Why do people change their minds

I recently started following BBC Future and I found an interesting article on the “Surprising Reason Why People Change Their Minds.”

“Kristin Laurin of the University of British Columbia examined people’s attitudes before plastic water bottles were prohibited in San Francisco. The ban wasn’t favoured by everyone, but was introduced nonetheless. Just one day later, her team again tested public attitudes. Already, views had changed: people were less opposed. There hadn’t been time for people to change their behaviour to adjust to the practicalities of the ban. So it seemed their mindset itself had changed. 

…we rationalize the things we feel stuck with. It’s as though we free up brain space to get on with our lives by deciding it’s not so bad, after all. Laurin likens this to a ‘psychological immune system’. “

Quote of the Day: “The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.” -Voltaire

Next one up, a 2014 article on The Best Way To Win an Argument

“Recruiting a sample of Americans via the internet, they polled participants on a set of contentious US policy issues, such as imposing sanctions on Iran, healthcare and approaches to carbon emissions. One group was asked to give their opinion and then provide reasons for why they held that view. This group got the opportunity to put their side of the issue, in the same way anyone in an argument or debate has a chance to argue their case.

Those in the second group did something subtly different. Rather that provide reasons, they were asked to explain how the policy they were advocating would work. They were asked to trace, step by step, from start to finish, the causal path from the policy to the effects it was supposed to have.

The results were clear. People who provided reasons remained as convinced of their positions as they had been before the experiment. Those who were asked to provide explanations softened their views, and reported a correspondingly larger drop in how they rated their understanding of the issues. People who had previously been strongly for or against carbon emissions trading, for example, tended to became more moderate – ranking themselves as less certain in their support or opposition to the policy.”

Apparently, the best way to win an argument is to make people explain their positions (how will this work) ; once they do it -they must go through it- their position becomes less solid.