 Welcome and thank you for joining us for this discussion. In the spring of 2021, almost exactly a year ago on the day we're recording this, in fact, a group of friends from Canada and the United States began to read and consult together on the topic of the psychology of social change. Coming from different academic and professional backgrounds and exploring articles and stories from various sources, we considered several questions. How do hearts and minds change in the process of social transformation? What elements elevate a person from prejudice to peace? Similarly, what experiences contribute to cultural shifts within and between groups of people? What influences inspire opposing groups to grow out of disunity and into unity? Well, seemingly simple, these questions are obscured in social change work and social movement theory, which often emphasize the notion that conflict and contention are primary means of social change, and that it is only at the structural institutional level that any real transformation can occur. The Baha'i conceptual framework calls us to value the roles of the individual and the community, as well as institutions, even as it calls into question the notion that conflict and contention are essential means of social change. Meaningful lasting and generative change also occurs at the grassroots in the hearts and minds of those seeking to build a better world and in the education of children generation after generation. Today we aim to share several key insights from our group's conversations. We will fail to adequately convey the breadth and depth of the various articles we read, but we offer a tasting platter of sorts to share insights and hopefully stimulate a conversation. Six of our group will present today each for about four minutes. First, Negin Tusi will consider the role of social norms in instigating individual level change and the question of coherence between inner and outer responses to norms. Then, Michael Karlberg will consider the emotional response known as being moved and how human beings respond emotionally to demonstrations of positive values. Aya Amir will look at the contrasting influence of criticism and how, although often touted for its role in instigating change, criticism is often self-defeating. Megan McCullough will then share an example of a constructive social change intervention, which nurtures transformation in hearts and minds across differences among college students. Sheda Azamiin will build on this example to consider further the role of relationships for changing hearts and minds, describing an approach based on the theory of enchantment. Finally, you'll hear from me once more and I will touch on the dynamics among individuals, communities, and institutions in fostering social change and discuss the mutual relationship between structure and psychology. Throughout, we will all raise key correlations we've observed between these themes and teachings from the Baha'i Faith. We look forward to joining you for the live discussion following this video. So, one of the important concepts we wanted to highlight at the beginning is the distinction between private acceptance and public compliance. This has come up in the literature we read on social norms by Elizabeth Levy-Palak and colleagues. The distinction is this, public compliance is when people feel like the society around them, the community around them tells them they should behave a certain way. And they go along with it, so as to not stick out to enhance their sense of belonging, but they're mostly just performing the behavior in public settings. However, in private settings, or if you ask them their opinion anonymously, they don't actually believe it in their hearts. That's public compliance. On the other hand, private acceptance is when people actually personally believe something. They hold on to some attitude because of their internal sense that it's the moral or the correct thing to do. So, for example, when it comes to racial bias, we have this distinction that some people might refrain from expressing prejudice thoughts because they believe the people around them don't approve of racism. And they don't want people to think poorly of them. That's public compliance. But if the social norms change and it's suddenly seen as acceptable to be racist, then there's nothing holding back that first group from expressing bigotry. On the other hand, there are people who don't express prejudice because they sincerely believe it's wrong. It's a deviation from moral standards. And that's private acceptance. And that will stay consistent across time situations. So one thing this work highlights is that laws can change policies can change institutional norms can change, and that might change behavior, but it isn't always sufficient to change attitudes to change hearts and minds. Palak and colleagues have done a meta analysis on what can change people's attitudes in terms of reducing prejudice. And I'll quickly list some of the approaches they examine here. One approach is focused on cognitive training that is actively correcting one's assumptions or focusing on counter stereotypical examples, or replacing a prejudice thought with a thought of compassion or warmth. Other promising avenues they mentioned our efforts to address bias through educational interventions and use of the arts and entertainment media, as well as intentional dialogue and discussion between peers, which highlights the power of profound conversations that touch upon themes of oneness and justice. And one other approach they identified that has been studied for decades is contact theory. This is the idea that interacting with people from different groups can reduce prejudice. Now there are some, there are some conditions under which contact is more effective and under which it's less effective. The main conditions under which contact is effective is when the status of the two groups is equal. Contact is sanctioned by the authorities, and especially when that contact takes place under conditions of mutual interdependence. In other words, you're in a situation where you realize that you need each other you depend on each other. And that changes the way you see the other group as no longer other, but as part of us. We can see examples of this in our neighborhoods with the community building process. People from different backgrounds are interacting with each other, they're working together, they're walking together on that path of service, as that unfolds people gain awareness and empathy for each other's challenges and they feel admiration for each other's strengths. That is really a transformative process. Moving on Nagin's comments. Another theme our reading group explored was about the affective dimension of the psychology of social change. So one of the articles we read together was titled being moved was written by Florian Kova and Julian Deona from the Center for affective sciences at the University of Geneva. Kova and Deona argue that being moved is a distinct type of emotion. In other studies they suggest it's an emotion that can be triggered by circumstances that cause what they call positive core values to stand out. By positive core values, they mean values that in their words, a moral community treats as possessing transcendental significance. In other studies we often refer to these kinds of values as spiritual principles, such as oneness justice compassion courage sacrifice for the common good. Being moved, according to Kova and Deona is the subjective experience of a positive core value. When some circumstance causes it to stand out in a compelling way. Sometimes some stories can trigger this experiences, as can some events. Often these kinds of stories or events highlight a positive core value by contrasting against some troubling background, such as when people make a courageous sacrifice to address some injustice experienced by others. Kova and Deona argue that these experiences of being moved have a positive cumulative cognitive effect on us to help build our internal moral frameworks by strengthening our commitments to these positive core values. In the process, Kova and Deona argue, these experiences can help reorganize our priorities and our action tendencies. They argue that we're especially prone to being moved by expressions of group belonging that, again, in their words, create feelings of oneness with others. All this should sound familiar to my eyes. We often refer to these kinds of experiences as inspiration. We tell stories that are moving in this way. These are collective experiences that are moving in this way. And Abdu'l-Baha seems to allude to all this when he talks about being, quote, quickened with spiritual susceptibilities and heavenly attraction. So how does this concept of being moved fit into a psychology of social change? Well, we can appreciate its relevance by contrasting it with, for instance, the experience of being targeted by criticism. Even a culture that often targets people, sometimes entire social groups, with criticism in the hope that this will change their hearts and minds. But as other literature, our reading group examined suggests, hearts and minds rarely change from criticism, from targeted criticism. On the contrary, hearts and minds become more entrenched most of the time. So this article on being moved highlights an alternative approach to changing hearts and minds based on the unlimited powers of spiritual attraction and inspiration, rather than the limited and often counterproductive powers of targeted criticism. This doesn't mean there's no place for productive forms of criticism. But that's another topic beyond the scope of my brief comments today. As a group, we sought to understand the relationship between prejudice and criticism, and the effects of each on the hearts and minds of individuals. This interest stemmed in part from our collective reading of the current discourses shaping theories of social change. We shared a common concern regarding the overemphasis placed on negative criticism, and we questioned its effectiveness in reducing prejudice and bringing us closer to realizing our inherent interconnectedness as a human family. To begin, I'll share a few words from the Bahá'í writings on the nature of criticism in order to contextualize our approach and ideas that emerge from our discussions. I'll then turn to a couple of the readings that we explored and offer some ideas that we thought were conducive. An overview of the Bahá'í writings on these themes reveals that criticism can manifest itself both positively and negatively. For the purpose of this presentation, I'll speak to the reality of negative criticism. Abdu'l-Bahá tells us the most hateful characteristic of man is fault-finding. And Shelby Effendi describes vicious criticism as a calamity and waste of strength, which she explains leads to the stunting of the growth and development of the community. For this end, Abdu'l-Bahá admonishes us not to contend and wrangle with any individual and to seek not the abasement of any soul. He elaborates that the speech of reproach and rebuke is rather too severe for the people and would be heartbreaking to them. Thus he warns us, beware lest you offend the feelings of anyone or sadden the hearts of any person, or move the tongue in reproach of and finding fault with anybody, though he may be an ill-wisher and an ill-doer. We found that current research on this topic helps substantiate these claims. The article by Robert Barron, which has been offered up to all of you supplementary reading, provides us with an evidence-based analysis on the limitations of destructive criticism. While there are a number of helpful insights, we wish to highlight one particular finding, and that is the article's debunking of the commonly held assumption that criticism is an effective tool for change. In the article, Barron reveals that people generally do not respond well to criticism. Instead, he maintains that criticism tends to invoke anger, tension and resistance in individuals and often leads to lower self-efficacy. Though we generally felt that constructive criticism encompasses a more complex reality than the analysis offered in this paper, we found that the distinction made between constructive and destructive iterations raised questions about the paradigm of criticism currently mobilizing the discourse on social change. Generally speaking, we find that destructive criticism is rampant in our societies, and that it manifests itself in different ways. When considering the question of racial prejudice, it is easy to see how a continued commitment to notions of superiority and the exercise of patronizing and critical attitudes continue to cultivate conditions that fuel intercultural animosity. Such postures tend to foster anger, conflict, defensiveness, and lead to increase intergroup criticism. In the context of racial justice work, what frequently manifests itself in response to these conditions are theories of change that call for a counterattack that adopts a paradigm of criticism that is also destructive in nature. This in turn is met with further criticism by those on the receiving end of these counterattacks. We conclude that the cyclical and reactive tendency to turn to vicious criticism has deep implications and continues to hinder us from drawing nearer to the truth of our inherent oneness. In this regard, we gathered some helpful insights from a paper titled Group Criticism and the Intergroup Sensitivity Effect, where we explored the relationship between criticism and group membership. Two main ideas were helpful to our deliberations and we considered how they might shape our understanding on the role of criticism in reducing prejudice. The first idea is that criticism tends to be better received when it is offered by members of the same group. The second is that the authors found that the most effective approach to intergroup criticism is when an outsider acknowledges weaknesses within their own group before pointing to similar problems in the other group. This for us resonated with the teachings of the faith in that we are enjoying to bring ourselves to account and to refrain from seeking out faults and others. We also considered how our conception of accompaniment has helped us avoid such pitfalls. As a reading group, we wanted to further explore promising approaches to combating prejudice that were highlighted in other readings, like mutual interactions across difference or contact theory, peer led discussion and dialogue. So we drew upon scholarly and empirical insights from the Multiracial Unity Living Experience or M-Rule program at Michigan State University. M-Rule brings together a range of students and creates a thoroughly diverse, peer led learning community in a co-curricular process that interrogates the racial status quo in local, national and transnational spaces. Dr. Richard Thomas and Dr. Jean Gazelle, two Baha'i colleagues working in race relations co-founded M-Rule in 1996. It emerged out of Dr. Gazelle's focus on social justice pedagogy and Dr. Thomas' scholarly contribution as a historian documenting what he calls the other tradition, the history of extensive interracial cooperation for racial justice and the recognition of this force as a catalyst of social change. The M-Rule program is a continuity of the other tradition in practice. In her article, Walking the Talk, Multiracial Discourses, Realities and Pedagogy, which we read as a group, Dr. Gazelle describes how a relational view of social change is critical to the M-Rule project and its dual approach of consciousness raising and community building. She says, the M-Rule goal is to help students see themselves as part of a community where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and that the whole cannot be truly whole when parts are disadvantaged and excluded. After this learning, the next step is to cultivate a sense of caring, a deep feeling that starts with self-awareness and expands outward toward a concern for the welfare of others. The quest for social justice cannot be a theoretical process alone. It has to move people to action. So one way of thinking about consciousness raising, according to the author, is a deeper collective facing of the reality of injustice in order to more meaningfully move to the possibility of greater justice. The article mentions engaging with unsettling and uncomfortable aspects of diversity discourse, including exposing students to structural inequalities and power relations, challenging their racial thinking, and expanding possibilities for individual actions for those who are conscious of collective reality. But importantly, this is done as part of a process of relationship and community building across difference, which seeks to empower interracial groups to collectively strive for a vision of interracial community characterized by deep feeling, care and concern, transcending lines of us and them. In practice, this looks like diverse teams of student staff living and working together on campus to build community among peers of diverse backgrounds. These teams collaboratively plan and facilitate weekly spaces of dialogue on social issues that foster friendship and understanding across difference and enable participants to explore pressing social issues in a way that is informed by history while considering their agency to better the world. In the process of study, action, reflection, consultation and planning, guided by professional staff, these student teams learn to cultivate an environment that is open to all. They seek out diverse perspectives through intentional outreach, inviting new people into the conversation and nurturing deeper relationships with those already involved. An example of a distinctive approach to social justice work inspired by the high principles was helpful for our group and considering the role of relationships and environments of learning characterized by unity and diversity to the advancement of social change. It also helped us consider more deeply the level of care and intention that is needed to bring people in groups who have been systematically separated and exploited into truer relationships based on mutuality and trust. The National House of Justice wrote in its July 22 2020 message to the highs of the United States racism cannot be rooted out by contest and conflict. It must be supplanted by the establishment of just relationships among individuals communities and institutions of society that will uplift all and will not designate anyone as other. The change required is not merely social and economic, but above all moral and spiritual. Thank you Megan. When I discuss further the role of relationships and transforming hearts and minds, it may be helpful to call to mind the Universal House of Justices December 30 letter, in which the House describes the dedicated efforts of in kindled souls around the world to transcend differences and harmonize perspective in the process of social change and to reflect on the many ways that this can work. Our group also read a piece on a specific framework within the diversity, equity and inclusion training field called the theory of enchantment by Chloe Valderie. Chloe Valderie is an American writer and as she describes herself an entrepreneur who's passionate about love, especially love across differences and compassionate anti racism. She's informed by Martin Luther King Junior's vision of a beloved community as the outcome of social change and a society in which non violence is the norm. While we don't agree with all elements or endorse her framework itself, we noticed how the theory of enchantment framework brings language to the DEI field around justices both an outcome and a spiritual process. To start, I should note that there is some research pointing to conditions in which diversity, equity and inclusion programs or DEI programs can inadvertently cause division, particularly when disparate experiences between participants becomes an emphasis. One way this might happen is when there is not an adequate focus on the participants unifying characteristics. What we found powerful about Valderie's theory of enchantment model is its ability to increase openness and trust from participants of diverse ideologies and backgrounds through character development and social emotional learning. To avoid polarization through emphasizing shared challenges, needs and goals, and encourages participants to acknowledge their human identity and connect with one another in a way so that they do not shy away from understanding intimately each other's personal experiences with oppression. The program helps create awareness of a more foundational identity between participants that unites them while striving to understand and welcome the diversity of experiences at the same time. There are three main principles about Jerry's theory of enchantment. The first is to treat people like human beings, not like political abstractions. The second is to criticize, to uplift and empower, never to tear down or to destroy, which also relates back to the previous presentations on criticism today. And the third is to root everything we do in love and compassion. In developing the theory of enchantment Valderie actually studied what people already love and how they are attracted in order to figure out what she observed as conditions for love. And her finding was that love is evoked when we can see ourselves and our potential reflected back to us, which is also a tenant we see in restorative justice practice. And in the by writings. This sounds very much like one of the ways we understand justice, the ability to each develop or latent capacities. Moving off of this we observed that Valderie's approach embeds a recognition of the humanity of those who perpetrate injustice, and embeds hope in the possibility for change and the other, which is a thread throughout her practice. The theory of enchantment is just one example of a DEI program operating today, and one that we found offers some application of the elements of the Bahá'í teachings, particularly a sense of coherence between the outcomes of social change that we wish to bring about and the loving relationships and processes of transformation that we are building to achieve these outcomes. When we speak of psychology we do not mean to imply that individuals are isolated from the world around them. It is a token of relationships through which social change can advance, and I will be built on that theme by mentioning some of the institutional and structural forces that we all interact with, and that shape our psychology. It is tempting to swing to either side of the pendulum, either focusing on institutional and societal structures to create widespread social change, or narrowing down to the individual and their immediate relationships to encourage change only at the grassroots. On the ground on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, we cannot segregate the human heart from the environment outside us, and say that once one of these is reformed, everything will be improved. Man is organic with the world, his inner life molds the environment, and is itself also deeply affected by it. The one acts upon the other and every abiding change in the life of man is the result of these mutual reactions. This light neither extreme is sufficient. We must look at the interplay of heart and environment, and how each affects the other. One article we read by Lucius T. Outlaw Jr., Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, spoke to the effects of social ordering and schooling on racism, and how white supremacy is systematically reproduced in both white and racialized children, generation after generation. In the North American context, he describes how both knowledge and ignorance are systematically used to nurture white supremacy. This mechanism is not hidden in the shadows, but has been made legitimate, acceptable and valued by sufficient numbers of people and groups to have become an underlying organizing principle of society. An alternative reading of reality that elevates the oneness of humanity has to account for and counteract these prevailing social forces. Although much can be correlated between Outlaw's discussion of racism and the Baha'i teachings on race and unity, I wish to focus here on the relationship between structure and psychology. In the Pitavia Gan, Baha'u'llah explores the theme of cultivated ignorance and its impact on both society and the human heart. The Universal House of Justice takes up this theme in its statement that the perpetuation of ignorance is a most grievous form of oppression. It reinforces the many walls of prejudice that stand as barriers to the realization of the oneness of humankind at once the goal and operating principle of Baha'u'llah's revelation. As Baha'is, we know the power of education to transform hearts and minds, and we're not alone in this knowledge. Outlaw points to the power of education, both as the disease and the cure. He argues for reeducation and retraining of education workers to correct for the continuing misinformation that encroaches on all sides. There are many well-wishers of humanity pursuing the same aim of transforming education. It is difficult when the operations and priorities of institutions of society seem to be entirely disconnected from the aspirations and hopes at the heart of individual and community life. This discrepancy is evident on many issues related to education, such as school funding, teacher training and accompaniment, and even the safety of school children from gun violence. These issues weigh heavy on our hearts as we witness the effects on children in our neighborhoods and elsewhere. The gap between institutional change and cultural change can generate conditions for conflict, as we see all too often. On the other hand, however, this same gap can generate hard-won conditions for creativity and collaboration that sow seeds of transformation. This creative work is in the hands of all protagonists of the Institute. The content and approaches of the Baha'i conceptual framework for action are shaping a mode of education that places the oneness of humanity at its center. Furthermore, social action projects and contributions to discourse bring thoughtful attention to the broad scope of issues that require attention to advance the prosperity of humanity. The contributions of each individual in these areas of action are shaping a new culture, which in turn will shape future generations. On behalf of our group, I want to thank you for your attention to these presentations. We'd like to now open the discussion app for questions and comments from the audience.