How Minds Change - Summary

One of those books that relies on divulging information in dribs, drabs, and out of order to write a book instead of an essay. After a very lengthy exposition ends up concluding a template to change other peoples minds shockingly similar to Lindsay's "How to Have Impossible Conversations." Establish that you have good intentions. Try to get people to quantify the scale of the belief. Then ask to justify the scale repeat. Minds change incrementally.

He does give some additional theorizing about when its easier to change minds. For instance, when peoples social situations change (leave a cult). Or people haven't revisited an issue and are just thinking lazily.

The most interesting idea is the Elaboration Likelihood Principle for peoples minds changing. The idea is when people don't care much about an issue they're persuaded by the number of arguments and who makes the argument. 10 lousy reasons to hold position x is more effective than one good reason. When people care about an issue (because they stand to win/lose) they care about the quality of the arguments. 10 lousy reasons will make them less likely to agree with a position. One good reason will make them more likely.

Another idea I like (that I've seen elsewhere) is the idea that people filter evidence through their pre-exisitng beliefs. So say if you're a committed anti-capitalist when you learn about slavery you'll think 'oh the wests wealth came from slavery' but if you're a capitalsit you might think 'because the west was rich it was easily able to exploit people elsewhere'

I do kind of disagree with the premise that its hard to change peoples minds. And that arguments are a bad way to do so. When I listen to intelligence squared or munk debates many people change their positions. I think the issue is plausibly that there are some issues where people already heard lots of arguments about the issue. And then repeating old arguments isn't helpful.

He also has a lazy leftism that gets boring. Every example he gives of people changing their minds has a liberal tilt.

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