Reading With, Reading Against: How Curiosity and Skepticism Each Have Their Moment

====Media Links====website: delvepsych.cominstagram: @delvepsychchicagoyoutube: https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20substack: https://delvepsych.substack.com/====Participants====Ali McGarelAdam W. Fominaya====Overview of Big Ideas====Many of us were trained (especially in academia) to meet new ideas with suspicion: what is wrong with this?That "reading against" posture can protect truth-seeking, but it can also suffocate discovery if used too early."Reading with" means steelmanning: fortifying an idea to see what might be valuable before trying to demolish it.A parallel frame from literary theory: paranoid reading (avoid being duped) versus reparative reading (see what can be built).Standards should match stakes: if you are making policy, health, or high-impact decisions, tighten scrutiny; if you are exploring, loosen it.Even statistics smuggles in a mindset: null-hypothesis testing begins from "nothing is there," and alpha levels are conventions you can justify shifting.Motivation and ego complicate inquiry: we avoid critiques of ideas we love (and then call it "being rational").Identity can get cramped by self-stories ("I am just an anxious person"); ACT invites values-based living beyond limiting narratives, while also noticing how the self is co-created in relationship.====Breakdown of Segments====Cold open and Delve updates: ad-free show, word-of-mouth request, and practice offerings.Two default mentalities: empiricist skepticism as the dominant educated reflex versus a more generative, exploratory posture.Reading against: the value of trying to kill your own ideas so only resilient claims survive.Reading with and steelmanning: how strengthening an argument helps you find what is worth studying rather than prematurely dismissing it.Innovation versus rigidity: how a culture of constant critique can calcify thinking (Kuhn-like cycles get mentioned).Paranoid versus reparative reading: adjacent vocabulary from literary analysis that maps neatly onto the same dilemma.The stats detour: null hypothesis significance testing, type I error, and why alpha is a movable threshold tied to your aims.A real example of motivated reasoning: wanting to avoid criticism of cognitive dissonance because it undergirds how we teach and practice.Closing quote and identity: "resist being narrowly defined," plus ACT-style defusion from limiting stories and the co-created self.====AI Recommended References (APA)====Cooley, C. H. (1902). Human nature and the social order. Charles Scribner's Sons.Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford University Press.Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (1999). Acceptance and commitment therapy: An experiential approach to behavior change. Guilford Press.Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. University of Chicago Press.Sedgwick, E. K. (2003). Paranoid reading and reparative reading, or, you're so paranoid, you probably think this essay is about you. In Touching feeling: Affect, pedagogy, performativity (pp. 123-151). Duke University Press.