Why facts don't change minds.
Sophie Tarnowska
Founder WeDoSomething.org and Director of Versus, a dialogue-building program that teaches critical thinking, communication skills and Emotional intelligence for collaborative leadership, cultures and true inclusion.
Have you ever wondered why it's so hard to change people's minds, even when they're faced with clear facts? Me too. So I did some research, and the reason is this: from an evolutionary perspective, to change someone's mind is to potentially destroy someone's identity.
Facts can feel like an attack on our identity.
We all have many identities. For example, I am a mother, immigrant, educator, dancer, writer, Canadian, québécoise, artist, activist, daughter, ex-wife, etc...
Some of these identities will shift or fade with time, while others are core identities that I consider to be the foundation of who I am. Those are the ones that my brain and body will fight hardest to protect - which will show up as closed-mindedness.
The more closely you hold to an identity, the less capable you will be of being rational when someone pokes at it: this is a biological fact, not a reflection of who you are. When you're faced with information that contradicts or challenges your worldview, your brain interprets it as though it were an attack on your physical body. Here's why:
‘’Human beings cannot allow their ingrained political or ideological beliefs to be destroyed by “facts” because for many people those beliefs define them and are a central component of their self-identity. To destroy those beliefs is to effectively destroy the person, so any information that protects these beliefs is valuable, even if it’s fake.’’
HOW IT WORKS:
The amygdala - our brain’s security system - was developed to ensure our survival. It is part of the limbic system, and is thought to play important roles in emotion and behaviour, so understanding how it works is essential to understanding how what we feel and what we do are intertwined.
"The amygdala is generally responsible for powerful emotional reactions. Specifically, the amygdala induces the bodily conditions that correspond with emotional states - elevated heart rate, muscles tightening, jaw clenching, etc... In fact, there is significant evidence that the amygdala induces these physiological changes first, and our brain has to play catch up in order to generate (label) the subjective emotional experience of stress, anger, excitement, etc. that corresponds to that physiological state." - Antonio Damasio, author Descarte's Error
When it detects danger, the amygdala responds before our rational brain (the frontal cortex) can process/notice the danger. It overrides the rational part of the brain (frontal cortex), narrows your peripheral vision, increases your heartbeat, and even limits your ability to hear to only what you're focused on. You literally 'lose your (rational) mind'. This fight, flight, freeze or fawn response takes over the body before we're able to notice that there is anything to be afraid of.
How does this affect me?
Essentially, it means that we are ignoring the facts that may be the most relevant to our identities, but also the hardest to stomach.
For example, the more closely you identify with a current event/issue, the less likely you are to be able to think rationally, or consume information that challenges the worldview that uphold this identity. This is your brain trying to protect your core identities. Think of it as a fire alarm, drowning out everything but the information that makes you feel safe.
Until you start noticing this, you may think you are open to opposing ideas, but your brain is not.
How do I return to my reasonable, less emotion-driven, mind?
Just like the amygdala is the ’emergency trigger’ for your fight, flight, freeze or fawn reflexes, the rational brain (prefrontal cortex) is the ‘ emergency off ‘ switch.
Notice the physical symptoms that may accompany a stress response: holding your breath, gritting your teeth, increased heart rate, a knot in your stomach, and/or strong emotions such as outrage, grief, self-righteousness, rage. These are clues that your body's security system is activated, and your reasoning mind may not be.
The more you notice, the less your unconscious reactions are driving your behaviours, and the more you can choose your responses.
''for us to be able to stop being overcome with emotions, we need to learn how to activate the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex makes the amygdala quiet down. Research shows that those people who can manage emotions have well-developed connections between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex.'' - The Psychological Impact of Negative News
Recognizing and naming emotions puts the rational brain back in the driver's seat. And that comes with its own challenges.
The researcher and author Brené Brown and her team conducted a 5-year survey on 7,000 people, and asked them to name how many emotions they could recognize as they experienced them. The average number of emotions? Three: angry, sad, happy:
''Brown explains that experiencing emotion is a lot more complex than that. The problem is, most of us can't express that complexity. And if we can't talk properly about what we experience, we can't easily make sense of it, or share it with others. And that can be a big deal, for our mental and even physical health.''
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2. Let go of the idea that your decisions and behaviours are (mostly) rational. or even, conscious.
We overestimate our capacity for reasoning and rational thought, and we underestimate the power of our unconscious brain on our reactions and behaviours.
Look up: ''how much of my behaviour is unconscious?''. It turns out that 90-95% of our behaviours are unconscious - the rest is governed by unconscious bias, habit, background and more. Building the self-awareness to notice your emotions and the ideas/behaviours they engender is a superpower, the foundation of emotional intelligence - and the first step to developing critical thinking skills.
3. Apply this knowledge to the people you disagree with:
Now that we understand that human beings often perceive facts as an attack, we're better equipped to notice when this is happening to others. Rather than judging them, you can now understand that they are experiencing a biological reaction they aren't even aware of. And that the more convincing your facts are, the more they will be perceived as an attack to the person you wish to influence.
This will help you counter attribution bias, which is a faulty thinking pattern we all use that essentially says: when I behave badly, it's because there was an outside influence ("I was really tired, and it made me cranky that day"). But when someone outside our group/identity behaves badly, we attribute it to a moral flaw in their character ("she's a cranky person").
Now you know that sometimes people are physically unable to cope with the information you want them to absorb, unless you do #4.
4. Create safety:
Whether you are in a stress response or the person you're trying to communicate with is, the only way to come out of it is to notice it and create a sense of safety for the nervous system. The fastest and most powerful way to do this for someone else is to listen to them, without interrupting them or disagreeing.
Being heard creates a sense of being seen and valued - and that is the definition of safety.
I hope this is useful. I believe that the better we understand ourselves, the better we can understand each other - even if that means learning new facts that force us to rethink our allegiance to identities and beliefs that limit our understanding of ourselves and of each other.
This information is part of my Versus program: we teach media literacy, digital citizenship, dialogue skills and emotional intelligence to help workplaces, schools and individuals practice constructive communication for a less polarized and ore unified world.
Our upcoming workshop Beyond the Screen: Tools for Polarizing Times will offer practical tools and skills to help you feel less consumed by the current events you care about but can't control. More info here.
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11 个月WOW, this is an excellent article and explains so much of the science & psychology of the work that I do! Thank you for sharing.
Founder WeDoSomething.org and Director of Versus, a dialogue-building program that teaches critical thinking, communication skills and Emotional intelligence for collaborative leadership, cultures and true inclusion.
11 个月Sylvie La?tre tagging you in my communication articles!