are ways to overcome functional fixedness. One approach is to try to think about the object's physical properties rather than its intended function. For example, instead of thinking about a brick as a building material, you could think about its weight, shape, and texture. This can help you see new possibilities for its use.

Another way to overcome functional fixedness is to expose yourself to new and different ideas. This can be done by reading, traveling, or talking to people from different backgrounds. By expanding your knowledge and experiences, you can break free from your preconceived notions about objects and their uses.

Functional fixedness is a common cognitive bias, but it is not insurmountable. By understanding the phenomenon and employing strategies to overcome it, you can become a more creative and effective problem-solver.

K. H. Little Consulting Services

Kenneth H. Little, MA

KHLittle603@gmail.com

kenlittle-nh.com

Successive Approximations ... Toward Success

A brief talk with a colleague this morning prompted me to write this short essay. She was describing to me how frustrating it is to walk out into the living room and realize how much mess has accumulated while your children sit and giggle watching youtube videos, apparently oblivious to the carnage surrounding them.

I know this feeling.  It can be infuriating. The urge to scream can be powerful.


But First, Ask ... is this an emergency?

Take a step back.  Evaluate.  Is this an emergency?  Is anyone gushing blood or on fire?  If yes, it's an emergency -- stay calm, think clearly, take action.  If no one is gushing blood or on fire, there is no emergency -- stay calm, think clearly, delay taking action.  Emergency or not, stay calm - think with a clear head.

Own the Problem

First, always own the problem.  If the family is not functioning as desired, responsibility falls to the leadership. The family leaders are responsible for creating the necessary systems and structures and for providing the support and training needed to facilitate the desired outcome.  Consider for a moment, if your knee-jerk reaction is to blame the children ... you are committing a fundamental attribution error.  Your children have always existed within your family culture.   

1. Take a step back.  Clear your head.
2. Consider the problem carefully, where is the breakdown?
3. Consider potential solutions - what needs to be changed or re-organized?
4. Convene a family meeting, include all stake holders.
5. Explain the problem and your vision of the desired outcome. 
6. Invite members to problem solve - on how to get from the current situation to the desired outcome. 
7. Brainstorm, Try-storm, Generate a list of potential solutions. 
8. Evaluate potential solutions for goodness of fit. 
9. Pick the best.  Agreeable to all.
10. Agree to implement on a trial basis. 
11. After a short trial period, evaluate outcome. 
12. If the problem is solved, carry on. 
13. If the problem is not solved, return to step 1.

Successive Approximations

Understand this term.  Successive approximation describes a process of gradually refining outcomes to come closer and closer to the envisioned standard.  At first family members may not be skilled in accomplishing the tasks as required.  For example, vacuuming may be disorganized, the dish washer may be loaded incorrectly, etc.  All tasks and activities start out sloppy and improve with practice and training over time.

In the illustration above, step 4 represents the desired outcome.  It's fairly tight, precise, on target.  Step 1 represents the not very precise first approximation.  With training and practice outcomes improve through the steps. The 4 steps illustrated above is more symbolic than actual.  When it comes to raising children, the are many, many more steps in achieving success.

Set-backs and Regressions

It's important to expect set-backs and regressions.  The process of improvement looks more like a stock market graph that a straight line.   The are periods of growth followed by regressions and set-back as each family member navigates various struggles and challenges, and experiences of success. During easier times, expect performance improvement.  During tough times, expect regression, performance decline. Teach and practice regrouping skills, the ability to bounce back from adversity. 

Be Supportive

Encourage and re-assure. Practice leads to mastery. Failure is not a disaster, but an opportunity to be supportive, evaluate what went wrong, and to make improvements over time. Failures are opportunities to practice regrouping skills.   




 

Behavioral Process: Step by Step

Rule #1 Believe that “children do well if they can.”  If they aren’t doing well, wonder why that is - what is interfering. 

Establish realistic expectations that the child is, in reality, capable of achieving.  Expecting something more than what the child can actually achieve is highly likely to result in failure, increased behavioral difficulties, and to foster a sense of ineffectiveness, helplessness, and worthlessness.

Implementation Dip. 

• When you begin a new intervention .. expect things to get worse first.  
• It all works best if the process is entered into collaboratively -- with parent and child / teacher and child in agreement. 
• Let child know what is changing before beginning
• If you change your approach / style and they don't know why, it can make kids anxious and defensive. 

Visualize Success. 

• What will success look like?  
• What are you trying to accomplish?
• What is your purpose?
• What are your short, mid-range, and long-term objectives?
• Flip negative behaviors into their positive opposites.

Move Toward Success Slowly, Progressively, Patiently, Persistently.

• Practice patience.
• Be persistent in your effort to achieve success. 
• Gradually, thoughtfully shape behavior through successive approximations.  
• Expect set-back, ups and down; regressions happen. Behavior is not linear.  When the going gets tough, people regress.  
• Be practical -- close enough really does count. It never needs to be perfect.  We are working a practice to mastery activity.     

Analyze the Task / Situational Demands.

• What are the required steps
• Environmental factors
• Time of day factors
• Competing  factors
• Where is the breakdown?

Evaluate Skill Level.  

• What skills are fully developed
• What skills are partially developed
• What skills are not developed

Assess Developmental Stage: challenges should be matched to developmental capacities.

• Cognitive
• Emotional
• Biological
• Chronological.  Age is the least relevant in terms of developmental capacities, especially in school.  Each child follows a unique developmental trajectory moving at it's own pace.  Age does not tell us anything about ability.    

Develop Behavioral Plan Collaboratively (parents and children)

• Identify problem
• Generate potential solutions
• Choose the best solution
• Implement plan collaboratively (parents and children).
• Launch plan
• Monitor progress
• Evaluate Outcome

Reward & Celebrate Successes. 

• Partial success
• Proportional success (e.g.: minutes success v. minutes of failure, etc.)
• Tangible rewards
• Intangible rewards

Analyze & Celebrate Failure. 

→ Return to step 1, as needed.

Critical Components

• Be Optimistic
• Be Supportive and encouraging.
• Do not criticize.  
• Emphasize mastery: Practice to improve / practice to mastery / practice never makes perfect

Anger:

• Anger is normal / natural / helpful.  Anger tells us when something is wrong, when there is a problem we need to attend to.  
• Anger can inspire action. 
• Anger can lead to determined effort.
• Everyone gets angry
• Too much anger is bad - build an anger management plan

Anger management activities must be implemented prior to reaching the threshold of anger.  As anger increases people become increasingly irrational.  To intervene with anger plan, the intervention must happen before the brain dissolves into an irrational mass of goo. 

• Adult initiated 
• Child initiated

Kenneth H. Little, MA / 603-726-1006 / KenLittle-NH.com

Begin, Wherever You Are

It's never too late or too soon.

Wherever you are in your parenting journey, whether with newborn child or young adult, begin teaching problem solving skills, thinking skills, and verbal reasoning skills.

Problem Solving, Thinking, & Verbal Reasoning

There are other important skills (like, how to do laundry, dishes, math, and weak-side layups), but these are the Big Three. All are skills. All are taught, coached, encouraged, trained, and ... practiced, practiced, practiced to mastery over time.

Please keep in mind that skills are increased gradually, incrementally over time only through repetitive practice.

Practice to mastery is the only path to skill development, the only path forward.

We will work toward developing these skills (problem-solving, thinking, verbal reasoning) by practicing on a regular basis the *Collaborative & Proactive Solutions (CPS) process developed by Dr. Ross Greene. This process can and should be practiced during all routine problems and more urgent behavioral disruptions.

Patience Required

To begin this process focus first on engaging with your child in empathic, non-judgmental conversations about her perspective on various problems and concerns, working to develop a sense of trust in her that she can safely share her views with you without fear of being criticized, dismissed, or invalidated. 

Listen carefully, for deep understanding. Thank her for sharing her views. 

Tell her you will think about what she has shared and agree to come back to talk with her after you have had the opportunity to think things over. This is a great way to model and practice delayed gratification. 

Do not allow the situation to devolve into argument and hostility. Just listen carefully. If you begin to feel frustration. Say so, then take space and calm down. Promise to come back when you are feeling calmer. See post "Calm Down & Take Space".

Trust is the essential ingredient in developing the type of relationship with your child that will be open to a collaborative problem-solving process and behavior change. Mistrust leads to defensiveness and resistance to change.

Open communication built on trust is the cornerstone piece of the process. Developing and maintaining a trusting relationship will enable you to build / re-build and strengthen an empathic connection with your child.

Note: Parental Burnout

A loss of adult-to-child empathy (burnout) is a very typical problem parents (and staff) experience with behavioral children. The adults are gradually worn down, exhausted by the continuous demands and difficulties, but this decrease in empathic connection (heightened frustration, anger, discouragement) increases the likelihood of ever more severe behavioral difficulties. 

Think quicksand. 

Unless you are able to take a step back, to reconnect with your long-term vision and rebuild your capacity to see the whole child, you will get sucked deeper and deeper into the quagmire.

It is important that we move toward a “non-punitive, non-adversarial, collaborative, proactive, skill-building, relationship-enhancing” approach; reconnecting with love and empathy.


*Collaborative & Proactive Solutions (CPS) is the non-punitive, non-adversarial, trauma-informed model of care Dr. Greene originated and describes in his various books, including The Explosive Child, Lost at School, Lost & Found, and Raising Human Beings.

Kenneth H. Little, MA / 135 Lee Brook Road / Thornton, NH 03285 / 603-726-1006 / Achieve-ES.com

Think Win-Win, or No Deal

Win-win or no deal is borrowed from Stephen R. Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. This is a fantastic resource that I strongly recommend. I've incorporated Covey's idea into the collaborative process developed by Ross W. Greene and described in The Explosive Child, another resource I strongly recommend. More about Dr. Greene's approach can be found at his "Lives in the Balance" web site. I strongly encourage you to study these resources thoroughly.


Think Win-Win, Whenever Possible

We are working toward a parent-child collaborative process; outcomes that are mutually agreeable are preferred whenever possible.

Win-lose and lose-win outcomes are not sustainable solutions. 

These types of inequitable outcomes will contribute to growing mistrust and resentment; increasing frustration, anger, hostility — ever acting-out behavior.

Avoid Win-Lose and Lose-Win outcomes as much as possible.

Remember “No Deal”. Rather than accept a win-lose or lose-win proposition, agree to no deal. Then take a break from discussions and try to come up with fresh possibilities. Come back to the discussion later when you have some new ideas in mind for solving the problem in a way that will work well for both you and your child.

Parent-Child Problem Solving

	Parent	Child	Outcome
	Lose	Win	Parent Frustration
	Win	Lose	Child Frustration
	Win	Win	Mutual Satisfaction
No Deal	Think	Think	Delayed

Solutions to problems work best when they work for both of you in a mutually agreeable way. If you cannot come to a reasonable, mutually agreeable solution, no deal is a good temporary conclusion. Agree to disagree for the time being and to discuss it again another time.

If you agree to discuss another time, please make sure you do; especially if you value keeping agreements.

Keep in mind that by using this type of process in problem solving with your children, you are role modeling and teaching by example an excellent life skill; a skill that will serve your children well in all relationships, personal and professional, for many decades to come.

Teaching these important skills when children are young will give them a strong advantage in verbal reasoning and verbal problem-solving over their peers. Verbal reasoning and problem solving are both highly effective and beneficial skills; associated with academic success.

Children who possess good verbal reasoning skills tend to accelerate ahead of their same age peers.

Kenneth H. Little, MA / 135 Lee Brook Road / Thornton, NH 03285 / 603-726-1006 / Achieve-ES.com