July 13, 2018 • 39 mins
As the world becomes more and more polarized, and people become more entrenched in their ideas, Will and Mango explore how we can find consensus, and what the science tells us about shifting public opinion. Plus, we look at how Heinz's disastrous attempt to change Australia's opinion on condiments and why it took such a long time for the pie chart to catch on.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what, mango? What's that? Will all right, I've got
a name for you. Have you ever heard of William Playfair?
I don't think so, but I do like that name. Playfair. Yeah,
it is a good name. That's all I had to
say about it. Just was a fun name. But actually
it's an interesting name because in this case, playing Fair
is not exactly what the world did for this guy.
(00:21):
So William was a Scottish man who pretty much invented
modern day infographics. You think about things like pie charts,
the bar graph, the line graph, all of those things.
I mean, it's pretty crazy to think that we actually
know who invented the bar graph for the pineff. It's
like knowing who invented the parallelogram or something. Well, why
didn't the world treat him well? Well, because they were
(00:44):
so stubborn. You see, prior to William coming along, you
had intellectuals who felt that information should always be presented
in writing and that trying to present information as pictures
was just dumbing it down and maybe even useless. So,
you know, just going back and and think about what
this guy's life was like. When when William was young,
he did a lot of work for his mathematician brother.
(01:06):
He'd help him record data, and over time he started
playing with this idea of putting data into a graphical format.
And William credits his brother with teaching him how to
do this, so he says of him, John taught me
to know that whatever can be expressed in numbers may
be represented in lines. And so you fast forward a
decade or so and he ends up apprenticing with James Watt,
(01:27):
And yes, it's that James Watt who's steam engine disastin
really changed the world. Yeah, and underwat supervision, William continued
to hone this craft of data representation, so he parts
ways with what floats around from odd job to odd job,
and finally, in the late seventeen hundreds, he publishes something
called the Commercial and Political Atlas, And what he does
(01:49):
in this is he basically has this giant collection of
bar and line charts that are illustrating pretty complex financial
information about European countries. So you think people would give
him some sort of credit for this, but it largely
gets ignored. So he follows it a few years later
with something called the Statistical Breviary, and he pretty much
(02:09):
introduces the world to the pie chart. And I'm like you,
I'm like, how did somebody actually invent this? But he
is the one that came up with this. And again,
you think people would realize how helpful these devices could be,
but instead he was mocked. I mean even his old boss,
James Watt. Here's how he described me. He first of all,
he described the book as quote mere plummery and described
(02:31):
William as a rascal. Yeah, and so you know, others
dismissed his work and they said geometrical measurement has not
any relation to money or to time, which is just absurd.
But this is how people were responding to this. So
you know, despite these contributions to the way we represent
all this complex data today, William Playfair was pretty much
(02:53):
ignored and died in poverty. That's sad. So why do
you think he was just like dismissed like that. Why
why couldn't they see how helpful these graphs and charts
could be. Well, because people are stubborn, and once a mind,
and especially a group's mind is made up, it's really
difficult to change that way of thinking. So it took
decades before people started to warm up to this idea
(03:14):
of you know, information being represented in these ways, and
now it's impossible to look at a magazine or a
newspaper article without seeing infographics all over them. And you know,
the story reminded us of just how difficult it can
be to change someone's mind. So today that's what we're
talking about, the science behind us, the science behind changing
(03:36):
people's minds. So let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners,
(04:00):
welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
always I'm joined by my good friend Manges Ticketer and
on the other side of the soundproof glass, the only
guy who still can't decide if he hears laurel or
Yung and Mango. I don't want to say Tristan's ever
done anything to annoy me, because he never has, but
this has been the closest to it. I mean, seriously,
he's probably listened to that clip a thousand times by now.
(04:23):
But that's our friend and producer, Tristan McNeil. I know,
I feel like the Internet moved on from this ages
ago now Tristan, it's time for you to do the same.
It definitely is. But we we've got a show to do.
And so while Tristan changes his mind over there probably
a dozen more times during this episode. Most of us
actually have the exact opposite problem. I mean, our minds
(04:44):
are made up about things and we won't change them
for anything or anyone. And this is something we've experience
all the time now, because, in case you haven't noticed,
we live in this increasingly polarized world. Whether it's an
unwillingness to compromise on political positions or even just these
silly debates about whether the newest Star Wars movie retroactively
(05:07):
ruined our childhoods, it seems like no one is willing
to give an inch on their opinions, and that's no
matter how many facts or reasoned arguments you throw at them.
So with all this discord in mind, we actually thought
it might be helpful to look into the science and
the psychology of how people change their minds, as well
as why we form such stubborn opinions in the first place.
(05:28):
That's right, and I actually thought we could start with
a bit of neuroscience, because as tough as it is
to change someone else's mind, it turns out that it's
just as hard to change your own, even about the
little things. And that's because even a simple last minute
decision like stepping left to avoid a puddle, that involves
a complex system of communication between several brain regions, and
(05:48):
that means that these split second decisions often come too
late for our bodies to act on. Okay, So then
in your example, someone decides to move left a second
too late, so they end up walking through the puddle anyway, right,
Except the time window is even shorter than that. So uh,
this team of researchers at Johns Hopkins, they recently concluded
that we have to change our minds within about a
(06:09):
hundred milliseconds and making a decision, and that's in order
for that new plan to be successful. So, as one
of the researchers put it, if we change our mind
about pressing the gas pedal even a few milliseconds after
the original go message has been sent to our muscles,
we simply can't stop. And this problem only worsens as
we age because our neural communication tends to get slower
(06:30):
and slower, which is one reason why it falls are
so common among the elderly, like their decisions to alter
course or even to cash themselves are simply made too
slowly to be carried out, And so does this time
limit apply strictly the decisions about physical movements like where
to walk or the pedal to press or or is
this also related to behavioral actions too, I mean, it
(06:51):
definitely applies to both. In fact, one aim of the
research I mentioned is to find ways to help people
with drug addictions make a faster decision, and this is
to ignore their pulses to use. So the idea is
that the sooner a person can change their mind about
a plan to use a drug, less likely they'll actually
be to act upon that plan. That's interesting, and I
guess it makes sense that time is such a big
(07:11):
factor in whether these last minute decisions are successful. I mean,
it's sort of how it goes with changing your mind
in general, right, Like, it seems like the longer the
person has held a certain opinion, the harder it is
for them to reverse that position. And that's, of course,
even if there's a lot of evidence that their view
may be wrong. Yeah, that sounds right to me, because
I mean, we do have facts and we have beliefs,
(07:32):
and ideally everyone would recognize and readily admit the difference
between those two things. But in practice, humans sent to
argue on behalf of a third category which are the
things we want to believe so badly that we treat
them as if they were facts even though they're not.
And that's where this confirmation bias comes in, and we
start to trust sources that just support our own viewpoints,
(07:53):
and that's over things that actually challenge our perceptions. Well,
and this is really something that we're all guilty of
and in some fashion, because as much as we like
to pretend that we're always rational and fair, the truth
is that each and every one of us has our
own biases. So and obviously it's just part of human nature.
There was actually this study about a decade ago that
(08:13):
found that as young as three months old, humans already
prefer the faces of those who share their skin color
to the faces of those who don't. And then by
the age of five, we're already conscious of the status
of our families and our friends circles, including how they're
viewed and treated in relation to other groups. So it
really isn't a question of whether or not people have biases.
(08:36):
It's more about the degree to which we let those
biases influence the way we view and interact with the world.
And studies have shown that if you can recognize your
bias on certain issues, you'll likely be more open to
changing your mind in light of any new evidence that
may be presented. That's really interesting. So well, what do
you think determine someone's willingness to change their minds? Then, well,
(08:56):
I think it comes down largely to what we're changing
our minds about, because if you think about it, we
change our minds based on new information all the time,
just in everyday life. I mean, you pick out something
to wear one day, you think it's going to be
a sunny day, you find that it's going to be raining,
so you change your mind and your clothes, and it's
no big deal. But you know, things aren't as easy
when it comes to something much heavier, like something people
(09:20):
consider deeply important or that may define them in some way.
So with issues like that, it's almost like no news
report or research study is going to change someone's mind
because at the end of the day, I mean, people's
misperceptions and false beliefs, they have less to do with
political affiliation or I don't know, maybe like a lack
of education, and much more to do with self identity,
(09:43):
and you know, with how they view themselves through the
lens of an issue that they care about. So I
think a great example of that is with evolution and
the Big Bang. Like a whole slew of studies have
shown that belief or disbelief in those theories typically aligns
with the person's religious and culturally. So if someone refuses
to change their mind about evolution, it doesn't mean they're
unfamiliar with the science. It's more that they see evolution
(10:06):
as a threat to their ideology and, by extension, their identity,
so changing their mind doesn't seem like a legitimate option. Well,
of course, that makes it extremely tricky to change someone's
mind about an issue like this, because I mean, how
do you make a case for something like evolution to
folks without making them feel like they're even their core
beliefs are under attack. Yeah, I mean, tearing down someone's
(10:29):
self identity definitely isn't the way to win them over.
But I was reading about this biology professor. He's named
Kenneth Miller, and he's made headway by highlighting the compatibility
of science and religion. And this is compared to the alternate,
which is, you know, harping on their apparent differences. So
whenever he comes up against someone who's anti evolution. He
points out connections between science and religion as a way
(10:49):
of showing that both can co exist. For example, this
is something I hadn't even heard before, but the Belgian
scientist who laid out the math behind the Big Bang,
he was actually a Catholic priest. Oh really, I've never
heard that somehow, But I'm actually glad you're bringing up
people's beliefs about science, because, aside from politics, that's probably
the area where we push the hardest to change each
(11:11):
other's minds. And that's whether it's about evolution, or climate change,
or genetically modified foods or I mean, there are so
many of these topics. And that's why I was surprised
to learn that when it comes to policy issues, Americans
actually trust science leaders more than they do leaders in
other sectors, and of course that includes business and even government.
(11:32):
Well I'm not so sure about that, because, like the
last time I checked, there's still this chunk of the
population who sware the Earth is flat. Well, this is
according to a two thousand and sixteen study by the
National Science Foundation, and apparently more respondents said they have
quote a great deal of confidence in the knowledge and
impartiality of scientists than they do in any other institution.
(11:53):
That's with the exception of the military. That's really interesting.
But if if people trust scientists so much, like, why
are there so many flat earthers out there? Well, I
think in general is the key phrase here, because most
people likely do recognize that science is a pretty rigorous
field and you know, has this long history of trying
to deliver accurate results. But you know, I think the
(12:15):
problem really starts when specific issues bump up against those
ideological beliefs that we were talking about before. And actually,
here's a quote from Scientific American that that gives a
good example of this. And here's what it says. Our
innate desire to be accurate conflicts with other motives, some
of them unconscious. People hold beliefs to protect important values.
(12:35):
For example, individuals who think of nature as sacred may
perceive genetic modification as morally wrong, regardless of its safety
or utility. People also whole beliefs that are rooted in
their emotions. A flu pandemic that can cause widespread death
among the innocent may cause feelings of fear and helplessness.
The one way to cope with those emotions is to
(12:56):
belittle warnings of a pandemic as impossible, which makes sense,
but it's also kind of scary to think about because
it shows just how bad we are at judging whether
our views are rational or irrational. Like, even if our
views are only based on bias or emotion, we can
still find ways to dupe ourselves into thinking those beliefs
are truly based on facts or reason. I mean, if
you think about global warming, one or two descending scientists
(13:19):
is all it really took to perpetuate the idea that
climate science is controversial or still a matter of debate
in the scientific community, and that kernel of doubt was
enough to validate the belief that it's all a hoax
and some other people's minds, even if they consider themselves
science supporters in general, Yeah, you're right, And it's it's
also kind of ironic when you think about it, because
scientists are probably the most adept when it comes to
(13:41):
changing their beliefs in light of new information that they
may have, and I mean revising theories to match the
current evidence. Is it's kind of their whole m o.
So it's it's it's pretty sad when you have issues
where there's near consensus among the scientific community, and yet
they're still so easily dismissed by some people. Yeah, and
to play devil's advocate, I do think some people just
(14:02):
aren't aware of what scientists actually think about certain issues.
Like a few years back, the Pew Research Center released
this report where thirty seven percent of respondents said that
they didn't think scientists agreed on climate change, while in
reality of scientists say climate change is a serious problem.
So in this case, the misinformation campaigned about how quote
(14:22):
unsettled the issue is really seems to have worked, like
people were convinced that the science was still uncertain and
they didn't take the time to double check that claim themselves. Well, see,
and to me that that says that although climate change
is a scientific issue at its core, it's really become
more of an ideological one for most of us. I mean,
nowadays our belief for disbelief in global warming is really
(14:44):
an expression of identity more than anything else, and it's
a way of showing which groups we belong to. Alright, Well,
I I do sense that we're heading into the realm
of politics here. So before we open that particularly kind
of worms, why don't we take a quick break. You're
(15:12):
listening to part time genius and we're talking about the
messy science of how to change another person's mind. Okay, Well,
so we mentioned how people tend to dig in their
heels on issues they connect to their own identities, and
as a result, they'll do any sort of mental gymnastics
necessary to avoid changing their minds on the subject. But
that makes a lot of sense with moral or religious considerations.
But you said global warming is a matter of identity
(15:34):
now too, So how does that work exactly? All right? Well,
think about how so much of human identity is tied
up with the groups that we form, whether that's family
or friends, or you know, colleagues or even political parties.
So the downside of having your individual identity wrapped up
in groups is is that we do run that risk
of giving into tribalism, you know, when those beliefs or
(15:57):
values of those groups are under question. And actually, this
is the same thing you'll see even with something as
extreme as like cults, because that sense of belonging becomes
so important that members will will actually ignore any information
that threatens that feeling. And in the same way, you know,
we don't want to lose membership, and the groups that
are important to us. And so today, you know, you
(16:19):
think about how important political parties are to a lot
of people, and it's a stronger part of our identity
than ever before. And for example, recent polls show that
not only do die hard liberals and conservatives try to
avoid spending time together whenever possible, they even feel unhappy
if a family member is married to somebody else from
across the aisle. So what you're saying is that the
(16:40):
issue of climate change isn't strictly a scientific one anymore.
It's become so politicized that it's basically a way to
signal which political and social groups you belong to. Yeah,
it is, and you know, and people aren't likely to
change their minds on something like that, and that's no
matter what the science says, because you know, on some level,
they don't want to jeopardize their standing with their group.
And it's actually pretty fascinating how much group mentalities factor
(17:04):
into all of our decision making. Well, that connection actually
goes even deeper, because some scientists now believe that humans
developed reason in the first place as this way to
deal with the problems associated with living in groups, which
is really interesting because we always assume that humans of all,
reason is a way to solve these abstract puzzles or
to like draw conclusions from evidence. But according to this
(17:26):
pair of cognitive scientists named Hugo Mercy and Dance Berber,
reason is really an adaptation to the hypersocial niche humans
have evolved for themselves, all right, So just to try
to break that down, I mean, what what what kind
of hyper social problems was reason actually meant to help
with the main one is making sure you don't get
taken advantage of by members of the group. So this
(17:49):
makes sense if you think about it, because humans first
lived together in small groups of hunter gatherers, where social
standing was everything and each member of the group needed
to pull their own weight. But inevitably you'd have some
lazy people in the group, you know, the type. They
always have an excuse for why they want to remain
warm or safe in the cave while everyone else risks
their neck to bring home dinner. I mean, those guys
(18:09):
are the worst. But actually, hang on, So, if I
understand you correctly, you're saying we developed reason mostly as
a way to sniff out hucksters and kind of maintain
our social standing exactly, And the reason was more a
tool for winning arguments than it was a means for
pursuing truth, and that's actually what gets us into trouble today.
We still argue primarily to win a battle rather than
(18:31):
to learn something new or changing another person's mind. I mean,
if you just think about all arguments people get into
on Twitter or Facebook and in the comment section of
news sites, like, people might back up their viewpoints with
stats or links, but no one is interested in learning
from the other people there, and instead the conversation becomes
this competition with like each side trying to score off
(18:52):
the other, and all these fans of both sides just
rallying to cheer them on in the form of likes,
well and and that kind of interaction. It also shows
how backwards our cultures approaches to facts and evidence. I mean,
we like to think we use facts and logic as
the basis for all of our beliefs, but in reality,
it's often the other way around, where the belief comes first,
(19:14):
and then we just pick and choose the facts and
evidence to really reinforce those beliefs, and then wield them
kind of like a sledgehammer, just to prove our points online.
And you know, given how vast the Internet is now
and how lousy it is with misinformation that seems credible
at first glance. Finding that evidence for just about anything
you believe is pretty easy these days. Yeah, and these
(19:36):
really are the glory days of confirmation bias. But you know,
the cheapening of facts isn't the only danger posed by
arguing to win. Another more insidious threat is the way
this mode of argument affects the way we view the
questions we're debating. All right, so what do you what
do you mean by that? Well, when people engage in
combative arguments, the expectation is that someone will win and
(19:58):
someone will lose. And like we've been saying, that's the
whole point. But the implication there is that every issue
will always have this clear cut, objective answer, like with
a math problem or something, so there's no accounting for
different views that still might be valid, and instead every issue,
no matter how nuanced, is produced to these absolutes. And
actually I came across the Salon article by a research
(20:20):
team who studied the psychology of this argue to win mentality,
and they had a nice summary of what's at stake here,
so they right quote. The more we argue to win,
the more we will feel that there is a single
objectively correct answer and that all other answers are mistaken. Conversely,
the more we argue to learn, the more we will
feel that there's no single objective truth. Then different answers
(20:42):
can be equally right. So the next time you're deciding
how to enter into an argument on Facebook about the
controversial question of the day, remember you're not just making
a choice about how to interact with the person who
holds the opposing view. You're also making a decision that
will shape the way you and others think about whether
the question itself has a correct answer. And I think
that's pretty good advice, But you know, for my own
(21:03):
peace of mind, I feel like I should point out
here that there are times when facts and evidence can
help change somebody's mind. And that's because there are plenty
of people out there who maybe they're misinformed or mistaken
about something, but but who don't cling to that false
belief and treat it like a cornerstone of their identity.
So in these cases, facts and reason can truly make
a difference. So for our listeners out there, don't give
(21:26):
up all hope on this kind of thing. I mean,
that's a good point, but what about all those other times,
like are really saying there's no way to change a
person's mind once they're personally invested in a certain view. Well,
I'm not ready to concede that just yet, because, as
it turns out, humanities hyper social nature that you've talked about,
it might just be the key to changing a person's
long held beliefs. But before we get into that, let's
(21:48):
take a quick break. All right. So this whole episode,
we've been talking about how difficult it is to change
people's minds on these deeply personal or emotionally charged issues.
(22:12):
And you know why, we mentioned how simply laying out
the facts doesn't work in these cases. There is new
research out of Penn State that suggests that doing so
can be effective so long as you deliver the facts
along with a heaping dose of peer pressure. So that's
when it's come to like using peer pressure to get
people to change their minds, which seems kind of shady
to me. Yeah, it feels like we're going back to
(22:34):
high school for this one. But but at least listen
to how the study went. It was It was pretty interesting. First,
the researchers gathered fifty eight volunteers from around the campus
and had them offer their opinions on the firing of
coach Joe Paterno. Of course, all remember that case, and
you know, he was the head of the football program
for years and then one of his long time assistance
I was accused of these you know, sexual abuses, and
(22:57):
you know, the thinking was that Paterno likely had knowledge
of the incidents and unfortunately kept quiet. So the college
covered its bass and decided to fire Paterno as well. Yeah,
I remember it was seen as a pretty controversial move
at the time, especially on campus. That's right. So what
they did in this study was that, you know, the
researchers pulled the participants on their opinions, and then they
(23:19):
split them up, and the first thirty four people took
part in these separate discussion sessions they called them, and
they were paired with two to four research assistants who
always took the opposing view of the volunteer. And before
these discussions commenced, everyone had been given this fact sheet
and a summary of the different arguments in Paterno's case.
(23:39):
Then things got underway and they'd go back and forth
about the case for something like thirty minutes, and these
research assistants would offer counter argument after counter argument. No
matter what the volunteer would say, they would always counter it.
And so after that, the participants each filled out a
ballot with their final opinion on Paternos firing, and the
researchers could then use that to track whose opinion had
(24:01):
shifted due to the discussion. Which is interesting, But what
happened to those other twenties something participants. Well, they also
read the same fact sheet and those case summaries, but
they didn't have those discussion sessions like the other group did. Instead,
they simply filled out the ballot with their final opinion.
Now for that second group, the ones who had only
(24:22):
read the materials, only eight percent of these people changed
their minds about Paternals firing based on what they had read.
But the people who took part in the discussions where
they were outnumbered, a shocking thirty eight percent of those
shifted their stance in response to that social pressure. I mean,
that's pretty wild. But who's to say the people who
changed their minds won't just change the back a few
(24:43):
months later. In fact, how do we even know they
really changed their minds in the first place, like they
could have been lying just to please the researchers. Right, Well,
those final ballots were anonymous, so I guess you could say,
in theory, the participants wouldn't have felt the need to lie.
But there's actually a similar study that dealt with his
concern more directly, and it was this experiment out of
Harvard back in two thousand eleven, and it basically found
(25:06):
that men judge a woman is more attractive when they
believe their peers also fine tore attractive. And so they
reached this conclusion by having fourteen men rate the attractiveness
of a hundred and eighty female faces on a scale
from one to ten. Then half an hour later, the
same men rated the faces again, but this time every
face that they looked at was paired with a numerical rating. Now,
(25:30):
these ratings displayed were completely random, but the participants were
told that these were the averages of the scores given
by their peers. And would you know at this bit
of suggested peer pressure actually worked, So all of the
men ended up rating the women that had higher rankings
as more attractive than they had the first time around. Okay,
so to tell me, how is that any more definitive
(25:50):
than the last study, Like they could have still been
lying just to seem like they had as good an
eye for beauty as the other guys or something. Well,
here's what's maybe the most interesting part of this. So
those participants underwent m r I scans that effectively proved
the men weren't lying. So the brain's pleasure centers lit
up more strongly during that second round of rankings, which
(26:11):
suggests that their opinions of the women's attractiveness actually did change.
That's fascinating, But you know, I still feel a little
conflicted about weaponizing peer pressure as a means of winning
people to your side. But there might be something to
the idea that people are more open minded in group
settings or during personal interactions. Like I remember reading how
back during World War Two, the US government tried to
(26:33):
sell the public on the idea of eating organ meat
because the thinking was that the choice or cuts of
meat could then be saved to feed the troops. So
they did research to find out the most effective ways
to get people to make the switch, and it turned
out that people who had a group discussion about the idea,
they were actually five times more likely to go along
with it than those who simply read about the merits
of organ meat from a nutritionist. Yeah, it's a pretty
(26:55):
significant difference. I mean, it's gross, but but it is interesting.
But to be honest, I'm not sure how far peer
pressure or personal interactions would get you when it comes
to changing minds on like stuff that really matters. I mean,
you're thinking in these scenarios, it's whether some person is
attractive or whether to cook up some organ meat for dinner.
But I think on heavier issues it feels like it'd
(27:18):
be a little bit different. Yeah, I know what you mean,
But I think the key might actually be to something
we talked about in the last segment, this idea that
people most readily accept facts that confirmed the beliefs they
already hold. Alright, so how are you seeing that as
a positive thing though? So one example of what I'm
thinking about is the legality of gay marriage, and that's
been the reality for years now, but the fight to
(27:40):
get it to that point was incredibly long and challenging
because in order to win the right to get married,
gay people needed to get straight voters and politicians on
their sides, and of course, historically speaking that's easier said
than done. In fact, all through the early two thousands,
same sex marriage activists lost one political battle after another
and things really weren't looking rate and a big reason
(28:01):
for this lack of success came down to messaging. Like
the common arguments from activists at the time centered on
the injustice of discrimination and how gay people should be
entitled to the same rights and benefits as you know,
straight people. But these kinds of legal and moral appeals
pretty much fell on deaf ears and it quickly became
apparent that the movement would need a new message, one
(28:21):
that was less political and more universal. So what sort
of strategy did they come up with? Well, there was
one advocate group, in particular, Freedom to Marry, that really
led the charge by analyzing data from hundreds of polls
and focus groups. Then, after a year of pouring over
this information, the team finally found the answers they were
looking for in a single public opinion poll. So, according
(28:44):
to the poll, when straight people were asked why they
had gotten married, they said it was for a quote,
love and commitment. But when these people were asked why
they think gay people wanted to get married, the number
one reason was for benefits. I mean, on the one hand,
it's obviously a pretty ugly assumption to make about complete
strangers that they're driven more by these selfish economic concerns
(29:04):
than by the same wholesome motives that that you might possess.
But I mean, it does sound like what you're saying
is the movement was able to somehow use this thinking
to their advantage anyway, that's right. So, in light of
this discovery of the team at Freedom to Marry quickly
launched this new nationwide campaign. It was called Why Marriage Matters,
and rather than selling the idea on political or economic rounds,
(29:25):
the campaign just focused on this universal idea that most
people already believed in, which is that love and commitment matter.
And little by little, this new message began to change
people's minds. Some of the work was done remotely through
TV or radio ads. There were even robocalls employed and
media appearances, but the most effective method by far was
these door to door visits from actual gain lesbian couples
(29:48):
who hoped one day to get married, and when faced
with real people expressing that same earnest desire they had,
voters finally began to see themselves in the issue as
well as the humanity of those that affected. And in time,
those changed minds translated to votes in local elections and
the state house victories helped build momentum for the eventual
Supreme Court ruling, and that's the one that made gay
(30:10):
marriage legal. I mean, it is pretty remarkable, how you know,
reframing this argument can make all the difference. And I
see what you mean now about people using confirmation bias
to their advantage. But you know, you think about it.
Winning this campaign you describe essentially used reason and facts
to confirm the core beliefs that these voters already held,
and that was instead of trying to change those beliefs.
(30:32):
It's it's pretty clever as a tactic, and it actually
reminds me of what we talked about earlier with that
biology professor who tries to build those bridges between religion
and science. I mean, if we can manage to strip
away the political and the social hang ups around an issue,
we might find that we have more common ground than
we originally thought. I mean, that's the hope. And the
(30:53):
other thing to remember is that personal identity isn't static.
All of us change and grow as we go through life,
and as we accume life experiences, those inevitably altered the
people we are, and as our self identity shifts, there's
always the chance our beliefs and opinions will too, even
the more deep seated ones that used to define us. Well,
that's a great point. And actually I read this article
(31:14):
by a writer named Jennifer Hulette, and she wrote about
the potential of that kind of personal growth, and she
has some pretty good advice on managing our mind changing
expectations too, so I'll just go ahead and read it.
So she writes, of course, you can't precisely control how
people respond and evolve over time. It's a complex system,
and your input is just one variable among many working
(31:35):
to shape said system. All you can do is sow
the seeds and hope some fine fallow ground. And since
most of us can't see into a person's innermost thoughts,
there's no way of knowing where that fallow ground may lie.
Those seeds might not flourish for months or years. You
might not see any outward change at all for a
good long while. That doesn't mean your efforts are useless.
(31:57):
People can change their minds and progress be made on
a broad social scale don't despair just yet. Yeah, that
is good advice, right, And you know, because I'm not
sure we can top it, what do you say we
leave it at that and just start the fact off? Well,
I did have three or four points I wanted to make,
but I sort of feel like you already made up
your mind on this, so I can already hear the
(32:19):
factor off using, so we might as well start. So, yeah,
I told you peer pressure work. Okay, So I'm gonna
start us off on a slightly different note and talk
about not just changing our minds, but changing our brains. So,
first of all, do you meditate? You know, I've always
(32:41):
said I was going to start meditating, and I just
haven't gotten around to it. So I think I'll start
next week. I know I talked about it all the
time too, but I was reading a couple of articles
about the power of meditation, and specifically the serious compassion
meditation that to bed and monks do and nor scientists
have been studying them for years and have been prized
by just how dramatic and effect this kind of meditation
(33:03):
can have on their brains, and the studies have shown
that monks experienced these huge increases in gamma wave activity
at level they've never seen in other studies, And when
their brains were scanned, they found that the region most
affected during meditation was the left prefrontal cortex, which is
where a positive emotion comes from, and then it was
much much more active than the right prefrontal which is
(33:25):
actually where more negative emotions like anxiety come from. So
I think it's time for us to sign up for
the meditation class. All right, let's do it. But but
next week we we've got things to work on first.
So but before we start meditating, I'm going to bring
us back to changing people's minds, and this one in
particular is about food. So have you ever heard people
say that seafood and cheese should never be paired? Yeah? Definitely.
(33:49):
Well there's this great Las Obscure article and it's looking
at this topic and trying to find the origins of this.
And the article starts off I talk about how even
on things like the show Top Chef, you'll hear experts
say all the time things like, you know, even though
I don't like cheese and seafood together, this wasn't that bad.
And it's like that's the ultimate compliment you can give
(34:09):
that sort of pairing, which is just strange. And it
turns out we have Italy to blame for this thinking.
And it's actually kind of amazing how global events and
national identities can play into something like this. So it
had been the thinking among certain groups and Italy that
these two food types should not be served together. And
coming out of World War Two, you had a nation
(34:31):
in Italy that was feeling the threat of globalization. They
need to really cling to those national traditions and it's
natural that you'd find certain things to dig in on.
And food is obviously one of Italy's greatest exports because
it feels like everybody loves Italian food, and this was
the thing that they really stuck to and convinced much
(34:51):
of American culture, especially that seafood and cheese should not
be paired. So I've got a food related one as well.
It's emasy to read about the high ends companies attempts
to get Ketchup to catch on in Australia, like the
company had been successful and Sony plays around the world,
but in Australia American style, Ketchup only represents about three
to four percent of the tomato sauce market. In fact,
(35:13):
Hines even introduced this cookbook in the market there a
couple of decades ago, just to try to get the
public to understand how different ketchup is from like these
other tomato sauces. But I think what I found most
interesting is just how passionately some Australians are about this
topic and how they almost see it as an invasion
of their culture. And here are just a couple of quotes.
A famous Australian entrepreneur named Dick Smith, whose company makes
(35:34):
a competitive ketchup, said quote, they don't give us stuff
about Australian culture or a way of life. They basically said,
if we have one common label and call it ketchup
around the world, that's the best way we can make money.
And Scott cam who's a TV personality there, expressed concern
that the word ketchup might be replacing tomato sauce. So
here's what he said, what are we going to start
(35:55):
walking down the sidewalk instead of a footpath? As Australian say,
they're infiltrated to us. It's not our way of life.
So it turns out the passionate response was pretty effective
because just a few years ago Hines actually closed their
Australian catchup factory, and this is seventy years after opening it.
They finally just gave up and moved it to New Zealand.
(36:16):
That is impressive. I'm also going to start using the
phrase don't give us stuff about something. I kind of
like that alright. Well, in a different direction. During their
twenty three years working for Columbia Pictures, the three Stooges
never once got a raise. In fact, they were severely underpaid.
Apparently the head of the studio convinced them that they
weren't very popular. I don't know how he managed to
(36:37):
pull this off, and he almost made it seem like
he was doing them a favor just to renew their
contracts at the very last moment for the same price
each year, which is obviously a horrible to do, but
kind of remarkable that he pulled this off for twenty
three years in a row. Wow. So this gentleman named
Matthias Blow from Chicago actually convinced his wife to have
(36:59):
her teeth pull because of our dental issues. And then
he decided, without really asking her, not to get her dentures.
He just thought it was cheaper for them to serve
her soup every day rather than any food she could choose.
I guess he was trying to save money or something.
I don't get it. So she smartly took him to court,
where the judge called it quote the meanest trick he'd
(37:20):
ever heard, and he promptly ordered Mr Bloud to buy
her two sets of teeth and a beefsteak every week.
All right, well, I feel like we should try to
end on a happier note. So in the nineteen fifties,
fans used to go up to George Reeves, who played
Superman at the time, and try to test his strength,
(37:41):
and in fact, one time a young fan actually pulled
a gun on him, but the quick thinking Reeves convinced
the guy to hand it over to him on account
that if he shot at Superman, the bullet would bounce
off and likely hit and then a sent bystander. That's
really interesting, And uh, I do like in a week
that Batman and Catwoman are all the attention for getting married.
(38:01):
You decided to end on a Superman fact, so I
think you should get the prize this week. I'm gonna
act like that was intentional, but I'll take it either way.
I'm sure we've forgotten some great facts about the science
behind changing someone's mind, or even just fun stories about
the efforts to change people's mind. So we always love
hearing those stories and those facts from you. I have
(38:23):
to say, Mango, I was a little bit jealous hearing
from a listener earlier this week that she was trying
to convince a family member to name their child Mango,
which just seemed crazy to me. But anyway, I think
Will is a pretty good name too. But congratulations to
you on that, and we'd love to hear from you. Guys.
You can always email us part Time Genius at how
stuff Works dot com or hit us up on Facebook
(38:45):
or Twitter. But thanks so much for listening. Thanks again
for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of How
Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people
(39:06):
who do the important things we couldn't even begin to understand.
CHRISTA McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the
theme song and does the mixy MIXI sound thing. Jerry
Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gay blues Yer is
our lead researcher, with support from the Research Army, including
Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve Jeff
Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
(39:28):
And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a good review for us. Do we
do we forget Jason? Jason who
Guess what, mango? What's that? Will all right, I've got
a name for you. Have you ever heard of William Playfair?
I don't think so, but I do like that name. Playfair. Yeah,
it is a good name. That's all I had to
say about it. Just was a fun name. But actually
it's an interesting name because in this case, playing Fair
is not exactly what the world did for this guy.
(00:21):
So William was a Scottish man who pretty much invented
modern day infographics. You think about things like pie charts,
the bar graph, the line graph, all of those things.
I mean, it's pretty crazy to think that we actually
know who invented the bar graph for the pineff. It's
like knowing who invented the parallelogram or something. Well, why
didn't the world treat him well? Well, because they were
(00:44):
so stubborn. You see, prior to William coming along, you
had intellectuals who felt that information should always be presented
in writing and that trying to present information as pictures
was just dumbing it down and maybe even useless. So,
you know, just going back and and think about what
this guy's life was like. When when William was young,
he did a lot of work for his mathematician brother.
(01:06):
He'd help him record data, and over time he started
playing with this idea of putting data into a graphical format.
And William credits his brother with teaching him how to
do this, so he says of him, John taught me
to know that whatever can be expressed in numbers may
be represented in lines. And so you fast forward a
decade or so and he ends up apprenticing with James Watt,
(01:27):
And yes, it's that James Watt who's steam engine disastin
really changed the world. Yeah, and underwat supervision, William continued
to hone this craft of data representation, so he parts
ways with what floats around from odd job to odd job,
and finally, in the late seventeen hundreds, he publishes something
called the Commercial and Political Atlas, And what he does
(01:49):
in this is he basically has this giant collection of
bar and line charts that are illustrating pretty complex financial
information about European countries. So you think people would give
him some sort of credit for this, but it largely
gets ignored. So he follows it a few years later
with something called the Statistical Breviary, and he pretty much
(02:09):
introduces the world to the pie chart. And I'm like you,
I'm like, how did somebody actually invent this? But he
is the one that came up with this. And again,
you think people would realize how helpful these devices could be,
but instead he was mocked. I mean even his old boss,
James Watt. Here's how he described me. He first of all,
he described the book as quote mere plummery and described
(02:31):
William as a rascal. Yeah, and so you know, others
dismissed his work and they said geometrical measurement has not
any relation to money or to time, which is just absurd.
But this is how people were responding to this. So
you know, despite these contributions to the way we represent
all this complex data today, William Playfair was pretty much
(02:53):
ignored and died in poverty. That's sad. So why do
you think he was just like dismissed like that. Why
why couldn't they see how helpful these graphs and charts
could be. Well, because people are stubborn, and once a mind,
and especially a group's mind is made up, it's really
difficult to change that way of thinking. So it took
decades before people started to warm up to this idea
(03:14):
of you know, information being represented in these ways, and
now it's impossible to look at a magazine or a
newspaper article without seeing infographics all over them. And you know,
the story reminded us of just how difficult it can
be to change someone's mind. So today that's what we're
talking about, the science behind us, the science behind changing
(03:36):
people's minds. So let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners,
(04:00):
welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
always I'm joined by my good friend Manges Ticketer and
on the other side of the soundproof glass, the only
guy who still can't decide if he hears laurel or
Yung and Mango. I don't want to say Tristan's ever
done anything to annoy me, because he never has, but
this has been the closest to it. I mean, seriously,
he's probably listened to that clip a thousand times by now.
(04:23):
But that's our friend and producer, Tristan McNeil. I know,
I feel like the Internet moved on from this ages
ago now Tristan, it's time for you to do the same.
It definitely is. But we we've got a show to do.
And so while Tristan changes his mind over there probably
a dozen more times during this episode. Most of us
actually have the exact opposite problem. I mean, our minds
(04:44):
are made up about things and we won't change them
for anything or anyone. And this is something we've experience
all the time now, because, in case you haven't noticed,
we live in this increasingly polarized world. Whether it's an
unwillingness to compromise on political positions or even just these
silly debates about whether the newest Star Wars movie retroactively
(05:07):
ruined our childhoods, it seems like no one is willing
to give an inch on their opinions, and that's no
matter how many facts or reasoned arguments you throw at them.
So with all this discord in mind, we actually thought
it might be helpful to look into the science and
the psychology of how people change their minds, as well
as why we form such stubborn opinions in the first place.
(05:28):
That's right, and I actually thought we could start with
a bit of neuroscience, because as tough as it is
to change someone else's mind, it turns out that it's
just as hard to change your own, even about the
little things. And that's because even a simple last minute
decision like stepping left to avoid a puddle, that involves
a complex system of communication between several brain regions, and
(05:48):
that means that these split second decisions often come too
late for our bodies to act on. Okay, So then
in your example, someone decides to move left a second
too late, so they end up walking through the puddle anyway, right,
Except the time window is even shorter than that. So uh,
this team of researchers at Johns Hopkins, they recently concluded
that we have to change our minds within about a
(06:09):
hundred milliseconds and making a decision, and that's in order
for that new plan to be successful. So, as one
of the researchers put it, if we change our mind
about pressing the gas pedal even a few milliseconds after
the original go message has been sent to our muscles,
we simply can't stop. And this problem only worsens as
we age because our neural communication tends to get slower
(06:30):
and slower, which is one reason why it falls are
so common among the elderly, like their decisions to alter
course or even to cash themselves are simply made too
slowly to be carried out, And so does this time
limit apply strictly the decisions about physical movements like where
to walk or the pedal to press or or is
this also related to behavioral actions too, I mean, it
(06:51):
definitely applies to both. In fact, one aim of the
research I mentioned is to find ways to help people
with drug addictions make a faster decision, and this is
to ignore their pulses to use. So the idea is
that the sooner a person can change their mind about
a plan to use a drug, less likely they'll actually
be to act upon that plan. That's interesting, and I
guess it makes sense that time is such a big
(07:11):
factor in whether these last minute decisions are successful. I mean,
it's sort of how it goes with changing your mind
in general, right, Like, it seems like the longer the
person has held a certain opinion, the harder it is
for them to reverse that position. And that's, of course,
even if there's a lot of evidence that their view
may be wrong. Yeah, that sounds right to me, because
I mean, we do have facts and we have beliefs,
(07:32):
and ideally everyone would recognize and readily admit the difference
between those two things. But in practice, humans sent to
argue on behalf of a third category which are the
things we want to believe so badly that we treat
them as if they were facts even though they're not.
And that's where this confirmation bias comes in, and we
start to trust sources that just support our own viewpoints,
(07:53):
and that's over things that actually challenge our perceptions. Well,
and this is really something that we're all guilty of
and in some fashion, because as much as we like
to pretend that we're always rational and fair, the truth
is that each and every one of us has our
own biases. So and obviously it's just part of human nature.
There was actually this study about a decade ago that
(08:13):
found that as young as three months old, humans already
prefer the faces of those who share their skin color
to the faces of those who don't. And then by
the age of five, we're already conscious of the status
of our families and our friends circles, including how they're
viewed and treated in relation to other groups. So it
really isn't a question of whether or not people have biases.
(08:36):
It's more about the degree to which we let those
biases influence the way we view and interact with the world.
And studies have shown that if you can recognize your
bias on certain issues, you'll likely be more open to
changing your mind in light of any new evidence that
may be presented. That's really interesting. So well, what do
you think determine someone's willingness to change their minds? Then, well,
(08:56):
I think it comes down largely to what we're changing
our minds about, because if you think about it, we
change our minds based on new information all the time,
just in everyday life. I mean, you pick out something
to wear one day, you think it's going to be
a sunny day, you find that it's going to be raining,
so you change your mind and your clothes, and it's
no big deal. But you know, things aren't as easy
when it comes to something much heavier, like something people
(09:20):
consider deeply important or that may define them in some way.
So with issues like that, it's almost like no news
report or research study is going to change someone's mind
because at the end of the day, I mean, people's
misperceptions and false beliefs, they have less to do with
political affiliation or I don't know, maybe like a lack
of education, and much more to do with self identity,
(09:43):
and you know, with how they view themselves through the
lens of an issue that they care about. So I
think a great example of that is with evolution and
the Big Bang. Like a whole slew of studies have
shown that belief or disbelief in those theories typically aligns
with the person's religious and culturally. So if someone refuses
to change their mind about evolution, it doesn't mean they're
unfamiliar with the science. It's more that they see evolution
(10:06):
as a threat to their ideology and, by extension, their identity,
so changing their mind doesn't seem like a legitimate option. Well,
of course, that makes it extremely tricky to change someone's
mind about an issue like this, because I mean, how
do you make a case for something like evolution to
folks without making them feel like they're even their core
beliefs are under attack. Yeah, I mean, tearing down someone's
(10:29):
self identity definitely isn't the way to win them over.
But I was reading about this biology professor. He's named
Kenneth Miller, and he's made headway by highlighting the compatibility
of science and religion. And this is compared to the alternate,
which is, you know, harping on their apparent differences. So
whenever he comes up against someone who's anti evolution. He
points out connections between science and religion as a way
(10:49):
of showing that both can co exist. For example, this
is something I hadn't even heard before, but the Belgian
scientist who laid out the math behind the Big Bang,
he was actually a Catholic priest. Oh really, I've never
heard that somehow, But I'm actually glad you're bringing up
people's beliefs about science, because, aside from politics, that's probably
the area where we push the hardest to change each
(11:11):
other's minds. And that's whether it's about evolution, or climate change,
or genetically modified foods or I mean, there are so
many of these topics. And that's why I was surprised
to learn that when it comes to policy issues, Americans
actually trust science leaders more than they do leaders in
other sectors, and of course that includes business and even government.
(11:32):
Well I'm not so sure about that, because, like the
last time I checked, there's still this chunk of the
population who sware the Earth is flat. Well, this is
according to a two thousand and sixteen study by the
National Science Foundation, and apparently more respondents said they have
quote a great deal of confidence in the knowledge and
impartiality of scientists than they do in any other institution.
(11:53):
That's with the exception of the military. That's really interesting.
But if if people trust scientists so much, like, why
are there so many flat earthers out there? Well, I
think in general is the key phrase here, because most
people likely do recognize that science is a pretty rigorous
field and you know, has this long history of trying
to deliver accurate results. But you know, I think the
(12:15):
problem really starts when specific issues bump up against those
ideological beliefs that we were talking about before. And actually,
here's a quote from Scientific American that that gives a
good example of this. And here's what it says. Our
innate desire to be accurate conflicts with other motives, some
of them unconscious. People hold beliefs to protect important values.
(12:35):
For example, individuals who think of nature as sacred may
perceive genetic modification as morally wrong, regardless of its safety
or utility. People also whole beliefs that are rooted in
their emotions. A flu pandemic that can cause widespread death
among the innocent may cause feelings of fear and helplessness.
The one way to cope with those emotions is to
(12:56):
belittle warnings of a pandemic as impossible, which makes sense,
but it's also kind of scary to think about because
it shows just how bad we are at judging whether
our views are rational or irrational. Like, even if our
views are only based on bias or emotion, we can
still find ways to dupe ourselves into thinking those beliefs
are truly based on facts or reason. I mean, if
you think about global warming, one or two descending scientists
(13:19):
is all it really took to perpetuate the idea that
climate science is controversial or still a matter of debate
in the scientific community, and that kernel of doubt was
enough to validate the belief that it's all a hoax
and some other people's minds, even if they consider themselves
science supporters in general, Yeah, you're right, And it's it's
also kind of ironic when you think about it, because
scientists are probably the most adept when it comes to
(13:41):
changing their beliefs in light of new information that they
may have, and I mean revising theories to match the
current evidence. Is it's kind of their whole m o.
So it's it's it's pretty sad when you have issues
where there's near consensus among the scientific community, and yet
they're still so easily dismissed by some people. Yeah, and
to play devil's advocate, I do think some people just
(14:02):
aren't aware of what scientists actually think about certain issues.
Like a few years back, the Pew Research Center released
this report where thirty seven percent of respondents said that
they didn't think scientists agreed on climate change, while in
reality of scientists say climate change is a serious problem.
So in this case, the misinformation campaigned about how quote
(14:22):
unsettled the issue is really seems to have worked, like
people were convinced that the science was still uncertain and
they didn't take the time to double check that claim themselves. Well, see,
and to me that that says that although climate change
is a scientific issue at its core, it's really become
more of an ideological one for most of us. I mean,
nowadays our belief for disbelief in global warming is really
(14:44):
an expression of identity more than anything else, and it's
a way of showing which groups we belong to. Alright, Well,
I I do sense that we're heading into the realm
of politics here. So before we open that particularly kind
of worms, why don't we take a quick break. You're
(15:12):
listening to part time genius and we're talking about the
messy science of how to change another person's mind. Okay, Well,
so we mentioned how people tend to dig in their
heels on issues they connect to their own identities, and
as a result, they'll do any sort of mental gymnastics
necessary to avoid changing their minds on the subject. But
that makes a lot of sense with moral or religious considerations.
But you said global warming is a matter of identity
(15:34):
now too, So how does that work exactly? All right? Well,
think about how so much of human identity is tied
up with the groups that we form, whether that's family
or friends, or you know, colleagues or even political parties.
So the downside of having your individual identity wrapped up
in groups is is that we do run that risk
of giving into tribalism, you know, when those beliefs or
(15:57):
values of those groups are under question. And actually, this
is the same thing you'll see even with something as
extreme as like cults, because that sense of belonging becomes
so important that members will will actually ignore any information
that threatens that feeling. And in the same way, you know,
we don't want to lose membership, and the groups that
are important to us. And so today, you know, you
(16:19):
think about how important political parties are to a lot
of people, and it's a stronger part of our identity
than ever before. And for example, recent polls show that
not only do die hard liberals and conservatives try to
avoid spending time together whenever possible, they even feel unhappy
if a family member is married to somebody else from
across the aisle. So what you're saying is that the
(16:40):
issue of climate change isn't strictly a scientific one anymore.
It's become so politicized that it's basically a way to
signal which political and social groups you belong to. Yeah,
it is, and you know, and people aren't likely to
change their minds on something like that, and that's no
matter what the science says, because you know, on some level,
they don't want to jeopardize their standing with their group.
And it's actually pretty fascinating how much group mentalities factor
(17:04):
into all of our decision making. Well, that connection actually
goes even deeper, because some scientists now believe that humans
developed reason in the first place as this way to
deal with the problems associated with living in groups, which
is really interesting because we always assume that humans of all,
reason is a way to solve these abstract puzzles or
to like draw conclusions from evidence. But according to this
(17:26):
pair of cognitive scientists named Hugo Mercy and Dance Berber,
reason is really an adaptation to the hypersocial niche humans
have evolved for themselves, all right, So just to try
to break that down, I mean, what what what kind
of hyper social problems was reason actually meant to help
with the main one is making sure you don't get
taken advantage of by members of the group. So this
(17:49):
makes sense if you think about it, because humans first
lived together in small groups of hunter gatherers, where social
standing was everything and each member of the group needed
to pull their own weight. But inevitably you'd have some
lazy people in the group, you know, the type. They
always have an excuse for why they want to remain
warm or safe in the cave while everyone else risks
their neck to bring home dinner. I mean, those guys
(18:09):
are the worst. But actually, hang on, So, if I
understand you correctly, you're saying we developed reason mostly as
a way to sniff out hucksters and kind of maintain
our social standing exactly, And the reason was more a
tool for winning arguments than it was a means for
pursuing truth, and that's actually what gets us into trouble today.
We still argue primarily to win a battle rather than
(18:31):
to learn something new or changing another person's mind. I mean,
if you just think about all arguments people get into
on Twitter or Facebook and in the comment section of
news sites, like, people might back up their viewpoints with
stats or links, but no one is interested in learning
from the other people there, and instead the conversation becomes
this competition with like each side trying to score off
(18:52):
the other, and all these fans of both sides just
rallying to cheer them on in the form of likes,
well and and that kind of interaction. It also shows
how backwards our cultures approaches to facts and evidence. I mean,
we like to think we use facts and logic as
the basis for all of our beliefs, but in reality,
it's often the other way around, where the belief comes first,
(19:14):
and then we just pick and choose the facts and
evidence to really reinforce those beliefs, and then wield them
kind of like a sledgehammer, just to prove our points online.
And you know, given how vast the Internet is now
and how lousy it is with misinformation that seems credible
at first glance. Finding that evidence for just about anything
you believe is pretty easy these days. Yeah, and these
(19:36):
really are the glory days of confirmation bias. But you know,
the cheapening of facts isn't the only danger posed by
arguing to win. Another more insidious threat is the way
this mode of argument affects the way we view the
questions we're debating. All right, so what do you what
do you mean by that? Well, when people engage in
combative arguments, the expectation is that someone will win and
(19:58):
someone will lose. And like we've been saying, that's the
whole point. But the implication there is that every issue
will always have this clear cut, objective answer, like with
a math problem or something, so there's no accounting for
different views that still might be valid, and instead every issue,
no matter how nuanced, is produced to these absolutes. And
actually I came across the Salon article by a research
(20:20):
team who studied the psychology of this argue to win mentality,
and they had a nice summary of what's at stake here,
so they right quote. The more we argue to win,
the more we will feel that there is a single
objectively correct answer and that all other answers are mistaken. Conversely,
the more we argue to learn, the more we will
feel that there's no single objective truth. Then different answers
(20:42):
can be equally right. So the next time you're deciding
how to enter into an argument on Facebook about the
controversial question of the day, remember you're not just making
a choice about how to interact with the person who
holds the opposing view. You're also making a decision that
will shape the way you and others think about whether
the question itself has a correct answer. And I think
that's pretty good advice, But you know, for my own
(21:03):
peace of mind, I feel like I should point out
here that there are times when facts and evidence can
help change somebody's mind. And that's because there are plenty
of people out there who maybe they're misinformed or mistaken
about something, but but who don't cling to that false
belief and treat it like a cornerstone of their identity.
So in these cases, facts and reason can truly make
a difference. So for our listeners out there, don't give
(21:26):
up all hope on this kind of thing. I mean,
that's a good point, but what about all those other times,
like are really saying there's no way to change a
person's mind once they're personally invested in a certain view. Well,
I'm not ready to concede that just yet, because, as
it turns out, humanities hyper social nature that you've talked about,
it might just be the key to changing a person's
long held beliefs. But before we get into that, let's
(21:48):
take a quick break. All right. So this whole episode,
we've been talking about how difficult it is to change
people's minds on these deeply personal or emotionally charged issues.
(22:12):
And you know why, we mentioned how simply laying out
the facts doesn't work in these cases. There is new
research out of Penn State that suggests that doing so
can be effective so long as you deliver the facts
along with a heaping dose of peer pressure. So that's
when it's come to like using peer pressure to get
people to change their minds, which seems kind of shady
to me. Yeah, it feels like we're going back to
(22:34):
high school for this one. But but at least listen
to how the study went. It was It was pretty interesting. First,
the researchers gathered fifty eight volunteers from around the campus
and had them offer their opinions on the firing of
coach Joe Paterno. Of course, all remember that case, and
you know, he was the head of the football program
for years and then one of his long time assistance
I was accused of these you know, sexual abuses, and
(22:57):
you know, the thinking was that Paterno likely had knowledge
of the incidents and unfortunately kept quiet. So the college
covered its bass and decided to fire Paterno as well. Yeah,
I remember it was seen as a pretty controversial move
at the time, especially on campus. That's right. So what
they did in this study was that, you know, the
researchers pulled the participants on their opinions, and then they
(23:19):
split them up, and the first thirty four people took
part in these separate discussion sessions they called them, and
they were paired with two to four research assistants who
always took the opposing view of the volunteer. And before
these discussions commenced, everyone had been given this fact sheet
and a summary of the different arguments in Paterno's case.
(23:39):
Then things got underway and they'd go back and forth
about the case for something like thirty minutes, and these
research assistants would offer counter argument after counter argument. No
matter what the volunteer would say, they would always counter it.
And so after that, the participants each filled out a
ballot with their final opinion on Paternos firing, and the
researchers could then use that to track whose opinion had
(24:01):
shifted due to the discussion. Which is interesting, But what
happened to those other twenties something participants. Well, they also
read the same fact sheet and those case summaries, but
they didn't have those discussion sessions like the other group did. Instead,
they simply filled out the ballot with their final opinion.
Now for that second group, the ones who had only
(24:22):
read the materials, only eight percent of these people changed
their minds about Paternals firing based on what they had read.
But the people who took part in the discussions where
they were outnumbered, a shocking thirty eight percent of those
shifted their stance in response to that social pressure. I mean,
that's pretty wild. But who's to say the people who
changed their minds won't just change the back a few
(24:43):
months later. In fact, how do we even know they
really changed their minds in the first place, like they
could have been lying just to please the researchers. Right, Well,
those final ballots were anonymous, so I guess you could say,
in theory, the participants wouldn't have felt the need to lie.
But there's actually a similar study that dealt with his
concern more directly, and it was this experiment out of
Harvard back in two thousand eleven, and it basically found
(25:06):
that men judge a woman is more attractive when they
believe their peers also fine tore attractive. And so they
reached this conclusion by having fourteen men rate the attractiveness
of a hundred and eighty female faces on a scale
from one to ten. Then half an hour later, the
same men rated the faces again, but this time every
face that they looked at was paired with a numerical rating. Now,
(25:30):
these ratings displayed were completely random, but the participants were
told that these were the averages of the scores given
by their peers. And would you know at this bit
of suggested peer pressure actually worked, So all of the
men ended up rating the women that had higher rankings
as more attractive than they had the first time around. Okay,
so to tell me, how is that any more definitive
(25:50):
than the last study, Like they could have still been
lying just to seem like they had as good an
eye for beauty as the other guys or something. Well,
here's what's maybe the most interesting part of this. So
those participants underwent m r I scans that effectively proved
the men weren't lying. So the brain's pleasure centers lit
up more strongly during that second round of rankings, which
(26:11):
suggests that their opinions of the women's attractiveness actually did change.
That's fascinating, But you know, I still feel a little
conflicted about weaponizing peer pressure as a means of winning
people to your side. But there might be something to
the idea that people are more open minded in group
settings or during personal interactions. Like I remember reading how
back during World War Two, the US government tried to
(26:33):
sell the public on the idea of eating organ meat
because the thinking was that the choice or cuts of
meat could then be saved to feed the troops. So
they did research to find out the most effective ways
to get people to make the switch, and it turned
out that people who had a group discussion about the idea,
they were actually five times more likely to go along
with it than those who simply read about the merits
of organ meat from a nutritionist. Yeah, it's a pretty
(26:55):
significant difference. I mean, it's gross, but but it is interesting.
But to be honest, I'm not sure how far peer
pressure or personal interactions would get you when it comes
to changing minds on like stuff that really matters. I mean,
you're thinking in these scenarios, it's whether some person is
attractive or whether to cook up some organ meat for dinner.
But I think on heavier issues it feels like it'd
(27:18):
be a little bit different. Yeah, I know what you mean,
But I think the key might actually be to something
we talked about in the last segment, this idea that
people most readily accept facts that confirmed the beliefs they
already hold. Alright, so how are you seeing that as
a positive thing though? So one example of what I'm
thinking about is the legality of gay marriage, and that's
been the reality for years now, but the fight to
(27:40):
get it to that point was incredibly long and challenging
because in order to win the right to get married,
gay people needed to get straight voters and politicians on
their sides, and of course, historically speaking that's easier said
than done. In fact, all through the early two thousands,
same sex marriage activists lost one political battle after another
and things really weren't looking rate and a big reason
(28:01):
for this lack of success came down to messaging. Like
the common arguments from activists at the time centered on
the injustice of discrimination and how gay people should be
entitled to the same rights and benefits as you know,
straight people. But these kinds of legal and moral appeals
pretty much fell on deaf ears and it quickly became
apparent that the movement would need a new message, one
(28:21):
that was less political and more universal. So what sort
of strategy did they come up with? Well, there was
one advocate group, in particular, Freedom to Marry, that really
led the charge by analyzing data from hundreds of polls
and focus groups. Then, after a year of pouring over
this information, the team finally found the answers they were
looking for in a single public opinion poll. So, according
(28:44):
to the poll, when straight people were asked why they
had gotten married, they said it was for a quote,
love and commitment. But when these people were asked why
they think gay people wanted to get married, the number
one reason was for benefits. I mean, on the one hand,
it's obviously a pretty ugly assumption to make about complete
strangers that they're driven more by these selfish economic concerns
(29:04):
than by the same wholesome motives that that you might possess.
But I mean, it does sound like what you're saying
is the movement was able to somehow use this thinking
to their advantage anyway, that's right. So, in light of
this discovery of the team at Freedom to Marry quickly
launched this new nationwide campaign. It was called Why Marriage Matters,
and rather than selling the idea on political or economic rounds,
(29:25):
the campaign just focused on this universal idea that most
people already believed in, which is that love and commitment matter.
And little by little, this new message began to change
people's minds. Some of the work was done remotely through
TV or radio ads. There were even robocalls employed and
media appearances, but the most effective method by far was
these door to door visits from actual gain lesbian couples
(29:48):
who hoped one day to get married, and when faced
with real people expressing that same earnest desire they had,
voters finally began to see themselves in the issue as
well as the humanity of those that affected. And in time,
those changed minds translated to votes in local elections and
the state house victories helped build momentum for the eventual
Supreme Court ruling, and that's the one that made gay
(30:10):
marriage legal. I mean, it is pretty remarkable, how you know,
reframing this argument can make all the difference. And I
see what you mean now about people using confirmation bias
to their advantage. But you know, you think about it.
Winning this campaign you describe essentially used reason and facts
to confirm the core beliefs that these voters already held,
and that was instead of trying to change those beliefs.
(30:32):
It's it's pretty clever as a tactic, and it actually
reminds me of what we talked about earlier with that
biology professor who tries to build those bridges between religion
and science. I mean, if we can manage to strip
away the political and the social hang ups around an issue,
we might find that we have more common ground than
we originally thought. I mean, that's the hope. And the
(30:53):
other thing to remember is that personal identity isn't static.
All of us change and grow as we go through life,
and as we accume life experiences, those inevitably altered the
people we are, and as our self identity shifts, there's
always the chance our beliefs and opinions will too, even
the more deep seated ones that used to define us. Well,
that's a great point. And actually I read this article
(31:14):
by a writer named Jennifer Hulette, and she wrote about
the potential of that kind of personal growth, and she
has some pretty good advice on managing our mind changing
expectations too, so I'll just go ahead and read it.
So she writes, of course, you can't precisely control how
people respond and evolve over time. It's a complex system,
and your input is just one variable among many working
(31:35):
to shape said system. All you can do is sow
the seeds and hope some fine fallow ground. And since
most of us can't see into a person's innermost thoughts,
there's no way of knowing where that fallow ground may lie.
Those seeds might not flourish for months or years. You
might not see any outward change at all for a
good long while. That doesn't mean your efforts are useless.
(31:57):
People can change their minds and progress be made on
a broad social scale don't despair just yet. Yeah, that
is good advice, right, And you know, because I'm not
sure we can top it, what do you say we
leave it at that and just start the fact off? Well,
I did have three or four points I wanted to make,
but I sort of feel like you already made up
your mind on this, so I can already hear the
(32:19):
factor off using, so we might as well start. So, yeah,
I told you peer pressure work. Okay, So I'm gonna
start us off on a slightly different note and talk
about not just changing our minds, but changing our brains. So,
first of all, do you meditate? You know, I've always
(32:41):
said I was going to start meditating, and I just
haven't gotten around to it. So I think I'll start
next week. I know I talked about it all the
time too, but I was reading a couple of articles
about the power of meditation, and specifically the serious compassion
meditation that to bed and monks do and nor scientists
have been studying them for years and have been prized
by just how dramatic and effect this kind of meditation
(33:03):
can have on their brains, and the studies have shown
that monks experienced these huge increases in gamma wave activity
at level they've never seen in other studies, And when
their brains were scanned, they found that the region most
affected during meditation was the left prefrontal cortex, which is
where a positive emotion comes from, and then it was
much much more active than the right prefrontal which is
(33:25):
actually where more negative emotions like anxiety come from. So
I think it's time for us to sign up for
the meditation class. All right, let's do it. But but
next week we we've got things to work on first.
So but before we start meditating, I'm going to bring
us back to changing people's minds, and this one in
particular is about food. So have you ever heard people
say that seafood and cheese should never be paired? Yeah? Definitely.
(33:49):
Well there's this great Las Obscure article and it's looking
at this topic and trying to find the origins of this.
And the article starts off I talk about how even
on things like the show Top Chef, you'll hear experts
say all the time things like, you know, even though
I don't like cheese and seafood together, this wasn't that bad.
And it's like that's the ultimate compliment you can give
(34:09):
that sort of pairing, which is just strange. And it
turns out we have Italy to blame for this thinking.
And it's actually kind of amazing how global events and
national identities can play into something like this. So it
had been the thinking among certain groups and Italy that
these two food types should not be served together. And
coming out of World War Two, you had a nation
(34:31):
in Italy that was feeling the threat of globalization. They
need to really cling to those national traditions and it's
natural that you'd find certain things to dig in on.
And food is obviously one of Italy's greatest exports because
it feels like everybody loves Italian food, and this was
the thing that they really stuck to and convinced much
(34:51):
of American culture, especially that seafood and cheese should not
be paired. So I've got a food related one as well.
It's emasy to read about the high ends companies attempts
to get Ketchup to catch on in Australia, like the
company had been successful and Sony plays around the world,
but in Australia American style, Ketchup only represents about three
to four percent of the tomato sauce market. In fact,
(35:13):
Hines even introduced this cookbook in the market there a
couple of decades ago, just to try to get the
public to understand how different ketchup is from like these
other tomato sauces. But I think what I found most
interesting is just how passionately some Australians are about this
topic and how they almost see it as an invasion
of their culture. And here are just a couple of quotes.
A famous Australian entrepreneur named Dick Smith, whose company makes
(35:34):
a competitive ketchup, said quote, they don't give us stuff
about Australian culture or a way of life. They basically said,
if we have one common label and call it ketchup
around the world, that's the best way we can make money.
And Scott cam who's a TV personality there, expressed concern
that the word ketchup might be replacing tomato sauce. So
here's what he said, what are we going to start
(35:55):
walking down the sidewalk instead of a footpath? As Australian say,
they're infiltrated to us. It's not our way of life.
So it turns out the passionate response was pretty effective
because just a few years ago Hines actually closed their
Australian catchup factory, and this is seventy years after opening it.
They finally just gave up and moved it to New Zealand.
(36:16):
That is impressive. I'm also going to start using the
phrase don't give us stuff about something. I kind of
like that alright. Well, in a different direction. During their
twenty three years working for Columbia Pictures, the three Stooges
never once got a raise. In fact, they were severely underpaid.
Apparently the head of the studio convinced them that they
weren't very popular. I don't know how he managed to
(36:37):
pull this off, and he almost made it seem like
he was doing them a favor just to renew their
contracts at the very last moment for the same price
each year, which is obviously a horrible to do, but
kind of remarkable that he pulled this off for twenty
three years in a row. Wow. So this gentleman named
Matthias Blow from Chicago actually convinced his wife to have
(36:59):
her teeth pull because of our dental issues. And then
he decided, without really asking her, not to get her dentures.
He just thought it was cheaper for them to serve
her soup every day rather than any food she could choose.
I guess he was trying to save money or something.
I don't get it. So she smartly took him to court,
where the judge called it quote the meanest trick he'd
(37:20):
ever heard, and he promptly ordered Mr Bloud to buy
her two sets of teeth and a beefsteak every week.
All right, well, I feel like we should try to
end on a happier note. So in the nineteen fifties,
fans used to go up to George Reeves, who played
Superman at the time, and try to test his strength,
(37:41):
and in fact, one time a young fan actually pulled
a gun on him, but the quick thinking Reeves convinced
the guy to hand it over to him on account
that if he shot at Superman, the bullet would bounce
off and likely hit and then a sent bystander. That's
really interesting, And uh, I do like in a week
that Batman and Catwoman are all the attention for getting married.
(38:01):
You decided to end on a Superman fact, so I
think you should get the prize this week. I'm gonna
act like that was intentional, but I'll take it either way.
I'm sure we've forgotten some great facts about the science
behind changing someone's mind, or even just fun stories about
the efforts to change people's mind. So we always love
hearing those stories and those facts from you. I have
(38:23):
to say, Mango, I was a little bit jealous hearing
from a listener earlier this week that she was trying
to convince a family member to name their child Mango,
which just seemed crazy to me. But anyway, I think
Will is a pretty good name too. But congratulations to
you on that, and we'd love to hear from you. Guys.
You can always email us part Time Genius at how
stuff Works dot com or hit us up on Facebook
(38:45):
or Twitter. But thanks so much for listening. Thanks again
for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of How
Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people
(39:06):
who do the important things we couldn't even begin to understand.
CHRISTA McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the
theme song and does the mixy MIXI sound thing. Jerry
Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gay blues Yer is
our lead researcher, with support from the Research Army, including
Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve Jeff
Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
(39:28):
And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a good review for us. Do we
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