Your new post is loading...
Belief change is a war of attrition. There's usually no one argument that can suddenly get someone to see the light.
Changing someone's mind about a high-stakes position is a challenge many of us confront. Maybe your customers have preconceived ideas about your brand or products that you'd like to influence, or perhaps upper management is leaning toward a decision that you disagree with. In order to get someone to reconsider their views, it's important to understand the role of coherence in supporting beliefs.
Going back to the 1950s, psychologists have recognized the interplay among different aspects of knowledge that influence our overall set of beliefs. Building off that research, the cognitive scientist Paul Thagard has more recently put forth the concept of "explanatory coherence."
Via The Learning Factor
"Psychologically speaking, changing someone's mind is pretty difficult, even when you don't have politics to factor in." This is a very powerful aritcle that addresses an issue most of us will have faced in our careers and social life. It is simply difficult to change minds overnight, let alon instantly. When I shifted from a school that dealt with traditional pedagogy to one that was one of the pioneers in experiential pedagogy, I simply couldn't take it! The adage, 'unlearn everything' to learn something new, did not work with me for a whole six months! It took about two years finally to make me understand that experiential pedagogy does work, and that students will get to the end point on their own, provided they are given subtle cues and hints. It takes skill and science to convince people to change overnight, and just telling them to 'unlearn everything' might not be a good idea! What matters is to 'sow incoherence', make people feel worse about their current beliefs, supply them with information from different sources that support a change in their beliefs, and yes what matters is to 'address their emotional attachment to what they believe.' It is only then that you might be able to bring about a change in someone's mind!
Psychologically speaking, changing someone's mind is pretty difficult, even when you don't have politics to factor in.