There’s the old, oft-repeated story, that if frogs are placed in a pot of water that is gradually heated, they will not realize the danger of eventually being boiled alive until it’s too late. However, says psychologist and science journalist Adam Grant, frogs will leap out as soon as they sense the heat. But we human beings are feeling the increasingly hotter world temperatures caused by climate change but are not leaping out and are not doing all we can to turn the heat off.
How do we loosen the boundaries in ourselves? How do we let go of rigid ideas of who we are or must be or of what is real? And how do we help others do the same?
One of the biggest obstacles to changing anyone else’s mind, or our own, is realizing not only it can be done but it’s happening all the time. For example, before 2012, the country was opposed to gay marriage. In 2013, the majority supported it. In 2015, the Supreme Court struck down all state bans on same-sex marriage.
Another science journalist, David McRaney, in his book How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion, argues we evolved to work to consensus, to helpful adaptation. But it can happen in punctuated spurts, times of great argument and division and no clear change, then a sudden burst of change. Hopefully, we’re near such an evolutionary adaptation now.
And lately, I’ve found in myself this same resistance to facing people with rigidly held opposing ideas. It seems impossible to reach or even talk with those who disagree with me about climate change, or the “Big Lie,” for example. With the global earth and ocean temperatures rapidly reaching such high levels, the increasing number of dangerous weather events, wildfires, droughts, and floods all make climate change seem so obvious. And I saw the 1/6 attempted coup and the big lie enacted live on national TV. It just feels like what seems so clear to me should not be so hard for others to see.
But part of that difficulty comes from the fact that for all of us, our beliefs and even rationally constructed understandings of the world are the ground our lives stand on⎼ or appear to stand on. To question those views can feel like we’re washing away the ground under our feet; it can feel like abandoning our sense of ourselves.
In Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know, Grant points out we often prefer the “comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt.” We resist rethinking or talking with those with different views, not only because of the time and energy required, but because it would mean questioning ourselves. Such questioning might add more unpredictability to an already unpredictable, often threatening world. We need to recognize that what we believe is not who we are. We’re a universe infinitely larger than our worst opinions. It takes courage, not only to face those with diametrically opposing beliefs, but to unlearn what we believe, or think is true.
Especially now, it’s become difficult to change our minds. It can even be dangerous. Politically, acts mislabeled as flip-flopping are considered by many cowardice or a sin.
Bob Inglis, in a Tedtalk on this topic, says flip-flopping is more accurately used to refer to changing our opinion frequently to fit what we think others want to hear. But changing our minds when provided with reliable evidence or reasons is a valuable action to take; it’s not flip-flopping. It might even save our lives. If we can’t change our own mind, how can we adapt to new situations? How can we grow as a person? Rigidity is another sort of death.
Grant recommends that to talk with people with views different from our own, get in the door by finding points of agreement and recognizing the humanity of the person we’re speaking with. “I have a lot of respect for people who stand by their principles.” Speak as if we were interviewing them. Listen carefully, summarizing what we hear, and asking how they know what they think they know. This way we uncover their beliefs. It’s more proficient to guide someone to self-discovery than to try to impose our views. Only later do we share evidence that what they think is true is possibly based on inaccurate information.
We can adopt the mode of a scientist testing a hypothesis. Be humble, and aware of our limits. We can doubt what we (think we) know and be curious about what we don’t know, so we can update our viewpoints when enough evidence warrants it.
Many of Grant’s suggestions and conclusions about how to talk with others are surprising. For example, he argues against the assumption that for others to hear us we need to make things simple or turn complex situations into tiny sound bites.
We might fall victim to a binary bias, and talk about being right or wrong, believers or nonbelievers⎼ or of two sides of an argument when there are countless sides. Studies show that as consumers of information we favor content with complexity or diversity; we favor communicators who recognize uncertainties. News reports that include caveats or exceptions are more likely to keep a listener’s interest and trust. So, when trying to persuade someone, we need to admit the limits of what we know.
People are also more likely to listen to us if we emphasize the positive and can demonstrate the collective benefit of that action; for example, we can discuss how an action can create a more sustainable and caring community or more personal freedom.
Before speaking with others, first speak to ourselves, feel any feelings, hear any thoughts or expectations. When we listen with kindness to what we’re telling ourselves, we can hear more clearly what we’re telling others. When a belief proves costly or painful, we can ask ourselves: Where did this idea develop? For what reasons do I believe it? What evidence opposes it? Which evidence is more reliable, and accepted by most scientific sources? What can help me develop into a stronger, more compassionate human being?
Talking with others when we feel safe to do so, mindfully sharing information even with those we think we don’t agree with, changes us for the better. When we imagine others as inhuman monsters, we become monstrous in our treatment of them. When we recognize anyone we speak with is not our idea of them, but a feeling, breathing being, our compassion grows. When we empathically feel their presence, we have more of a chance of reaching them.
We’re all fragile beings, trying to live as best we can in a universe that exceeds our ability to control or understand it. Our capacity to think rationally and critically is one of our most powerful aids in survival. But the light rationality creates doesn’t show us things as they are. It shows abstractions, although sometimes helpful, beautiful, and entrancing ones. It can fool us into imagining we can separate the rational from the emotional, us from the universe, now from eternity. But there’s no separation. And the more we allow ourselves to slow down and be present with this reality, the better able we’ll be to protect it.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
