On The Art of Changing Someone’s Mind

“When I ask you about something that you believe in — whether you believe or don’t believe in climate change or whether you believe in some political position or other — as soon as I raise the question why, you have answers. Reasons come to your mind. But the way that I would see this is that the reasons may have very little to do with the real causes of your beliefs.” - Daniel Kahneman, On Being with Krista Tippett

To be sure, many of the spoken reasons we give for believing thus-n-thus do in fact hit the mark (e.g. I run because it makes me feel good, I’m drinking water because I’m thirsty, etc). But when we try to explain our most complex beliefs, entrenched by many years and seasons of life, our cognitive machinery will often produce good-sounding reasons all too fast.

Daniel Kahneman recognized that for topics like climate change, political leanings, career choice, why they quit their job, what they’re looking for in a relationship, why they left their ex, etc, stated reasons tend to be overvalued by everyone involved (having some affinity with stated vs revealed preferences).

If you’re looking to better understand someone’s beliefs or take it a step further and change their mind, their stated reasons alone typically won’t get you what you’ll need. What you hear isn’t all there is.

Shallow vs Deep Beliefs

“Yeah, and it’s a game because even if you did destroy the arguments that people raise for their beliefs, it wouldn’t change their beliefs. They would just find other facts to entrench their arguments” -Krista Tippet

For disproving low-level beliefs like why they’re wrong about Abuelas being the best Mexican restaurant in the southside, you’ll be forgiven if you pick apart their reasoning. They might even change tunes once you remind them about Taqueria Jalisco’s homemade tortillas and fresh salsa. These are low stakes.

But for debunking deeper beliefs like that the earth is flat or that bad things 3s, what are the odds your passing thoughts can change their worldviews? Whatever reasons they gave you for believing thus-n-thus are likely just one girder in their lattice-work of belief support.

This leads us to our main rule for changing someone’s mind: you should always avoid trying to change someone’s mind on the spot unless it’s urgent. Beliefs typically don’t change overnight and you risk making them feel stupid. You must approach these things in roundabout ways; sometimes the shortest distance between two points is anything but straight.

Leading A Horse to Water

The higher success rate for changing minds is in avoiding the heavy-handed approach and playing the long game (over months or years). Yes, I know this sounds tedious. But after all, if you could easily change their mind on the spot, what kind of important beliefs could they really be? For the important, expect it to take a bit.

Some beliefs become entrenched during childhood, others are aided and abetted by a connection with a community and a few are simply co-opted from the parents (the beliefs’ origins may even be forgotten). Though how often does one state: “I believe it because my parents did”? Perhaps that be unflattering.

Big beliefs are structured like trauma—deep-seated and requiring time to unwind. It’d be weird to think you could reverse someone’s trauma on the spot. Entrenched beliefs aren’t much different. You can lead them to water, but ultimately they have to drink.

Besides, everyone flip-flopping convictions at the first sign of trouble would spell trouble for a functioning society.

Conclusion: This Conversation Should Have Been an Essay

We often take the spoken reasons for people’s beliefs too seriously, especially with complex issues. Sometimes it takes more than fresh salsa and homemade tortillas to change someone’s mind.

Conversations, unlike the essay format where thinking has a greater chance of emerging and be reformed, often lack the luxury of depth. A key consequence of this is that direct confrontation rarely works, especially for deeply held beliefs. That’s because, as Kahneman suggests, the spoken reasons we give are rarely the whole story.

As with trauma, entrenched beliefs require time to unwind and, like leading a horse to water, there’s only so much you can do. Resist the urge to overturn convictions on the spot. And after all, if everyone’s beliefs are constantly changing all the time at the first hint of contradiction, what kind of reliable people would we really be?

Author’s Note

“So the real cause of your belief in a political position, whether conservative or radical left, the real causes are rooted in your personal history. They’re rooted in who are the people that you trusted and what they seemed to believe in, and it has very little to do with the reasons that come to your mind, why your position is correct and the position of the other side is nonsensical. And we take the reasons that people give for their actions and beliefs, and our own reasons for our actions and beliefs, much too seriously.” - Daniel Kahneman

Disagree and commit at the end of the paragraph.