Code Brain | Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds

The economist J.K. Galbraith once wrote: "Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof."

Leo Tolstoy put it even more bluntly: "The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."

Why is this? Why don't facts change our minds? Why do people persist in believing wrong ideas? And what, if anything, can change someone's mind?

01

The Logic of Sticking to False Beliefs

For humans to survive, they need to have a reasonably accurate view of the world. If your mental model of reality differs too much from actual reality, you'll struggle to take effective action.

Yet truth and accuracy are not the only things the human brain cares about — our need for belonging is also extraordinarily strong.

Humans are social animals. We want to fit in, connect with others, and earn the respect and approval of our peers. This tendency is essential to our survival. For most of our evolutionary history, our ancestors lived in "tribes." Being separated from your "tribe" — or worse, expelled from it — was effectively a death sentence.

Understanding the truth matters, but staying in the "tribe" matters too. While these two desires often work well together, they occasionally come into conflict.

In many everyday situations, social connection proves more useful than understanding the truth. Harvard University psychologist Steven Pinker says: "People are embraced or condemned according to their beliefs, so one function of the mind may be to hold a set of beliefs that bring the belief-holder the greatest number of allies, protectors, or disciples, rather than beliefs that are most likely to be true."

We don't always accept things because they're correct. Sometimes we believe things because believing them makes us look good to the people we care about.

I think Kevin Simler put it well: "If a brain anticipates that it will be rewarded for adopting a particular belief, it's perfectly happy to do so, and doesn't much care where the reward comes from — whether it's pragmatic (better outcomes resulting from better decisions), social (better treatment from one's peers), or some mix of the two."

False beliefs can be socially useful even if they're factually useless. For lack of a better phrase, we might call such beliefs "factually false but socially accurate."

02

What Changes Our Minds?

Persuading someone to change their mind is, fundamentally, asking them to change their "tribe." If someone abandons their beliefs, they risk losing social ties. Loneliness would be the worst outcome; nobody wants their worldview torn apart. If you want to change people's minds, the truly effective approach is to befriend them, bring them into your "tribe," draw them into your circle. This way, they can change their beliefs without fear of being abandoned by their social relationships.

The British philosopher Alain de Botton's advice is to start by sharing a meal with someone you disagree with:

"There is a peculiar benefit in sitting at a table with a group of strangers — an unparalleled, quirky advantage that makes it harder to hate people with abandon. Abstraction feeds prejudice and conflict. Yet the intimate contact required by sharing a meal — distributing plates, unfolding napkins, even asking a stranger to pass the salt and pepper — disrupts the beliefs we previously held. We no longer easily assume that outsiders wearing unusual clothes and speaking in distinctive accents should be sent home or attacked. Nothing is more effective at promoting tolerance between suspicious neighbors than forcing them to eat supper together."

What generates "tribalism" and hostility is not difference itself, but the distance between people. As distance shrinks, so does understanding. This reminds me of Abraham Lincoln's famous line: "I don't like that man. I must get to know him better."

Facts don't change our minds. Friendship does.

03

The "Spectrum" of Beliefs

A few years ago, Ben Casnocha shared an idea with me that I still haven't been able to refute: "The people most likely to change our minds are those who agree with us on 98% of topics."

If someone you know, like, or trust has a radical idea, there's a high probability you'll believe them, or at least take them seriously. Because in most areas of life, you already agree with them, so even if this particular thing is radical, there's a good chance you'll change your mind. But if the person proposing the idea disagrees with you on many things to begin with, you'll easily dismiss them as "crazy." We can visualize this distinction using a method — mapping beliefs onto a "spectrum." If you divide the range of beliefs into ten units and find yourself at position 7, there's little point in trying to persuade someone at position 1 — the gap is too wide. When you're at position 7, you're better off spending your time on people at positions 6 and 8, gradually pulling them in your direction.

The most heated arguments usually happen between people at opposite positions, but the most common learning comes from those nearby. The closer you are to someone, the more likely one or two beliefs you don't share will seep into your own thinking and shape it. The farther someone proposing an idea is from your current position, the more likely you are to reject it outright.

When we try to change others' minds, it's hard to get them to jump from one side to the other. You have to let their ideas smoothly "slide" toward you.

Any idea completely foreign to your current worldview feels threatening. The best place to think about threatening ideas is in a "non-threatening" environment.

Therefore, books are often better tools than conversation or debate.

In conversation, people carefully consider their status and appearance. They want to save face, to avoid looking foolish. When confronted with a series of unsettling facts, people tend to double down on their current position rather than openly admit they were wrong.

Books resolve this tension. When reading a book, the conversation happens inside a person's head, with no risk of being judged by others. When someone isn't in a defensive state, it's easier to remain open.

Argument is like a full frontal assault on a person's identity; reading a book is like planting a seed of an idea in someone's brain and letting it grow in its own way. When a person has to overcome a pre-existing belief, enough wrestling already happens in their mind. But when they don't have to wrestle with another person face-to-face, a bit more internal struggle is far less unsettling.

04

Why "Wrong" Ideas Persist

There's another reason bad ideas continue to exist: people keep talking about them. For any idea, silence is death. Ideas are remembered only when they are repeated. Only when they are constantly repeated can people accept them. An idea never spoken or written down fades from memory along with the person who conceived it.

I've noted that people repeat ideas to signal they belong to the same social group. But most people miss a crucial point:

People repeat bad ideas even when complaining about them. Before you criticize an idea, you have to reference it. You end up repeating the very ideas you want people to forget — but of course, people can't forget them, because people keep talking about them. The more you repeat a bad idea, the more likely people are to believe it.

I call this phenomenon "Clear's Law of Recurrence": the number of people who believe an idea is directly proportional to the number of times it has been repeated in the past year — even if the idea is false.

Every time you attack a bad idea, you are feeding the very monster you want to destroy. As one Twitter employee wrote, "Every time you retweet or quote tweet someone you're angry at, you're helping them. You're spreading their bullshit. For the ideas you condemn, silence is hell."

Your time is better spent supporting good ideas than dismantling bad ones. Don't waste time explaining why a bad idea is bad. In doing so, you're only fanning the flames of ignorance and stupidity.

The best thing for a bad idea is to be forgotten. The best thing for a good idea is to be shared. This reminds me of Tyler Cowen's line: "Spend as little time as possible talking about how other people are wrong."

Truly productive communication feeds good ideas so that bad ideas starve.

05

The Intellectual Soldier

I know what you might be thinking. "James, are you serious right now? I'm just supposed to let idiots get away with it?" Let me be more direct: I'm not saying pointing out errors or criticizing bad ideas is useless. But you have to ask yourself: "What is my goal?"

Why do you want to criticize bad ideas in the first place? Presumably, you want to criticize bad ideas because you believe the world would be better if fewer people believed them. In other words, you believe the world would be better if people changed their minds on some important topics.

If your goal is to genuinely change people's minds, then I don't think criticizing them is the best approach.

Most people argue to win, not to learn. As Julia Galef points out: "People often act like soldiers rather than scouts." Soldiers are engaged in intellectual combat, hoping to defeat those different from them. Victory is the driving emotion. Scouts, meanwhile, are like intellectual explorers, slowly trying to map the terrain together with others — and here, curiosity is the driving force.

If you want people to accept your ideas, you need to act more like a scout than a soldier. At the core of this approach is a beautiful question posed by Tiago Forte: "Are you willing to lose an argument in order to keep the conversation going?"

06

Kind First, Right Second

Haruki Murakami once wrote: "Always remember that to argue, and win, is to break down the reality of the person you are arguing against. It is painful to lose your reality, so be kind, even if you are right." In the moment, it's easy to forget that our goal is to connect with the other person, to collaborate with them, to befriend them, to bring them into our "tribe." If we become too obsessed with winning, we forget the goal of connection. It's easy to spend your energy labeling people rather than working with them.

The word "kind" comes from the word "kin." When you're kind to someone, it means you treat them like family. I think this is a genuinely good way to change someone's mind. Start with sharing a meal, give them a book, develop a friendship.

Be kind first, then try to be "right."

Original: Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds https://jamesclear.com/why-facts-dont-change-minds

About the author: James Clear is a leading expert on habit formation and the founder of the Habits Academy. He is a New York Times bestselling author. The Habits Academy he founded has become a preferred training platform for many organizations and individuals seeking to cultivate good habits in life and work.