Changing Minds
The psychology of persuasion and more
We are losing the war... Unfortunately, many people are believing falsehoods pertaining to the pandemic, vaccinations, the conflict in Ukraine, and various other politically charged issues.
How can we get someone to change their mind? I've been obsessed with this question after realizing arguing online doesn't necessarily work or is effective for getting people to change their core beliefs. This is based on my own anecdotal experience and I'll admit there is data disputing this, but we lack data on long lasting change.
After reading some of David McRaney's book "How Minds Change" I came away with a realization... most of the time facts do not work for long lasting belief change.
Perhaps this relates to Daniel Kahenman’s systems 1 and 2 theory of cognition. Humans operate on system 1 which is quicker but runs on heuristics and biases, it's the system that saves many cognitive resources.
When arguing online we are often contending with biases, heuristics, and fallacies- the basis for system 1 thinking. System 2 thinking is more analytical, a lot slower, and more accuracy. In my view, the point of persuasion to elicit more fact and reality based views is to encourage system 2 thinking.
Techniques highlighted in McRaney's book like Deep Canvassing, the Socratic Method, and Street Epistemology are seeking to stoke on systems 2 thinking. What these techniques are doing can be understood in two ways: metacognition and theory of mind.
Thinking About Thinking
Metacognition merely refers to thinking about your own thinking. We all hold strong opinions, but do we know why we hold them? Do we ever really consider the reasoning for the beliefs we hold? In our busy lives, who truly sits down and contemplates the justifications for many of their opinions, values, views, and beliefs?
The evidence seems to suggest when we do this we are more open to willing to change our perspective. Perhaps this is due to understanding the faults of our own reasoning, maybe it brings up counter-examples, or maybe by the justifications themselves do we come to a new understanding of the issue entirely.
However, research suggest this willingness to change our beliefs or perspectives has to deal with confidence.
The metacognitive ability to be able to decern whether you should be confident in your decisions is the basis for belief change.
It makes sense the less confident you are about something the more willing you are to change your perspective. However, this also works on the flip side, with higher confidence comes an unwillingness to change ones beliefs or perspectives.
We see this in a study conducted to see peoples confidence levels and ability to understand GMO foods. Those with high confidence were more likely to be wrong about GMO foods (Dunning-Kruger effect anyone?).
Nevertheless, being able to understand your own thought processes and competency could help reduce unwarranted confidence behind beliefs, decisions, and perspectives.
Perspective Taking
When in the heat of debate or argument we rarely consider the perspective of others, especially those who oppose us. We often hold strong opinions even though our understanding of the topic at hand is questionable.
Perspective taking merely means to take on another persons perspective as your own. We also can call this theory of mind.
Theory of mind is a fancy way of saying we understand other people have their own minds which think differently than us. Children lack theory of mind, which makes it difficult for them to think abstractly about other people and their motives.
Taking on other perspectives is essential for looking at your own. While your own perspective may not change it's important to understand the rational behind other peoples views.
The idea behind this is it makes us more understanding of opposing views and less defensive towards our own. This can allow a person to change their mind about a belief or perspective. That is exactly what deep canvassing seeks to accomplish by having people take on the perspectives of others through their own experiences.
Theory of mind allows us to be in other peoples metaphorical shoes, to see their opinions being informed by different exposures to different experiences.
McRaney points out a study in which individuals against affirmative action shifted their attitudes by writing an essay on life as a black man. By opening ourselves to other perspectives we can hopefully soften polarization on contentious topics.
Takeaways
Here is the basic premise of my argument… facts do not work for the goal of persuading someone to change their mind.
While we have numerous techniques for helping change some ones mind the crux of these techniques is to elicit deeper thinking (system 2).
By having people reflect on their own thinking (metacognition) and taking on the perspectives of others (theory of mind) we are inherently encouraging deeper thinking.
This allows us to change our own minds more readily and allow other people the opportunity to change their minds.