Ellen Langer writes a new book about the power of mindful learning

By Eileen K. McCluskey

Special to the Gazette

When does 1 plus 1 not equal 2? When you're being mindful, according to Ellen J. Langer, psychology professor and author of the book Mindfulness whose new book is called The Power of Mindful Learning.

"Nothing we know is truly independent of context," Langer says, sounding a bit more like a Zen master than a psychologist. "With single-minded views," she continues, "people confuse the stability of their mindset with the stability of the underlying phenomena." Langer is describing mindlessness here: A mindless approach to life gives us a false reading of the world -- we think it's standing still, when actually it's our perceptions of the world being held constant with single-minded views.

One of Langer's tenets is that by fostering an ability to greet the great unknown with open arms, rather than with the more typical reactions of fear or denial, we can reap tremendous rewards. "A great benefit of being mindful is your ability to exploit the power of uncertainty rather than being afraid of it. When you're mindful, you're dealing with novelty. You're noticing new things and creating categories, rather than relying on formerly created categories and distinctions."

In Mindfulness, Langer says "When we make new categories in a mindful way, we pay attention to the situation and the context. Breaking down categories of skills to more precise distinctions is a useful approach for a personnel manager. In a very noisy environment, a clever programmer who is deaf might be a better job candidate than a person of equal ability but of normal hearing. If sitting for long periods of time is necessary, someone confined to a wheelchair may not mind the sedentary work as much as the next applicant. A simple list of general skills free of context would mask these and many more differentiated distinctions."

Langer's research has shown that mindfulness, aside from being generally enlivening, can literally lead to a longer, happier life. In the introduction to Mindfulness Langer cites an experiment in which a group of elderly nursing home residents were given a mindful choice of houseplants to care for and were asked to make small decisions about their daily routines. "A year and a half later, not only were these people more cheerful, active, and alert than a similar group in the same institution who were not given these choices and responsibilities, but many more of them were still alive."

Mindless living, on the other hand, leaves us blindsided and limited. Says Langer, "With mindlessness you're trapped in a single perspective, insensitive to changes in context. The past over-determines the present. And all of this occurs without your even being aware that it's happening, which is what makes mindlessness so pernicious."

As an example, Langer cites the use of two words: "It is." This phrase limits, she says, because it implies absolute truth. Langer has found in studies that telling subjects "This is" a dog's chew toy versus "this could be" a dog's chew toy, radically changed the subjects' ability to think creatively about the object. The "could be" group was able to imagine novel uses for the chew toy, for example as an eraser, while the "it is" group did not generate this out-of-the-ordinary idea.

In her new book, The Power of Mindful Learning, due to be published in March, Langer topples some popular myths about how best to learn. One such myth is that you should learn the basics so well that you no longer have to think about them. "You have to question the basics," Langer says. "And who's decided," for example, regarding the basics of how to hold a tennis racket, "that these even are the basics?"

The most surprising myth Langer debunks in the book is "whether we should look at answers as right or wrong. There is no such thing as a wrong answer irrespective of context." Even such cozily certain "truths" as 1+1=2 can be whisked out of context and changed.

"One and 1 make 2 in the base-10 number system, not in all number systems," Langer notes. She also points out that we must ask, one of what? "Bring it from the level of the abstract to the level of the concrete; see what happens," Langer advises. For instance, 1 cup plus 1 cup does not always equal 2 cups. Mix a cup of vinegar with a cup of a baking soda solution. The result will be less than 2 cups of liquid, as some molecules are transformed into carbon dioxide and released into the air as gas.

Clearly enjoying her role as a status quo-shaker who offers exciting and concrete alternatives to some of life's musty myths, Langer declares with a smile that "teaching may best be accomplished by seeing the sense in the seemingly wrong answer and then bringing the learner to some new perspective. Understanding people's behavior -- or answers -- from their perspective leads to being less evaluative."