How to win hearts and minds

Most of the time, I read the news and want to scream at the top of my lungs: “What is wrong with you?!” Most of the time, I refrain. Because screaming at people who can’t hear you doesn’t work. Because screaming at people who can hear you doesn’t work. Instead, I ruminate on how to change minds. Mostly my own. Sometimes, others’. 

Minds don’t change easily. Study after study shows we cling to information confirming our beliefs and reject information challenging them. In one study, researchers had students listen to recordings that either linked smoking to cancer or denied that link. Both recordings were masked by static. Students could press a button to make the static disappear for moments at a time. Turns out, smokers were more likely to clear the static when the content supported their habit. And nonsmokers did the opposite. 

Most of us like feeling right.

Eleven years ago, I told my ex-fiancé that “I’d rather be right than happy.” Yikes.

We’re so attached to feeling right that we’ll double down even when the evidence shows we’re wrong. So—for example—when a religious cult predicts the rapture on a specific date that comes and goes sans rapture, the cult members continue proselytizing and predicting future raptures. Or when a historian explains that higher marginal tax rates bring more economic equity, members of the ultra-wealthy cult divert the conversation.

I used to be sexist. I used to be anti-gay. I used to be anti-vaccine. I used to be pro-life/anti-choice. I used to think I wasn’t racist. I used to believe that each of those things made up my identity.

I now believe there are no such states of being. We are what we do and say and think. So one moment I can say something anti-racist and another I can say something racist. And the work is to spend more and more actions and words and thoughts being anti-racist. 

So how did my mind change? 

When I got to college and declared myself a proud sexist, my roommate and dear friend asked me to explain why. She didn’t agree with me. She didn’t dismiss me. She didn’t scream at me. She listened. And I realized that I couldn’t coherently explain why I wanted to be sexist. I fed my curiosity. I read books and took classes and talked with friends. By Christmas vacation I made appointments to challenge my then-pastor’s sexist ideas.

And so it went with my anti-gay, anti-vaccine, anti-choice, racist views.* I’m not alone. In a 2012 study, participants were asked for their views on proposals like single-payer healthcare. Researchers asked participants to rank how strongly they agreed or disagreed with the proposals. Then researchers asked participants to explain—in detail—what would happen if society implemented the proposals. Most people have trouble explaining what they don’t know. So most participants decreased the intensity with which they agreed or disagreed with the proposals.

But there’s something else, too. It’s easier—less costly—for me to change my mind when I’m not conflating a view with a value. I’m much more likely to see racist thoughts that bubble up—for example—when my identity isn’t staked on not recognizing them as racist. I don’t feel like a different person than I was at 18 even though my views on most things have changed. My values are largely the same. I want to be kind and loving and wise. Changing actions, words, and thoughts from sexist to anti-sexist aligns with the values I’ve held all along. 

And one other thing. If I’m trying to bond—whether consciously or unconsciously—by defining in-groups and out-groups, I’m much less likely to hear a member of the out-group. Our environment shapes our conditioning. If we surround ourselves with others who think just like us, we’re far more likely to stay entrenched in our views. When we hear the same thing over and over, it seems all-important and obviously correct. This is one of many benefits of diversity.

All this rumination and it’s still nearly impossible not to push certain family members’ buttons. I know my cheap shots won’t change their minds, but damn if there’s not a short-circuit between my prefrontal cortex and mouth. So I remind myself how my own mind changed: Ask questions. Differentiate viewpoints from values/identity. Diversify. And apologize for the cheap shots.

*Cultural conditioning is so powerful, of course, that moving from one of these views to another is never a one and done scenario. It takes constant weeding.