Four Mindsets of Knowledge Engagement and “AAI as Mental Tuning”

Oliver Ding

Published in

Curativity Center

17 min readNov 21, 2023

AAI stands for the Activity Analysis & Intervention (AAI) Project

The above diagram is called “AAI as Mental Tuning” which is a case study of the Mental Tuning framework.

I recently worked on a project about the concept of Mindset. You can find more details in the following articles:

The Mental Tuning framework is a by-product of the project. In the previous articles, I used the Mental Tuning Framework to curate existing knowledge frameworks. Now, we can see its power for creating new frameworks.

The “AAI as Mental Tuning” Framework

The above diagram combines “AAI”, “Knowledge Engagement”, and “Four Areas of Knowledge Discovery” together. I also define four types of “Mindsets of Knowledge Engagement”:

Knowing-for-all (Theoretical Psychologists’ Mindset)
Knowing-for-fact (Empirical Psychologists’ Mindset)
Knowing-for-us (Intervenors’ Mindset)
Knowing-for-me (Actors’ Mindset)

Each type of Mindset is associated with the following aspects of behavior patterns:

Tacit knowledge
Construal levels
Practical interests
Points of observation
Methodological preferences
Expressive conventions (or language habits)

The Life Domains of Knowledge Engagement refers to Activity (Knowledge). This links to the AAI framework which is formed by two types of analysis:

First-order Analysis: Activity (How do people do things)
Second-order Analysis: Knowledge (How do people engage with knowledge for their Activities/Work)

The Life Experiences of Knowledge Engagement refers to Create/Curate. This links to the Knowledge Engagement framework (v4).

Create: Making concrete things to represent abstract knowledge
Curate: Organize pieces of knowledge-related experience into a meaningful mental element

Moreover, if we connect the Model of Knowledge Engagement with the Creative Life Curation framework, then the “Curate” action echoes “Subjectification / Experience 1” while the “Create” action echoes “Objectification / Experience 2”.

Finally, “AAI as Mental Tuning” means the AAI program aims to help people identify and improve the Fit between Mindset and Knowledge Engagement Activities.

This is an interesting test. The Mental Tuning Framework is a meta-framework that could be used for Knowledge Curation and Knowledge Creation. In the previous articles, I used it for knowledge curation because I just used the Mental Tuning diagram to represent other psychologists’ knowledge frameworks.

However, the “AAI as Mental Tuning” framework is a new framework that was created by curating several knowledge frameworks together.

This is fantastic!

The Mental Tuning Framework

The Mental Tuning Framework is a by-product of the project about the concept of Mindset.

On Sept 9, 2023, I wrote an article titled Knowledge Engagement: The Concept of Mindset and Theoretical Integration. I did a demo of theoretical integration by curating Carol S. Dweck’s version of Mindset theory and Peter Gollwitzer’s version of Mindset theory together. The outcome is the Mental Tuning framework.

What does the above diagram mean?

The above diagram has three parts. The blue part refers to the Mindsets and Mental System. The green part refers to the Behavioral System. The pink part refers to the connection between the Mental System and the Behavioral System.

The difference between Dweck’s version of Mindset and Gollwitzer’s version of Mindset indicates a fundamental psychological view.

Carol S. Dweck: Mindset = Belief = Content of Thoughts
Peter Gollwitzer: Mindset = Cognitive procedures = Processes of Thoughts

The Mental Tuning Framework curates these two views of Mindset together. In other words, these two views are the two aspects of the Mindsets which mean the Predictive Model of the Mental System.

What does mean the Predictive Model?

The Mental Tuning Framework is inspired by Robert Rosen’s Anticipatory Systems Theory.

The above diagram is the basic model of Anticipatory Systems Theory. I apply it to discuss behavioral system and mental system:

Life = Behavioral System = Natural System
Self = Mental System = Formal System

A core idea of Anticipatory System Theory is the Predictive Model. According to Robert Rosen, “An anticipatory system is a natural system that contains an internal predictive model of itself and of its environment, which allows it to change state at an instant in accord with the model’s predictions pertaining to a later instant.” In contrast, a reactive system only reacts, in the present, to changes that have already occurred in the causal chain, while an anticipatory system’s present behavior involves aspects of past, present, and future.

For the project about Mindset, I claim that the Mindset is the Predictive Model of Behavior System (Mental System).

Life = Behavioral System = Natural System
Self = Mental System = Formal System
Mindset = Predictive Model

So far, we have a rough core idea. I’d like to say this idea is a significant insight because it is a Configurational Theory of Mindset. It defines the core of the possible theory of Mindset.

Let’s continuously do the job of Conceptual Elaboration. We need some secondary concepts to join the episode in order to build a theoretical framework that could answer the following questions:

How to connect the Behavioral System and the Mental System?
How to define the Mindsets (the Predictive Model)?
What’s the relationship between Mindsets and the Behavioral System?
What’s the relationship between Mindsets and the Mental System?

These questions inspired me to create the Mental Tuning framework.

The notion of “Behavioral System (Mental System)” is also inspired by my ideas of “Life (Self)”, “Context (Mind)”, and “Theme (Concept)”.

While we consider “Content of Thoughts” and “Processes of Thoughts” as two aspects of Mindsets, the above discussion also leads to an insight into the structure of Mindsets.

Objective aspect: Life Domain Orientation
Subjective aspect: Life Experience Principle
Strategic aspect: Mental Tuning Techniques

Life Domains could differ by Categories, Structures, and other aspects. These differences require different Mindsets. We can use Life Domain Orientation to name this objective aspect of Mindsets. For example, Dweck’s version of Mindset is oriented by the domain of Intelligence (a category of Life Domain). Gollwitzer’s version of Mindset is oriented by action phases (a specific type of Structure of Life Domains).

For a particular Life Domain, a particular person could form his/her principles of mindset. These principles come from beliefs, knowledge, and experience. For example, Dweck’s version of Mindset — the Growth mindset and the Fixed mindset — can be seen as two types of Principles of mindset.

It’s clear that we can find other types of Objective Structures of life domains. Moreover, some specific life domains have their own Unique Structures.

The diversity of Life Domains requires a general theory of Mindset.

The concept of “Life Experiences” is used to emphasize the subjective aspect of the Behavioral System. This aspect is very important to understanding the Formation of Mindsets, especially the “content of thoughts” which refers to the “Belief” part of Mindsets. We have to notice that “Life Experiences” is also related to the Activation of Mindsets.

For a particular Life Experience Principle, a person could develop relevant strategic techniques in order to execute the “Mental Tuning” process.

The middle part of the new framework is defined by a new term called “Mental Tuning” which is inspired by Gollwitzer’s term “Cognitive Tuning”.

In a general sense, “Mental Tuning” refers to active self-regulation strategic techniques that aim to improve particular psychological functions that are related to Life Domains.

For example, Gollwitzer’s version of Mindset uses the MCII (Mental Contrasting and Implementation Intentions) method as a strategic technique to improve a Mental Tuning process about the Implementation Mindset.

The above discussion describes a rough abstract general theoretical framework that can capture Dweck’s version of Mindset and Gollwitzer’s version of Mindset as its two concrete cases. You can find more details in Knowledge Engagement: The Concept of Mindset and Theoretical Integration.

In the previous articles, I also used the Mental Tuning Framework to capture other psychologists’ knowledge frameworks. In this way, I used the Mental Tuning Framework for knowledge curation.

Single-framework Curation

How did I use the Mental Tuning Framework to capture other psychologists’ knowledge frameworks?

First, I detached a meta-diagram from the initial version of the Mental Tuning Framework. See the diagram below. To be honest, I didn’t make it in Miro. I just used it in my mind. Today I made it for this article.

The above meta-diagram only represents the basic model of the notion of “Behavioral System (Mental System). We see some high-level concepts:

Life Domains
Life Experiences
Mindsets
Mental Tuning
Formation
Activation

We also see some placeholders:

D1, D2
E1, E2
A1, A2
Mindset 1, Mindset 2
M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M6

This meta-diagram is a semi-finished product. How to turn it into a finished product?

I didn’t translate all ideas of a knowledge framework into the Mental Tuning meta-diagram. I only selected relevant ideas and put them into the Mental Tuning meta-diagram.

In The Concept of Mindset and Empirical Psychologists, I reviewed the Job Crafting framework (Wrzesniewski and Jane E. Dutton, 2001) and represented it with the Mental Tuning meta-diagram. The outcome was the “Job Crafting as Mental Tuning” diagram.

In The Concept of Mindset and Intervenors, I reviewed the practice of Psychotherapy and claimed that “all methods of psychotherapy are about doing the work of Mental Tuning”.

In particular, I used Steven C. Hayes’ Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) as an example to discuss “Psychotherapy as Mental Tuning”.

In The Concept of Mindset and Actors. I reviewed Dan P. McAdams’ theory approach to personality and life development, especially his account of personal myth and narrative identity.

Do you see differences between these three diagrams?

Though they share the same meta-diagram, they do have some unique aspects.

Job Crafting as Mental Tuning: 5 items for “Mental Tuning”, 1 item for “Formation and Activation”
ACT as Mental Tuning: 6 items for “Mental Tuning”, 2 items for “Formation and Activation”
Personal Mythmaking as Mental Tuning: 0 negative mindset, 7 items for “Formation and Activation”

Since the Mental Tuning Framework is a meta-framework, it only cares about the abstract structure of the whole system. It leaves users the freedom to discover concrete details.

Formation and Activation

There is a bug in the notion of Behavioral System (Mental System):

Where is the biological aspect such as brain and neurological connections？

Biology, neuroscience, and cognitive neuroscience offer us great knowledge for understanding the connection between the brain and mental processes.

It seems we need to use Behavioral System [Mental System (Neurological System)] for the Mental Tuning framework.

In order to keep the original framework, I leave the section “Formation and Activation” for curating knowledge inspired by neuroscience. In this way, I can keep the simple meta-diagram.

Moreover, the meta-framework is used to curate existing knowledge frameworks. If a knowledge framework doesn’t consider neuroscientific analysis, the Mental Tuning framework doesn’t need a section for it.

So far, the above several examples don’t require the neuroscientific section.

Psychologists have different decisions in their unit of analysis. Some psychologists don’t incorporate the neuroscientific analysis into their accounts.

Multiple-framework Curation

The “AAI as Mental Tuning” Framework is the outcome of a “knowledge creation” action by using the “multiple-framework curation” technique.

Knowledge Creation: It creates a new knowledge framework
Multiple-framework Curation: the strategic technique is curating multiple frameworks together

As mentioned above, the “AAI as Mental Tuning” framework combines “AAI”, “Knowledge Engagement”, and “Four Areas of Knowledge Discovery” together. I also define four types of “Mindsets of Knowledge Engagement”.

This is a complicated Diagram Blend!

It means each part of the “AAI as Mental Tuning” framework refers to a particular knowledge framework.

Let’s see it one by one.

Life Domains and Life Experiences: Knowledge Engagement

The above part is the “Behavioral System” part. It can be seen as two sub-parts.

I used Activity (Knowledge) for the “Life Domains” part. The term Activity (Knowledge) refers to the “Universal Reference” diagram.

The “Universal Reference” diagram has two dimensions:

Knowledge: The Degrees of Abstraction

Engagement: The Situations of Activity

You can find more details in A Universal Reference for Knowledge Engagement.

I used “Create | Curate” for the “Life Experience” part. It refers to the model below.

Potential: Mental Elements
Focus: Knowledge (such as Concept, Theory, Framework, Center, etc)
Thematic Space: A creative space that is framed by a theme
Actor: A person (sociologists tend to call a person an Actor)
Create: Making concrete things to represent abstract knowledge
Curate: Organize pieces of knowledge-related experience into a meaningful mental element

The term “Mental Elements” is adopted from Dean Keith Simonton’s Chance-configuration theory (Scientific Genius,1988). I use it to describe ideas, insights, sparks, etc. The above model of Knowledge Engagement considers “Mental Elements” as “Potential” things for developing Knowledge.

The term “Focus” is inspired by Activity Theory’s “Object”. I use it to refer to things we are working on. The above model of Knowledge Engagement considers “Focus” as various types things of Knowledge such as Concepts, Approaches, Frameworks, Papers, Books, Workshops, Knowledge Centers, Knowledge Communities, etc.

The term “Thematic Space” is a concept of the Ecological Practice approach. In Oct 2020, I wrote an article titled The Ecological Practice Approach Toolkit and shared my work on a new approach for practice studies. This approach was originally called the Gibson — Lakoff — Schön approach because I adopted theoretical concepts from James J. Gibson, George Lakoff, and Donald Schön.

The pair of terms “Create — Curate” is inspired by “Knowledge Creation — Knowledge Curation”. However, I use them to refer to two types of actions:

Create: Making concrete things to represent abstract knowledge
Curate: Organize pieces of knowledge-related experience into a meaningful mental element

Moreover, if we connect the Model of Knowledge Engagement with the Creative Life Curation framework, then the “Curate” action echoes “Subjectification / Experience 1” while the “Create” action echoes “Objectification / Experience 2”.

You can find more details in The Knowledge Engagement Framework (v4) and The Creative Life Curation Framework.

Four Mindsets for Knowledge Engagement

As mentioned above, I defined four types of “Mindsets of Knowledge Engagement” for the “AAI as Mental Tuning” framework.

Knowing-for-all (Theoretical Psychologists’ Mindset)
Knowing-for-fact (Empirical Psychologists’ Mindset)
Knowing-for-us (Intervenors’ Mindset)
Knowing-for-me (Actors’ Mindset)

Where did it come from?

It came from two resources:

The Hero U Framework (2020)
Four Types of Actors (2022)

In HERO U — A New Framework for Knowledge Heroes (2020), I distinguished three kinds of knowing from the perspective of outcome and motivation:

Knowing-for-all
Knowing-for-us
Knowing-for-me

Theory container: Knowing-for-all

The Knowing-for-all activity is located in the Theory container. The outcome and motivation are about building, validating, maintaining, applying, and spreading public knowledge.

The corresponding Objects of Knowing are Meta-theory, Specific Theory, and Abstract Model.

Practice container: Knowing-for-me

The Knowing-for-me activity is located in the Practice container. The outcome and motivation are about adopting and sharing reliable and accessible knowledge for improving individual or collective professional work and daily life practice without commitment to contributing to the progress of public knowledge.

The corresponding Objects of Knowing are Concrete Model, Domain Practice, and General Practice.

Echozone container: Knowing-for-us

The Knowing-for-us activity is located in the Echozone container. The outcome and motivation are about spreading and applying public knowledge to professional domain practice, curating and reflecting on personal practical experience, and connecting different domains in order to make new shared knowledge for participants.

The corresponding Objective of Knowing are Specific Theory, Abstract Model, Concrete Model, and Domain Practice.

The HERO U Framework (2020) was based on the WXMY diagram (three-container diagram).

In 2022, I divided the “THEORY” part into two types. See the “Kinds of Actors” below.

The above diagram is based on a diagram called Universal Reference. The Vertical group refers to the Degrees of Abstraction of “Knowledge”.

The “Theory — Practice” dimension is shared with the following pairs of concepts:

The “Heaven — Earth” dimension
The “Langue — Space” dimension
The “Episteme — Empeiria” dimension

The “Langue — Space” dimension is inspired by Ferdinand de Saussure’s structural linguistics. Langue and parole is a theoretical linguistic dichotomy distinguished by Ferdinand de Saussure in his Course in General Linguistics. Langue refers to the abstract system of language while parole means concrete speech. The “Langue” refers to universal concepts or vocabulary while “Space” refers to spatial structure and immediate embodied experience.

Four kinds of actors were inspired by Ping-keung Lui’s theoretical sociology. According to Lui, “There are three kinds of theories in sociology, namely, social theory, sociological theory, and theoretical sociology. ”

Social theories are speculations about the social world. They constitute the speculative project of sociology.
Some social theories are amenable to positivistic investigation under certain specific conditions. I call them sociological theories.
Also, some other social theories, being very ambitious, attempt to recruit as many as they can sociological theories supporting themselves. I call them theoretical sociologies. They compete against each other. The winner becomes the paradigm of sociology, and its supporting sociological theories become exemplars of the paradigm. In this way, theoretical sociologies and sociological theories constitute the scientific project of sociology.

Lui used “Langue (Language)” to refer to his theoretical sociology while “Parole (Speech)” refers to all empirical sociologies.

In this way, Lui presented a typology of actors:

Actors
Empirical Sociologists
Theoretical Sociologists

I added Curators to expand Lui’s typology for the Creative Life Curation framework. There is also an implicit similarity between Curators and Theoretical Sociologists. However, the above Universal Reference diagram doesn’t display it. We need to develop a new diagram. The final result is the diagram below.

I use “Linguistic Formism” as a label to describe Theoretical Sociologists, especially Lui’s approach.

Lui also uses “empirical sociology” to refer to “theory about some specific thing” and “theoretical sociology” to refer to “abstract theory”. He also illustrates the connections between the ruling paradigms, theoretical sociologies, empirical sociologies, and data, in the following diagram:

Source: Ingold’s Idea of Making — A View from Theoretical Sociology (Ping-keung Lui 2020, p.13)

Since Curators have to deal with Actors’ life experiences, their frames have to be suitable for sensemaking with actions and projects. So, I called it “Ecological Formism”.

The similarity between Curators and Theoretical Sociologists is “Formism” while their difference is between the Ecological approach and the Linguistic approach.

The above discussion is about sociological knowledge creators. Now we can apply the same logic to discuss psychological knowledge creators.

Theoretical Psychologists
Empirical Psychologists
Intervenors
Actors

While Theoretical Psychologists and Empirical Psychologists are working on producing public knowledge, Intervenors and Actors are working on solving mental problems or optimizing subjective experience by using psychological knowledge.

Four Mindsets and Four Thematic Spaces

In the past several weeks, I used the Knowledge Discovery Canavs for the project about the concept of Mindset.

In the previous four articles, I discussed four types of psychological knowledge engagement using the Knowledge Discovery Canvas.

In general, Theoretical Psychologists think and work with the following perspective.

Construal Levels: Meta-theory or the most abstract level
Practical Interests: The progress of the discipline as a meaningful whole
Points of Observation: The “Concept — Theory” Move
Methodological Preferences: Concept Analysis and Formal Representation
Expressive Conventions: Mathematical formulas or Conceptual frameworks

Empirical Psychologists move to a different position and they have a different perspective:

Construal Levels: Specific-theory or abstract models/frameworks
Practical Interests: Develop a particular innovation concept or framework for the discipline
Points of Observation: The “Perspective — Framework” Move
Methodological Preferences: methods for Empirical Research, such as laboratory experiments
Expressive Conventions: Conceptual frameworks and data charts

Intervenors also have their specific needs for psychological knowledge engagement:

Construal Levels: concrete models/frameworks and related test tools
Practical Interests: Develop a particular intervention program for behavior change or related education
Points of Observation: The “Methods — Heuristics” Move
Methodological Preferences: methods for design, communication, test, report, etc.
Expressive Conventions: face-to-face communication and questionnaire test

While Actors come from various domains, they share a primary theme: Subjective Experience. For Actors, psychological knowledge engagement is all about understanding their own subjective experience and making sense of their life situations, either stressful or enjoyable.

Construal Levels: concrete models/frameworks, simple heuristic tools, etc.
Practical Interests: learning for work or reflecting on life experiences, solving own problems, etc
Points of Observation: The “Work — Project” Move
Methodological Preferences: reflection, discussion, reading, etc.
Expressive Conventions: face-to-face communication, metaphorical words, storytelling, etc.

You can find more details in Psychological Knowledge Engagement and Robert Kegan’s Knowledge Enterprise.

Eventually, I found these four areas represent four thematic spaces.

Theoretical Psychologists — The THEORY thematic space
Empirical Psychologists — The END thematic space
Intervenors — The MEANS thematic space
Actors — The PRACTICE thematic space

The diagram is also an example of these four thematic spaces.

I claimed that there are four Mindsets that connect four types of actors and four thematic spaces.

There is a deep issue called Domain Dependence behind my claim. The four types of mindsets for Knowledge Engagement depend on four thematic spaces.

As a meta-framework, the Mental Tuning framework accepts all degrees of domain dependence.

Domain-dependent Mindsets
Domain-independent Mindsets

Both the above two types of Mindsets could be represented with the Mental Tuning framework.

AAI as Mental Tuning

What’s the actual outcome of the above “Multiple-framework Curation”?

I realized that it offers a concrete solution for The Activity Analysis & Intervention (AAI) Project.

What does AAI mean?

AAI stands for the Activity Analysis & Intervention (AAI) Project. The Activity Analysis & Intervention (AAI) Project aims to turn Activity-centered theoretical knowledge into applied practical knowledge.

The project considers three types of roles:

Clients
Consultants
Coaches

It was designed in two types of programs:

First-order Analysis
Second-order Analysis

First-order Analysis aims to utilize Activity-centered knowledge to solve clients’ situational problems or discover new opportunities.

Second-order Analysis aims to utilize Activity-centered theoretical knowledge to improve Consultants’ personal knowledge.

The “AAI as Mental Tuning” framework offers the following dimensions to improve the experience of Knowledge Engagement. See the list below.

As mentioned above, four types of knowledge creators have different perspectives and behavioral patterns because they have different tacit knowledge, construal levels, practical interests, points of observation, methodological preferences, and expressive conventions (or language habits).