Why Most Attempts at Persuasion Fail, and What Actually Works

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These five pillars form the foundation of every conversation that actually changes minds. They work together as a system. Miss one, and your ability to influence collapses. Master them, and you can reach even the most entrenched believer.

Shared Humanity: The Foundation of Access

Shared humanity means recognising that the person you are trying to influence is a thinking, feeling human being who deserves respect. This is strategic necessity, not moral niceness. The moment someone detects that you view them as stupid, evil, or contemptible, they will shut down completely. Their brain will categorise you as a threat, and every word you say afterwards will be filtered through that lens of defensive hostility.

This becomes acutely difficult when someone expresses views you find morally repugnant. Someone defends a policy you believe causes genuine harm. Someone dismisses concerns you consider fundamental to human dignity. Your instinct is to signal your moral superiority, to make clear that their position is, in your view, outside the limits of acceptable behaviour, judgment, or morality. This instinct destroys your influence. The person you are trying to reach will hear only the judgement, and they will harden their position in response.

The skill lies in separating the person from their position. You can challenge someone’s views on criminal justice, or abortion, or religious freedom with full force whilst treating them as a reasonable person who has arrived at different conclusions. This is what allows sustained engagement. When someone feels respected as a person, they remain psychologically capable of reconsidering their positions. When they feel attacked as a person, reconsideration becomes psychologically impossible. They would experience changing their mind as capitulation to someone who disrespected them.

Consider a conversation about welfare provision. You believe generous welfare prevents destitution and reflects our obligations to one another. The other person believes welfare creates dependency and undermines personal responsibility. If you communicate that their view makes them a bad person, someone lacking compassion or understanding, they will defend their position more fiercely. If you communicate that you understand how someone thoughtful could reach that conclusion whilst you draw different ones, they remain open to hearing your perspective. The difference determines whether influence is possible.

Curiosity Over Certainty: The Mechanism of Change

Curiosity over certainty means approaching conversations with genuine interest in how the other person arrived at their conclusions. This is the mechanism that creates openings for influence. When you approach someone with visible certainty that you are right and they are wrong, you force them to defend. Defence means marshalling every argument for their existing position, which neurologically reinforces that position. You have made them more convinced, not less.