To a second approximation, people only change by their own volition, but cannot be changed otherwise.
Why should anyone who is not already “the right sort of people” to fit into your system, wish to change so as to make themselves that sort?
It can only be due to deep value alignment with your systems’s goals.
But now you have a selective task: to find those whose values are deeply aligned with those of your system. You import all the problems of selective methods, then; and add to that, the challenge of correction.
Without value alignment, you can incentivize volition toward change. But what you actually incentivize is the appearance of that change, or some approximation. Is it good enough? It might be, in some cases. Some tasks are more demanding than others; approximation may serve.
Correction requires an existing status differential. Without such, it is perceived as a bid for greater status than you (or your system) have already. People resist such bids.
Even assuming away all of the above, correction is hard. It takes a greater degree of mastery to teach a skill than to use it or to recognize it.
People are different; they vary in potential. To assume that anyone, even granting the most sincere and fervent wish to change, may become as they must be in order that they may play a role in your system, is to set yourself up for disappointment and failure. But recognizing this, you must again select. (On the other hand, it may be an easier selection task… or it may not be.)
Partially yes—whether the group believes that “a change is possible”, the word “possible” often actually means “socially expected”. If it socially expected that people don’t change, then then those saying that people should change are perceived as stupid. But if it is expected that people do change, then those who don’t change when told to are perceived as breaking some rules and deserving punishment.
Partially no—some changes are actually impossible. No matter what the group believes, you can’t change a mentally retarded person into a smart one, or a psychopath into a nice person.
Problems with corrective methods:
To a first approximation, people do not change.
To a second approximation, people only change by their own volition, but cannot be changed otherwise.
Why should anyone who is not already “the right sort of people” to fit into your system, wish to change so as to make themselves that sort?
It can only be due to deep value alignment with your systems’s goals.
But now you have a selective task: to find those whose values are deeply aligned with those of your system. You import all the problems of selective methods, then; and add to that, the challenge of correction.
Without value alignment, you can incentivize volition toward change. But what you actually incentivize is the appearance of that change, or some approximation. Is it good enough? It might be, in some cases. Some tasks are more demanding than others; approximation may serve.
Correction requires an existing status differential. Without such, it is perceived as a bid for greater status than you (or your system) have already. People resist such bids.
Even assuming away all of the above, correction is hard. It takes a greater degree of mastery to teach a skill than to use it or to recognize it.
People are different; they vary in potential. To assume that anyone, even granting the most sincere and fervent wish to change, may become as they must be in order that they may play a role in your system, is to set yourself up for disappointment and failure. But recognizing this, you must again select. (On the other hand, it may be an easier selection task… or it may not be.)
Your group’s collective belief or disbelief in correction is self-fulfilling prophecy.
Partially yes—whether the group believes that “a change is possible”, the word “possible” often actually means “socially expected”. If it socially expected that people don’t change, then then those saying that people should change are perceived as stupid. But if it is expected that people do change, then those who don’t change when told to are perceived as breaking some rules and deserving punishment.
Partially no—some changes are actually impossible. No matter what the group believes, you can’t change a mentally retarded person into a smart one, or a psychopath into a nice person.