[MUSIC] Many of the successful interventions that use community deliberation guide people to reach their own conclusion from shared accepted premises. Recall the social norms are not isolated cultural practices, they are steeped in a complex network of factual beliefs, normative beliefs, and values. Because of different strengths in the links within a semantic network, a productive and protracted discussion should never be focused on just a single practice or a norm. Ignoring the connection between certain practices and the web of beliefs they are embedded in could prevent the recognition of inconsistencies between these elements. Implicitly directed arguments, which allow participant to discover inconsistencies on their own, encourage a discussion of a broader set of elements, more than explicitly directed argument, which directly expose inconsistencies. They may highlight the importance of certain values and core beliefs without immediately involving in discussion of more peripheral beliefs and practices. For example, a community talks about the importance of core values such as respect for human life, or love for ones children, discussions work out in a process of collective deliberation, the practical consequences of this core beliefs and values. Covered with credible factual information about certain practices, individuals may come to realize that what they do contradicts what they should do as mandated by the values and commitments. Another important consequence of the liberation is the potential severing of weak links in a semantic network. In a semantic network centered on female genital cutting, honor my be strongly linked to purity and purity weakly linked to female genital cutting. It would easier to sever the link between purity and female genital cutting than to severe the link between honor and purity. Since the link between purity and female genital cutting is not central to many other beliefs. Severing weak links becomes easier when alternatives are presented. The girl can still be pure without being cut. In this way, central values and core beliefs are not challenged. But individuals are re-oriented to draw different conclusions or recall that the Selma campaign accomplishes these re-orientation by acknowledging the core values such as honor and purity can be better embodied in a whole, uncut, untouched girl body. I have argued that individuals need reasons to change their beliefs and behavior. People are not likely to engage in spontaneous discussion about the validity of norms or practices that they have been in place for a long time. Moreover, drawing attention to implicit core values and their consequences as well as potential inconsistencies between those values and certain practices is not a short term easy process. This another reason why discussions should be guided. Facilitator will know, and share certain core values and beliefs, and thus are likely to be accepted by the community play an important role in steering the discussion down a particular direction such that implicit core values are unearthed and inconsistencies are highlighted. Group discussion has an important public dimension. All the tools I have listed in this lecture make people aware that others are being exposed to the same message. But, group deliberation has several advantages. During the discussion, general acceptance of certain arguments becomes visible, which may induce participants to be more willing to accept such arguments themselves. Discussion helps to change our personal normative and factual beliefs and to observe the other beliefs are changing too. The process of belief change becomes a collective one as we change our minds together. Collectively changing personal normative beliefs weakens the normative expectations that support the challenge norm at least within the group of discussions. Let's now listen to some testimony about the importance of collective discussion >> Well, it's very important that individuals all change their own factual beliefs, are able to share it with their neighbors, share it with other individuals. Because in so doing, a better understanding is taking place. Much more effective communication and common understanding of the issue is being achieved. If that doesn't happen, the individual simply has the knowledge to themselves. >> Keyword in committee later presentation are the first words. Committee late, you don't approach only one individual. You call the entire committee into a discussion on dialogue so that this analyze yet as a committee, they analyze their own situation. And then they discuss and come to an agreement from the effects of open reputation, their own communication. >> Again, a lot of people like to gravitate towards, let's say, the hardware parts of it. So having village savings and loan groups and having some kind of economic assets but the software part is very important. Those discussions with groups of women and groups of men around what it means to be a woman, what it means to be a man, power in the household. And not necessarily telling people right, but opening a space for them to discuss it and facilitating it in a safe way and in a smart way that's very necessary for these interventions to work. >> Through the discussions, traditional leaderships start to change in talking about issues that they were not talking to the community. They become part of the communities and when the communities and the talk is open, you find that collective action and commitment includes even traditional leaders. Not only that, it can include government sectors because they come up as community members not only as politicians or as people of the decision making sector on. >> Yet accepting an argument and change in behavior are very different things. Group discussion may successfully change personal normative beliefs even local normative expectations. But what leads to stable behavioral change? For a norm to change in a large population, a sizable majority of consensus must be reached. In rounds of collective discussions, a group may come to agree that the old norms should not be upheld and subsequently envision and agree upon a new practice and promise to follow it. Unless the group is isolated and interaction with other groups are limited, the problem of moving a large majority in a counter-normative direction remains a difficult one. Again, we face a collective action problem.
