Cohousing-L Mailing List: Transcendent Thinking & Community Life

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

One of the newsletters I read every weekday is the SciTechDaily.com 
<http://scitechdaily.com/> that lists new findings in all areas of the science 
and technology fields. Many of them can make life in a community much easier — 
or at least easier to contemplate. The one I’m recommending today reports on a 
study of teenagers but I’m sure can be applied to all ages. 

The question is how do you encourage people to think about the larger view, 
whether it is possible, and whether the effort has any long-lasting effects? I 
think about this most often in the decision-making process when we are 
considering seemingly no-brainer decisions like posting signs to avoid 
liability (Kitchen contains sharp objects) and the effect of triggering 
anonymous institutional behavior instead of enhancing behavior that develops 
community.

Scientists Discover That “Transcendent” Thinking May Grow Teens’ Brains
https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-discover-that-transcendent-thinking-may-grow-teens-brains/

New research has discovered that analyzing the broader implications of social 
situations enhances brain growth and coordination in adolescents and predicts 
stronger identity development and life satisfaction years later.

Transcendent thinking moves beyond reacting to the concrete specifics of social 
situations to also consider the broader ethical, systems-level, and personal 
implications at play. Engaging in this type of thinking involves analyzing 
situations for their deeper meaning, historical contexts, civic significance, 
and/or underlying ideas and strengthens two large brain networks. The executive 
control network is involved in managing focused and goal-directed thinking, 
while the default mode network is active during all kinds of thinking that 
transcends the “here and now,” such as when recalling personal experiences, 
imagining the future, feeling enduring emotions such as compassion, gratitude, 
and admiration for virtue, daydreaming or thinking creatively. Transcendent 
thinking also emphasizes the critical role of adolescents in their own brain 
development.

Original source: “Diverse adolescents’ transcendent thinking predicts young 
adult psychosocial outcomes via brain network development” by Rebecca J. M. 
Gotlieb, Xiao-Fei Yang, and Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, 15 March 2024, 
Scientific Reports.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-56800-0

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org