VABEs are Values, Assumptions, Beliefs, and Expectations about the way the world IS or SHOULD BE. VABEs for short. We all have hundreds even thousands of VABEs.
Richard Dawkins created the term MEMEs. Memes are intangible packets of information while GENES are tangible packets of information (we can see them under electron microscopes.) Dawkins argued in The Selfish Gene that memes (meems), like genes can linger and take root or die out.
Richard Brodie (writer of Microsoft Word) in the Virus of the Mind asserted three kinds of MEMEs.
1. Identity or Concept memes: what is "France?" There is no line on the ground, yet we can think of France the country or "Hindus" as members of a religion or "Smiths" as members of a family. The "stirrup" is a meme that took root and spread across the world.
2. Value memes: what is good and bad? "Cannibalism is bad" is a value meme not shared by all people. "Polygamy is bad" "Stealing is bad" etc. Any value judgment. Values usually carry an emotional component and can be linked to Concept memes: "Those people are bad."
3. Instrumental memes: If/then propositions. "If I jump, I will fall." "If you put your finger in boiling water, it will hurt." "If I obey, they won't hurt me." etc.
VABEs are like memes but with a stronger, clearer, more personal emotional component.
"I Value honesty."
"I Assume they are telling me the truth."
"I Believe they are telling me the truth."
"I Expect people to tell the truth."
VABEs typically revolve around a central core element: for example "honesty" above. The meme "honesty" can mean different things to different people. What is honesty? VABEs sharpen that concept to include an individual's attitude or stance toward that concept--and therefore has a stronger, clearer emotional component.
Daniel Kahneman and other students of Amos Tversky have demonstrated that humans in the majority make decisions based on their VABEs (although they didn't use that term) rather than on actual evidence and hard data.
In other words, "it all comes down to VABEs." VABEs trump data. Beliefs supercede science. Assumptions dominate analysis and logic. Expectations blur perception of information.
The confirmation bias is another data point on this.
The term VABEs was mine first introduced in Level Three Leadership now in the 5th edition. Level One refers to visible behavior, what we can capture on film. Level Two refers to Conscious Thought--which we may or may not reveal at Level One. Although sometimes, often, it "leaks" in a sigh, a frown, a shrug of the shoulders. Level Three refers to our semi-conscious VABEs. Semi-conscious because we are often unaware of them yet they reveal themselves in our behavior. Relate to Langer's work on Mindfulness and Mindlessness. A summary of my life's work appears at www.nadobimakoba.com.
It all comes down to VABEs. "IT" meaning human behavior, human decision making, human thought, even science. (See Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.)
Richard Dawkins created the term MEMEs. Memes are intangible packets of information while GENES are tangible packets of information (we can see them under electron microscopes.) Dawkins argued in The Selfish Gene that memes (meems), like genes can linger and take root or die out.
Richard Brodie (writer of Microsoft Word) in the Virus of the Mind asserted three kinds of MEMEs.
1. Identity or Concept memes: what is "France?" There is no line on the ground, yet we can think of France the country or "Hindus" as members of a religion or "Smiths" as members of a family. The "stirrup" is a meme that took root and spread across the world.
2. Value memes: what is good and bad? "Cannibalism is bad" is a value meme not shared by all people. "Polygamy is bad" "Stealing is bad" etc. Any value judgment. Values usually carry an emotional component and can be linked to Concept memes: "Those people are bad."
3. Instrumental memes: If/then propositions. "If I jump, I will fall." "If you put your finger in boiling water, it will hurt." "If I obey, they won't hurt me." etc.
VABEs are like memes but with a stronger, clearer, more personal emotional component.
"I Value honesty."
"I Assume they are telling me the truth."
"I Believe they are telling me the truth."
"I Expect people to tell the truth."
VABEs typically revolve around a central core element: for example "honesty" above. The meme "honesty" can mean different things to different people. What is honesty? VABEs sharpen that concept to include an individual's attitude or stance toward that concept--and therefore has a stronger, clearer emotional component.
Daniel Kahneman and other students of Amos Tversky have demonstrated that humans in the majority make decisions based on their VABEs (although they didn't use that term) rather than on actual evidence and hard data.
In other words, "it all comes down to VABEs." VABEs trump data. Beliefs supercede science. Assumptions dominate analysis and logic. Expectations blur perception of information.
The confirmation bias is another data point on this.
The term VABEs was mine first introduced in Level Three Leadership now in the 5th edition. Level One refers to visible behavior, what we can capture on film. Level Two refers to Conscious Thought--which we may or may not reveal at Level One. Although sometimes, often, it "leaks" in a sigh, a frown, a shrug of the shoulders. Level Three refers to our semi-conscious VABEs. Semi-conscious because we are often unaware of them yet they reveal themselves in our behavior. Relate to Langer's work on Mindfulness and Mindlessness. A summary of my life's work appears at www.nadobimakoba.com.
It all comes down to VABEs. "IT" meaning human behavior, human decision making, human thought, even science. (See Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.)
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