David McRaney’s book How Minds Change: The New Science of Belief, Opinion and Persuasion (2022) offers a view of change that is both hopeful and frustrating. On the one hand, people can and do change their minds about all sorts of things, even if it seems like everything has been the same for decades. On the other hand, McRaney suggests that many people who aren’t scientists, physicians, or academics do not respond well to debate and argumentation as a way of changing their minds about an issue.
McRaney sums up the premise of the book like so:
The ability to change our minds, update our assumptions, and entertain other points of view is one of our greatest strengths… You soon will see why, to leverage that strength, we must avoid debate and start having conversations. Debates have winners and losers, and no one wants to be a loser. But if both sides feel safe to explore their reasoning, to think about their own thinking, to explore their motivations, we can each avoid the dead-end goal of winning an argument. Instead, we can pursue the shared goal of learning the truth. (pg. xx)
It was surprising to learn about how effective a different type of political canvassing technique was, one called ‘deep canvassing’ that relied on asking people about why they thought a certain way about a controversial issue, and steered toward emotional and personal reactions and away from facts. I’m curious how much this has been used in recent campaigns.
In one 2016 study, people responded to being challenged on political wedge issues as if they were being physically attacked, meaning they went into fight-or-flight mode and had a bodily response of adrenaline. This helps explain why this approach doesn’t do much good, whether in person or online. If your body feels you’re being attacked, it’s going to be hard to be able to think and listen calmly.
The chapter on The Dress image that went viral in 2015 was a useful example of how certain we can be that we are right and others are wrong, when really the fact is that perception is subjective.
Probably the most useful piece of information in the book for me was learning about ‘tribal psychology’ and how if you are a part of a ‘tribe’ such as scientists, physicians, or academics, they tend to have a group identity that is open to change and questioning beliefs. Indeed, it is supposed to be part of what sets these professions apart in their quest for knowledge and discovery. So if you are used to being part of one of these groups and mingle with people in other ‘tribes’ (as we all do), you might be surprised when they don’t respond to your facts and reasoning in a similar way.
The book opens some hope that cultural change is always happening and can be shifted in certain directions by people who dedicate effort toward it. We have yet to see the full impact of the role that the digital world and increasingly AI will play in this change, though.