A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Change

Much debate has emerged in recent years about the ability to change minds. We see articles on how to change others’ minds, how to change your own mind, why people do or do not change their minds, and so on. One thing people seem to be able to agree on is that once someone has settled upon a belief, changing their mind is nearly impossible. There are numerous studies that verify this and show that not only do people not change their minds when presented with contrary information, this information usually makes them even MORE intractable, MORE convinced that their opinion is the right one. How can this be?

Most social scientists explain this through the idea of Cognitive Dissonance. This is a state of mind where your actions and beliefs do not line up, or where you are required to hold two contrary beliefs at the same time. For example, people may be uncomfortable making out a will or buying life insurance, because of a belief that they are going to live forever, or people may know smoking causes lung cancer, but find themselves addicted to smoking.

Cognitive Dissonance and You

When it comes to mind-changing, cognitive dissonance often occurs because your brain has literally formed pathways based on what you believe. Let us say, for example, that you believe Donald Trump is a narcissistic con artist whose only interest is personal gain. If a report came out that Trump has secretly been donating millions of dollars to orphanages all throughout the country, and that he has so zealously guarded his tax returns and financial information in order to keep this secret, there is no way your brain would allow you to believe it. Your first thought would be “Is this a FOX News story? It’s probably made up.” If it appeared in multiple media outlets, you might think “all the media is pandering to Trump now” or “someone must be blackmailing him to help those orphans” or “he knew the information would be leaked all along,” or “the orphanages are a tax shelter,” anything but that Trump did something altruistic.

Because if you did accept that Trump did something altruistic, it would severely hamper your brain’s ability to process new information. If I was wrong about Trump, something I was so sure about, how can I know I’m right about anything? What is the point of gathering information and drawing conclusions if a new piece of information can completely shatter it? It would be much better to believe one outlandish “fact” (e.g. they aren’t real orphanages), than to have to reevaluate all the conclusions you have made up until this point.

Naturally, it works the other way. If a Trump supporter is confronted with the fact that Trump settled a fraud case for 25 million dollars with the people he conned with a fake University, it’s much easier to say “well CNN made that up” or to just assume it’s a lie and never investigate, then to start from scratch and say, how can Donald Trump, who cares about us so much, who gave up his high-paying job and easy life to lead us, have done something so wrong? Have I been wrong about him? Have I been wrong about the Republican party that nominated him? Have I been wrong about every friend and family member who I trusted who has said Trump is a hero? You can see why most people have little investment in objectively analyzing new information.

The problem, of course, is that these new pieces of information are not cumulative. The next time you hear something pro or anti-trump, depending on where you stand, you won’t put it with that last piece of contrary information to “build a case.” That last piece of information has already been dealt with. It’s gone. The only thing that could potentially change your mind is a single piece of information so massive that it is impossible to ignore. For example, if Trump’s son were to deliver a video live on FOX News showing him handing over a top-secret document to a Chinese national. Even then, you might decide that Trump was always good up until that point, and was just pushed over the edge by harassing liberals. Or you still might decide that the video was faked, and it's Junior who went bad.

Is it Good to Be Open-Minded?

Now, when people’s intractability in mind-changing is discussed, it is usually presented as a flaw. e.g. “People are so stupid they can’t recognize facts.” Furthermore, when people are interested in changing minds, they are usually really interested in changing the minds of others, not their own.

While I personally like the idea of being open-minded and being able to change my mind when presented with new information, I also accept that being obstinate about your positions, while frustrating, is adaptive. Having a changeable mind may have a long-term benefit, but in the short term, it’s better to be close-minded. You don’t have to experience dissonance, and you don’t have to have conflicts with your peer group, which presumably feels the same way about most things that you do. You can argue with people who disagree with you and feel good and confident that you are on the right side, and you’re not going to change their minds either way anyway, so you don’t have to worry about bringing someone into an incorrect position.

“But changing minds is the way to make the world a better place!” Is it? The main way changing minds can make a better world is if it translates into major physical real-world change, and this rarely happens. Progress usually occurs by force. Environmentalists argued with fossil fuel advocates until they were blue in the face for decades, but it’s only due to the fact that people can finally feel the world heating up that change is starting to occur. An individual changing the mind of another individual, when it happens, just like an individual vote, has a negligible effect on a macro level.

“But that’s short-term thinking! It's just instant gratification! Instant gratification is stupid!” Again, I say, is it?

In Defense of Instant Gratification

In the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment, researchers, eager to study the benefits of delaying gratification, presented children with a scenario. The child was given a marshmallow to eat. They were told, however, that if they could wait 15 minutes, they would get two marshmallows. Some kids waited, some kids ate the marshmallow right away.

The participants were then followed for years, and it was discovered that the children who waited and got the two marshmallows did better in life. They had higher SAT scores, lower obesity, better social skills, and other benefits.

This experiment was used to justify delaying gratification, to suggest that the kids who delayed employ better life strategies, and that you too, can have a better life by delaying gratification.

So why do so many of us go for the short-term route? Why do we spend money instead of saving it? Why do we overeat instead of getting in shape? Why do we ignore climate change? Are we stupid? Are we greedy? Do we just completely lack self-control?

Well, no. Because you see, the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment is not the end of the story. Years later, researchers did a follow-up study in which before presenting the marshmallows, participants were exposed to either reliable or unreliable experiences. For example, they were given a few crayons to draw with, with the promise that the researcher would bring a bigger box of crayons in a little while. For some, the bigger box came, for others, it didn’t. Unsurprisingly, the ones who did not get the promised bigger box were much worse at delaying gratification.

This version of the experiment much better models the condition most of us live in. We opt for short-term rewards over long-term rewards because the long-term rewards are not guaranteed. I could spend the next five years meticulously recycling and only buying sustainable products, and then the Russians could start a nuclear war. I could suffer through the rigors of quitting smoking just to die of COVID. I could scrimp and save every extra penny only to have that savings wiped out by a stock market crash or a medical crisis. We choose short-term benefits because we live in an increasingly uncertain world, and we’re afraid of suffering for nothing.

So, bringing this back to the idea of mind-changing. Mind-changing is hard work. You could break down all your preconceived notions and build them back up again, only to get new information that shatters your rebuilt schema. Or worse, only to discover that nothing has changed. After all, if you are confident that America is deteriorating into fascism, and you convince one person that you are right, all you have done is doomed another person to helplessly watch the inevitable descent.

So, what do we do? Do we stop trying to change people’s minds? Do we stop exhorting ourselves to be open-minded? As to the first, I would say it depends. If it makes you feel good to expound upon your position, then go ahead and keep doing it. But know that if someone has already made up their mind, no argument, no matter how fact-laden, no matter how well-reasoned, is going to change it. If you want to change actual minds, your only chance is to present your case to young people who may still be forming opinions, or to people who genuinely haven’t made their mind up about certain issues.

As to changing your own mind? I would say if you don’t want to, don’t be so hard on yourself about it. There are a lot of short-term benefits to being close-minded and the payoff for changing your view is far from guaranteed. If you are really motivated to be an objective person, and finding the actual truth has value to you (finding the actual truth, not confirming that what you already believe is the actual truth), then go ahead and stay open-minded and accept the consequences.

Tips for staying open-minded:

1. Always accept that you could be wrong about anything—that there could always be a piece of information you don’t have.
2. Your beliefs MUST be falsifiable—that is to say, you must be able to imagine a condition where you would concede that you are wrong about something, and then be able to prove to your satisfaction that that condition does not currently exist.
3. Beware confirmation bias--don't only look at sources you know will confirm your belief. Seek out contrary opinions and sources you are not necessarily inclined to agree with.
4.  Practice arguing the position from the other side. People really believe things that you do not. If the argument you come up with feels weak and like something no one could possibly believe, you are probably not examining the best possible counterargument.
5.  Don’t have an ego. It’s okay to be wrong about things. People are wrong all the time about all sorts of things. It doesn’t mean you’re stupid, or a bad person.