I picked up David McRaney’s How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion on recommendation from a colleague who somewhat-jokingly told us that he couldn’t convince us to buy the book other than his recommendation. The book has a lot to do with how we think about convincing others to do something - particularly when they hold beliefs and opinions that run in the opposite direction.
I think the simplest summary of the book is that “changing minds” is much more about opening people to new thoughts and experiences than it is berating them with new procedures or facts. In some cases, these openings happen naturally with the people in question and in others, the openings come upon them through care-filled conversation.
A familiar situation in the world of “changing opinions” is the idea of throwing more information and facts at people - surely they will change their mind if they only could see what I see. The problem is that I am only thinking from my perspective - my experiences, my community, my worldview. In the midst of an argument, it is never the right time to throw more facts on the fire. We can look at the same information and draw different conclusions. Even better, we only look for information that supports our cause - we actively seek it out and actively ignore contra-indicating information. A simple example might be we only weigh ourselves once when the scale reports good news, but try several times when it tells us the “wrong weight.” But why? And what about “bigger” changes to the way we think? Of course, that is the real meat of the book.
McRaney is a science writer, so he dove into a lot of the science about how we think and how people change their perspective, particularly for deeply held beliefs. He also brings in some nice personal perspectives with people who have had rather large changes-of-mind and with people who are actively out working to change minds of others. The emphasis of the book is around hot-topic issues like conspiracy theory, extreme religious views, and social-political views - all with examples where people have changed and where people haven’t. What is it about their situations that caused a change or not?
A key element that comes across early in the book is that our experience colors how we see the world. That statement seems obvious, but it is relevant to the topic. If I want someone to do (or think) something different, but that change goes against their previous experiences, the change is rather unlikely. Even more, not only do our experiences define what we see, but it also tends to define the communities we join. Or more accurately, the communities we join tend to cause us to see things in concert with the community. If the community has particularly strong beliefs or opinions, suggesting alternate views is a great way to get kicked out / excommunicated / laughed at / harassed. Presumably, this has a deep connection to our human need to survive and our days as hunter-gatherers.
This deep connection to one’s identity is also where the core nugget of this book resides on how minds change. In order to make changes to those deeply held beliefs, something has to open up that identity. There are many ways this could happen, and McRaney gives a number of examples in the book. We tend to be in many communities and join and leave them as we go through life. Maybe one of those communities loses prominence to another, and those core beliefs shift to be consistent with the new community. Or in the example of deep canvassing, people actively seek out conversations with people who hold opposing views. But rather than trying to convince them, it is all about seeking to understand and then opening the conversation with “what if?” or “have you ever?” or “do you know anyone like?”… Or in another situation, maybe an individual begins to experience things that deeply shake their core views.
All of these have the effect of enabling the individual to start thinking about their thinking. Maybe it isn’t explicit, but it is there. And that ends up causing discomfort. Either it gets justified and the beliefs hold. Or it becomes harder and harder to hold that belief, and the opportunity for change is there. McRaney outlines the way several approaches work, and they all seem to have this as an essential element - a new perspective opens. The various approaches get there and make use of it in slightly different ways.
As I was in the middle of the book, someone referenced James Clear’s Atomic Habits where he talks about our Identity leads to Behaviors which produce Outcomes. This is right in line with what McRaney describes concludes in his book - that one’s identity is really tied up in some of those deep beliefs. McRaney delves into more of the science behind how this all works. And in a nice surprise, I just noticed on James Clear’s website an article about Why Facts Don't Change Minds.
A funny note: I read the book on a tablet and found it funny that McRaney included a number of QR codes to follow a link somewhere. Might have been nice to convert those to URLs for e-readers. (It would be even stranger in an audio book.) His website for the book includes a bunch of links and interviews related to the book, including those images from chapter 3.