I SEE! Life Skills for a Changing Scotland is an empirically validated multi-media educational course that takes participants through four key issues crucial for reducing and preventing intra-Christian sectarianism:

Awareness issue: different shapes and forms of sectarianism and how the brain and body can maintain or help to overcome sectarian attitudes and behaviours

Polarisation issue: polarized sectarian viewpoints have an internal logic, even when in opposition to each other

Possibility issue: accepting that it is possible to work positively with the other sectarian ‘side’, despite disagreement

Engagement issue: being willing to engage positively on sectarian issues, even while disagreeing, involves a change in mind-set or lifestyle

Over eight two hour sessions, I SEE! Scotland participants experientially face and move through all four issues, emerging with the commitment to work peacefully through sectarian and other conflicts and with the tools and strategies to support that commitment.  

Sample comments from participants:

‘Before I always thought I was right but now I can realise my own mistakes and can find common ground…I used to argue, now I put myself in their shoes and see what they’re saying. There will be right things in what they’re saying and I’d rather be on common ground’

‘IC has helped me see and respect other people’s views/ opinions even if I don’t have the same view. Ingroup and outgroup can have the same values even if they have different views and to respect other peoples views even if they are different from mine. This is how I see the world differently.’

‘[The course] helped me to recognise when some of my thinking was low IC and I can also now recognise it more easily in others…It has made me reflect on topics where I have quite entrenched views, and to consider where I may be less willing to listen to, or respect, the views of others’.

Our working definition of sectarianism is rooted in social identity processes. Sectarian attitudes and behaviours ride on normal cognitive and social identity processes that get amplified through each group’s moves and counter-moves against the other. They can fluctuate in response to outside factors such as threats to economic stability or changes in political climate. Intra-Christian sectarianism in Scotland represents an extreme expression of normal social psychological processes, and in certain social contexts can move into violent behaviours. This working definition recognises that all people are at risk of ‘IN’ and ‘OUT’ group behaviours being driven by simplified social perceptions, and that intra-Christian sectarianism expresses the potential for normal social cognitive processes to slide into a more destructive cycle. Locating sectarianism on a spectrum of normal human processes enables us to respect every person’s story and experience, without condoning the attitudes and behaviours of sectarianism that vilify or intimidate the other, and allows us to distinguish between ‘aggravated religious prejudice motivated by malice and ill will based on the victim’s membership in a religious group’ (Section 74) and simply strong disagreement among religious groups.

I SEE! Scotland occurs over 16 contact hours as participants explore a range of topics with sectarian significance, including:

• Living well in Scotland as individuals and in communities
• Handling difficult emotions in tense situations
• Having close relationships in the midst of conflicting messages
• Feeling confident in times of change and uncertainty
• Using emotional intelligence in confrontational situations
• Working with people who learn and see things differently
• Discovering how non-religious, religious, and people of different religions can live together to promote a flourishing Scotland

Role play, mime, games, and other experiential learning exercises ensure that participants practice positive engagement despite disagreement in true to life situations that are immediately translatable to their communities, colleges, workplaces, schools, and homes. The internal change in mind-set is called a shift from low to high IC. What does that mean?

‘I SEE’ rhymes with ‘IC’, which is short for ‘Integrative Complexity’, and refers to how a person responds to disagreement or difference. IC can be thought of as the lens through which a person and group see their social world: a narrowed and constricted lens (low IC) or a ‘wide-angle’ lens that encompasses the complex big picture (moderate to high IC). Low IC sees the world through black and white, us versus them thinking (all Catholics good, all Protestants bad or vice versa); moderate to high IC honours each party’s core values, acknowledges multiple dimensions on a topic or issue, tolerates ambiguity, accepts that reasonable people can have different viewpoints, and works with opponents despite disagreement or opposition to find a way forward that honours each party’s core values (Catholics and Protestants respecting the other’s viewpoint, despite disagreement, and figuring out how to be collaborative).

Integrative Complexity (IC) underpins both the course design and the ‘before and after’ measurements of the intervention’s effectiveness. The educational method of ICthinking® targets the structure of thinking (or ‘mind-set’), not the content. During conflict, the structure of thinking simplifies, and this over-simplification is where the course begins its intervention. As the course continues, participants experience the difference between low and high IC over and over on a range of topics and in diverse situations. They feel their thinking simplify into low IC in group exercises and role play conflict scenarios, expressed as black and white, us versus them thinking.  Then participants experience their thinking become more complex as they shift into high IC, when they can respect and work with others’ viewpoints despite disagreement or opposition. This shift is a difficult one to make while disagreeing strongly with other people—even in role!—but our empirical measures show that I SEE! Scotland participants develop their capacity to do this, even on tough topics. They also learn key skills that support and reinforce high IC thinking in a range of difficult social and personal situations.

I See! Scotland was developed by the ICthinking® Research Team,

 based in the Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge

Please visit our website: http://iseescotland.org.uk/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/I-SEE-Scotland/621744731246146

Twitter: @ISEESCOTLAND

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