How to actually change somebody’s mind: a lesson from podcasts
3 episodes, 14 lessons
Seeing or hearing the words “that’s a really good point, I didn’t think about that” is the rarest of things these days.
It’s gotten to the point where talking past each other has become an internet art form, and we increasingly live in separate realities from those we disagree with. It’s tempting to blame this breakdown in communication on the ‘other side’, but that’s the easy way out. It takes practice and forethought and patience to get through to someone or to let someone get through to you.
So in this filter-bubble insulated world, how does someone actually change a major belief? What does psychology have to say about this? What can we actively do to become better at convincing others or being open to new ideas? And will Uncle Bill ever stop being an ass at every family gathering?
Like with most meaningful questions these days, I find my answers through podcasts. I don’t think you can find a better collection of wisdom on the internet than when you are lucky enough to find several smart podcasts that address an important topic from multiple angles. The playlist below contains three different shows that provide useful lessons on how we can survive conversations with those we disagree with and is a nice primer on the art and science of changing minds.
Reckonings: A Conversion on Climate Change
Lesson 1: Allow safe space for someone to change their mind. Bob Inglis is a former Republican South Carolina Congressman in the “reddest district in the reddest state”, who had a complete turnaround in his views on climate change: He even made preventing further climate change a major part of his platform. He credits the space that his loved ones gave him while he transformed his views as absolutely critical to the process. People don’t change their minds on the spot when it comes to these kinds of large issues.
Lesson 2: Use the right language. Inglis’s main drive now is to convince other Republicans that addressing climate change can jive with their worldview on markets and free enterprise. He says the quickest way to turn off conservatives on climate discussions is to use the language they’ve been attacked with for over a decade.
“You don’t want to be talking to them about how alarmed you are, and how the polar bears gonna die, how we’re all gonna die, how you are an invasive species, you should feel guilty about being here, you weren’t meant to be here.” Instead, if you focus on things like looking at increasing the freedom of the energy market and removing harmful subsidies, you can start having a productive conversation. No matter the issue, guilt and personal attacks don’t work.
Lesson 3: It’s an issue of the heart, not the head. As Inglis says from his experience having these conversations, “this is not an information deficit”. Sending someone 10 links on climate change is not going to change their mind. Start with matters of the heart.
Love + Radio: How to Argue
Lesson 4: Know the other side’s position as well as your own. Daryl Davis is a black musician who has dedicated a large part of his adult life to changing the beliefs of white racists in the KKK. It’s easy to make these people out as cartoonish villains, but Davis took understanding their viewpoint seriously. Without this immediate respect that came from knowing what he was talking about, there would never have been invitations for further discussions. This fits with the charity principle of civil argument. You first put their argument in the best light that they would agree with before you set out to prove it wrong.
Lesson 5: Have a conversation, not a debate. A debate will put everyone’s guard up and quickly turns into both sides waiting for the other to stop talking so they can make another point. Conversations involve understanding and being heard. There needs to be legitimate interest in hearing out the person’s view, or it’s just an act of going through the motions.
Lesson 6: Look for commonalities. Davis believes that you can find something in common with anyone, even your worst enemy. Maybe you both agree on the drug problem tearing apart the entire community. “So now we’re in agreement. So let’s focus on that. And as we focus more and more and find more of these things in common, the things that we have in contrast, such as skin color, begin to matter less and less.”
Lesson 7: When two enemies are talking, they’re not fighting. “It’s when the talking ceases, that the ground becomes fertile for violence, so you want to keep the conversation going.”
Lesson 8: Patience really is a virtue. There may come a time when an issue needs legislation to be solved, but you need to put in the work first. “You can legislate behavior but you can’t legislate belief. Patience is what it takes […] don’t just sit around talking to your friends who believe what you do. Invite other people who have differences of opinion. Invite them to your meeting, invite them to your table. Learn from them. Because while you’re actively learning about somebody else, you are passively teaching them about yourself.”
Lesson 9: Don’t be condescending or insulting. You can be argumentative, but not in a way that shuts down the conversation. Push back with facts and use their own words for how you frame things. This is helped if you let them explain what they believe without trying to define their beliefs or movement for them.
You Are Not So Smart: The Backfire Effect- Part One (Part Two, Part Three)
Lesson 10: Understand the backfire effect. This three part series explores one of the main psychological enemies to productive arguments. The backfire effect is essentially what happens when you are presented with a fact that goes against what you believe, and you reject it. You proceed to believe your original position even stronger. Sound familiar? Have you noticed that some people are literally impervious to facts? Grab some popcorn and find a good heated debate on social media. If it’s anything political, see how little of an effect facts have on the conversation. Knowing this even happens is the first step in fighting it.
Lesson 11: Understand that we are not so smart. It’s important to realize that our biology fights against us being perfectly reasonable and open humans. The brain’s primary goal is protection. When a superficial idea is attacked, no problem. But the brain treats your identity differently, and will act like you are being physically attacked if you are presented with conflicting information to your tightly held world view. “If we try to define ourselves by the things that we do instead of the things that we believe, then we’ll be more open minded and more flexible.”
Lesson 12: We are blinded by motivated reasoning. Humans are experts at letting emotions overrule reason and at finding the information we need to help support something we believe. This is what leads to echo chambers. We find what’s convenient and ignore everything else. “Whenever we are confronted with anything that we would rather not believe, we challenge it. We resist it. But when we receive info that bolsters our beliefs, that confirms our ideologies, that strengthens the validity of our identities, we accept it without much thought. We are selectively skeptical.”
Lesson 13: There is a way to break through information bubbles. Some research has shown that there is initial resistance to news that counters a belief, but a threshold can eventually be reached that starts to make the person change their mind. The problem is that each issue and each person will have a slightly different threshold, but people ultimately are reachable which is highly encouraging.
Lesson 14: Replace load bearing walls. If our values and beliefs are houses, it’s obviously much easier to remove a door than a load bearing wall. When a belief happens to be the big ass wall in the middle of the house that every other belief is built upon, good luck getting permission to demolish it. In order to ever successfully move that wall, you need something equally strong to replace it with. Bob Inglis the politician from above knows this, which is why he focuses so much time on finding the right way to frame the message on climate change, instead of trying to run around with a sledge hammer as fast as he can.
Conclusion
So, where does this leave us? Honestly, these episodes all make me feel optimistic. If a KKK member can completely reform their attitudes on race, anything is possible.
It’s clear to me that the way you approach a person with an opposing view is just as important as what you say. And this is all a two way street, where we need to willing to say, “that’s a really good point, I didn’t think that” ourselves, instead of just shaking our head that the other person wasn’t completely amazed at our barrage of facts. People are people, and even our most logical selves are still highly affected by emotions and tribal behaviors.
Lucky for us podcast fans, podcasting is the perfect medium to continue to figure out the best way forward in this increasingly siloed world. Downloading and hearing someone’s story directly in your earbud is such an amazing opportunity for understanding different perspectives. Voices remind us that we’re all ultimately on the same team.
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