Speaker 1: You know, TT, we're always talking about what we believe. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think one of my favorite things that you say
Speaker 1: is it's okay to change your mind. It's okay to
Speaker 1: say you don't know and to start something new, unlearn, relearn. Yes,
Speaker 1: and I think it's time to bring that message to
Speaker 1: the masses. I'm TT, and I'm Zachiah and from Spotify.
Speaker 1: This is Dope Labs. Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly
Speaker 1: podcast that mixes hardcore science, pop culture, and a healthy
Speaker 1: dose of friendship. This week, we're talking all about changing
Speaker 1: our minds. Specifically, we really want to know more about
Speaker 1: how we may make up our minds, what happens when
Speaker 1: someone tries to change it, and why we often see
Speaker 1: such strong reactions when people are trying to convince one
Speaker 1: another of something different. Let's get into the recitation. So
Speaker 1: what do we know? I know, at least anecdotally, it
Speaker 1: feels like people's minds can't be changed. They're in the
Speaker 1: comment section acting a fool marker on the Twitter threads.
Speaker 1: I told you so, right, it's wild. I mean, social
Speaker 1: media is a prime example of people not changing their minds.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter how many facts you bring, there's still
Speaker 1: gonna be people who are very adamant about their perspective.
Speaker 1: That's the nice way I'm going to say it. There's
Speaker 1: always been this type of polarization around really big issues
Speaker 1: that are really complex and loaded, but it feels like
Speaker 1: now we're even seeing this same type of energy. People
Speaker 1: are bringing a lot of smoke for small issues that
Speaker 1: normally we would say we're trivial. People are just grouping
Speaker 1: up in a way that I feel like we didn't
Speaker 1: used to see right, And I don't know what that
Speaker 1: says about us. I don't know what it says about
Speaker 1: our brains. It's like something is happening to us. And
Speaker 1: we talked about this in an earlier episode Lab thirty
Speaker 1: seven with doctors Hofer and Sinatra about how even when
Speaker 1: folks are presented with information that is actually true, they
Speaker 1: will still decide to believe the opposite. And we also
Speaker 1: know that a major part of how people get the
Speaker 1: misinformation and choose to stick to it is related to
Speaker 1: our cognitive biases. Doctor Hofer and doctor Sinatra told us
Speaker 1: that too, And so it feels like all that stuff
Speaker 1: is somehow kind of related to changing minds. So what
Speaker 1: do we want to know about changing minds. I want
Speaker 1: to know what is happening in the brain when we
Speaker 1: change our minds, both over time and in the moment.
Speaker 1: What is actually going on? The superhero of me wants
Speaker 1: to know how to change someone's mind. I want to
Speaker 1: know how to do it. How do I breach folks
Speaker 1: who are seeing things differently. I want to know what
Speaker 1: the science says about shifts in public opinion like widespread
Speaker 1: beliefs and regional norms, and when folks are refusing to
Speaker 1: change what's happening there, even when they sometimes have the
Speaker 1: evidence that they should change. It's a lot to learn.
Speaker 1: Let's jump into the dissections. Our guest for today's lab
Speaker 1: is David McRaney.
Speaker 2: I'm David McCraney. I'm a science journalist and author and podcaster,
Speaker 2: if that's even a thing people say anymore.
Speaker 1: David has written several books, including You're Not So Smart,
Speaker 1: which is also the name of his podcast. His latest
Speaker 1: book is called How Minds Change. But before we can
Speaker 1: talk about how our minds change, let's talk about what
Speaker 1: happens when we make up our minds in the first place.
Speaker 1: And this has to do with epistemology. Epistemology is the
Speaker 1: theory of knowledge. It's a branch of philosophy that is
Speaker 1: all about what it means to know something, and it's
Speaker 1: a lot of what David writes about in his book. Now,
Speaker 1: epistemology is really complex. Our brains are constantly processing new information,
Speaker 1: and we touched on this in some earlier labs. You
Speaker 1: might remember this with Lab ten of lie to me
Speaker 1: how people can have totally different memories of the same event,
Speaker 1: or Lab fourteen in the Art of the con with
Speaker 1: doctor Lsana Harris, where we talked about scams and why
Speaker 1: we fall for them. So before we jump into changing
Speaker 1: our minds, let's really construct how we make up our minds. Well,
Speaker 1: the first thing to consider is how our brains are
Speaker 1: working to decide what we know in the first place.
Speaker 1: In some of our earlier episodes and in David's book,
Speaker 1: there's the understanding that our brain is never as it
Speaker 1: was before. It's constantly changing. With each interaction. Neurons are firing,
Speaker 1: creating new connections or reinforcing old ones, physically changing the
Speaker 1: brain from one interaction to the next, and that's what's
Speaker 1: called neuroplasticity.
Speaker 2: The brain is this thing that it creates a virtual
Speaker 2: reality in your head, and that virtual reality gets more
Speaker 2: and more complex over time as we grow up and
Speaker 2: experience things and learn things and start forming identities and
Speaker 2: group identities.
Speaker 1: And so when we consider how we experience and learn things,
Speaker 1: David turned to twentieth century psychologist Jean Piget PSA is
Speaker 1: considered the father of what is known as genetic epistemology,
Speaker 1: and this type of epistemology is basically studying knowledge that
Speaker 1: centers your interaction with the environment. Pha developed two concepts
Speaker 1: which are really helpful in understanding what's going on when
Speaker 1: we change our minds or resist changing. Those concepts are
Speaker 1: assimilation and accommodation.
Speaker 2: Assimilation is when something's ambiguous or uncertain or unfamiliar. We
Speaker 2: we often will try to interpret it as just another
Speaker 2: example of what we already think, feel, and believe. Often
Speaker 2: is confirmation that we were right already. Accommodation is when
Speaker 2: something keeps coming around, like the counter attitudeinal counterfactual information.
Speaker 2: Just so many anomalies build up that you must accommodate
Speaker 2: to make sense of them.
Speaker 1: David provides a great example of both assimilation and accommodation.
Speaker 2: What a child sees a dog for the first time.
Speaker 2: Oftentimes they'll point at it and say, you know, what
Speaker 2: is that and you say a dog, and in their
Speaker 2: minds something categorical happens, something like non human walks on
Speaker 2: four legs, furry, has a tail, it's alive. That's a dog.
Speaker 1: But if you see a dog that's a different color,
Speaker 1: it still fits what you know. It's furry, it walks
Speaker 1: on four legs, it's got a tail, But now you
Speaker 1: have this additional layer of oh, it can be another color.
Speaker 1: But David says, sometimes it's more than just adding that
Speaker 1: single layer, and you have to bring in a lot
Speaker 1: more information. Let's say you see something else that fits
Speaker 1: your example of what a dog could be.
Speaker 2: So then later on when they see a horse, they
Speaker 2: might point out it and go dog, or they might
Speaker 2: say big dog. If they're a really sort of advanced child,
Speaker 2: that's assimilation, Like this seems to fit with what I understand.
Speaker 2: It's walks on four legs, it's furry, it's an animal,
Speaker 2: it's live a dog, right, And you're like, no, no,
Speaker 2: that's horse, and so they have must accommodate to bring
Speaker 2: that into their model.
Speaker 1: Here we get an example of both assimilation and accommodation.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing is that it's always happening, and we're
Speaker 1: doing that right now in this podcast. We're always updating
Speaker 1: our model of reality. And the older we get, the
Speaker 1: more information we consume, the more complex this process gets,
Speaker 1: and the higher the stakes get.
Speaker 2: Your model reality gets so complex that you start being
Speaker 2: careful when you walk this tightrope, as I describe it
Speaker 2: in the book, this tightrope of if you update when
Speaker 2: you shouldn't, then you will become wrong, and if you
Speaker 2: don't update when you should, you'll stay wrong. So we're
Speaker 2: very careful on this tightrope. But at a certain point
Speaker 2: the model is so complex that it's better to err
Speaker 2: on the side of well, it got me here at least,
Speaker 2: so I will be careful about updating. So that's the
Speaker 2: baseline resistance, and it's very rational, it's not weird, it's
Speaker 2: not unusual. It's a logical good thing to do. But
Speaker 2: that resistance starts bumping up from that baseline depending on
Speaker 2: all sorts of other motivations that come into play.
Speaker 1: And this makes sense. It aligns with what we learn
Speaker 1: from Doctor's Whole Friend Sinatra in Lap thirty seven about
Speaker 1: how cognitive biases help us stay in the models that
Speaker 1: our minds have already created and predicted about the world
Speaker 1: around us. Remember like we talked about with doctor Wendy
Speaker 1: Suzuki in our lab about good anxiety. If your brain
Speaker 1: doesn't know what's going on, it's on constant alert. We
Speaker 1: can't take that type of alerting new thing, new thing,
Speaker 1: new thing, it's too much. So it makes sense for
Speaker 1: your brain to want to be able to predict what
Speaker 1: should happen and to kind of dampen those alerts and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is supposed to be like this, This fits my
Speaker 1: model of what should be happening in the world. Your
Speaker 1: brain wants to have some predictive power so that it
Speaker 1: won't be startled or alarmed. Right, It's like when you're
Speaker 1: in bed at night and you might hear your air
Speaker 1: conditioner cut on. If your brain doesn't store that sound
Speaker 1: as a sound that you know, you're gonna wake up
Speaker 1: ready to fight. Every single night.
Speaker 2: You are building your model of reality each experience that
Speaker 2: you have, and that means that there are more opportunities
Speaker 2: when you're young to encounter things that are ambiguous, uncertain,
Speaker 2: and unfamiliar. But the same things that you do as
Speaker 2: an adult, you'll do as a child, you will base
Speaker 2: your updating on how much does this match what I
Speaker 2: already understand? How much does this counter what I saw before?
Speaker 2: How new is this? And then you also think how
Speaker 2: will this reflect upon my identity? You also have different
Speaker 2: sources of trust as a child. Mostly it's your parents
Speaker 2: and the culture that you're steeped within.
Speaker 1: And that makes a lot of sense. A lot of
Speaker 1: what we believe as adults is based off of how
Speaker 1: we were raised by our caregivers, our parents, our grandparents,
Speaker 1: whatever community that we are a part of. But then
Speaker 1: we're also developing a model of reality as we grow.
Speaker 1: So maybe in your house every Friday it was pizza night.
Speaker 1: That's the culture of your family. But then as you
Speaker 1: get older you say, you know, maybe I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: do pizza. I'm gonna do something else. You can overlay
Speaker 1: that with things that you know or things that you
Speaker 1: are experiencing as you are moving through life. And not
Speaker 1: only are you creating this social framework, not only are
Speaker 1: you building this physical neural network in your brain, there
Speaker 1: is also chemical changes that happen when things are as
Speaker 1: expected or different from expected. We ask David to tell
Speaker 1: us what chemical is involved in the brain and related
Speaker 1: to changing your mind.
Speaker 2: Dopine is often looked at as the reward chemical, but
Speaker 2: it's really not how that works. It's the chemical that
Speaker 2: alerts you as to whether or not your expectations have
Speaker 2: been parted. So it's more than the chemical of surprise. Now,
Speaker 2: oftentimes those surprises are positive when something happens that doesn't
Speaker 2: matter for expectations. Basically, the brain sort of sits in
Speaker 2: a soup of dopamine and the levels go up and
Speaker 2: down all throughout the day, depending on how what we
Speaker 2: experience match what we expect to experience.
Speaker 1: Okay, so now you may be thinking, I know what
Speaker 1: happens when I learn. I know what happens when I
Speaker 1: know things, or at least when you think you know things.
Speaker 1: I know some of the chemical underpinnings of when things
Speaker 1: go as expected and when they don't. But when are
Speaker 1: y'all going to tell me how to convince somebody else
Speaker 1: that they have it wrong and they should see it
Speaker 1: my way. That's after the break. We're back, but before
Speaker 1: we get to the rest of this lab, we have
Speaker 1: to let you know what's coming up next. Next week,
Speaker 1: we heard the call. We will be talking about monkey pops,
Speaker 1: So make sure you check it out to get the
Speaker 1: truth about Monkey Pock's not just what's being spread on Instagram.
Speaker 1: Let's get back to today's lab. We've been talking to David mcraaney,
Speaker 1: a journalist, lecturer, and author of the book How Mine's Changed.
Speaker 1: In David's quest to understand how Mine's changed, he talked
Speaker 1: to canvassers, people who are in cults, you name it,
Speaker 1: anybody who's changing someone else's mind.
Speaker 2: What blew my mind about doing that was all these
Speaker 2: different groups had never met each other, and most of
Speaker 2: them were not aware of any of the psychological literature
Speaker 2: that helped explain what was working. Yet they all came
Speaker 2: up with pretty much the exact same thing, and if
Speaker 2: they had steps, the steps were pretty much the exact
Speaker 2: same steps.
Speaker 1: So we've arrived at the pivotal question how to change
Speaker 1: someone's mind. First things First, ask yourself why you want
Speaker 1: to do this?
Speaker 2: This is really important. I know we all believe we
Speaker 2: have the moral high ground. I know we all believe
Speaker 2: that we are factually correct and everybody else is dumb.
Speaker 2: I know that's part of being a person. For each issue,
Speaker 2: ask yourself, why do I want to do this? And
Speaker 2: then socratic method of your way all the way down.
Speaker 2: Like my dad was really into the birth or conspiracy
Speaker 2: theory back in the day. He's, you know, a white
Speaker 2: man in the Deep South, and he's got all those
Speaker 2: things to go with that Vietnam VET. And I remember
Speaker 2: really getting upset about this and wanting to change his
Speaker 2: mind about it. And I was like, well, why do
Speaker 2: I want to change his mind? Well, because he's wrong, Like, well,
Speaker 2: why does that matter to you? Well, because he's being
Speaker 2: told things by people that are causing harm in this world?
Speaker 2: Why is that important to you? And then I just
Speaker 2: keep going down, down, down, down, And at some point
Speaker 2: I had to admit I just wanted to be able
Speaker 2: to trust this person the way I trust other people.
Speaker 2: I didn't want it to be an US versus them
Speaker 2: thing with my own father. And that's much more base
Speaker 2: than what I may have assumed at first was my motivation.
Speaker 1: David said that really opened up conversation with his dad
Speaker 1: in a way that probably wouldn't have happened if David
Speaker 1: had just insisted he was right. So step one is
Speaker 1: bill rapport. Don't try to manipulate people. You have to
Speaker 1: be transparent, tell them what you're trying to pomplish and
Speaker 1: involve them in the process. Yes, ask them to be
Speaker 1: a part of the process with you and explore why
Speaker 1: you disagree with each other.
Speaker 2: You and I can get together and try to solve
Speaker 2: the mystery of why do you think we see this differently?
Speaker 2: Are you in on that? Could you be on that?
Speaker 2: And like, ask them, don't tell them, don't push You
Speaker 2: have to pull the string, not push it.
Speaker 1: Step two is the frame the issue as a number.
Speaker 1: This gets us out of the right verse, wrong, all
Speaker 1: or nothing to a more nuanced approach to an issue.
Speaker 2: If the issue is an attitude claim, you would say
Speaker 2: how strongly do you feel about this? Like on a
Speaker 2: scale from zero to ten. If it's a fact based claim,
Speaker 2: say how confident are you? How certain are you this
Speaker 2: is true? From zero to ten? Give it a number.
Speaker 2: That's that next thing that I want you to do,
Speaker 2: which is why does that number feel right to you?
Speaker 2: Which is that moment that most people will go mmm,
Speaker 2: and you start thinking in a way that you haven't
Speaker 2: considered before it. But also it gets you out of
Speaker 2: the debate frame. It gets you out of the argument frame.
Speaker 2: Now we're exploring something together.
Speaker 1: David did this to me? Okay? Asked me what my
Speaker 1: favorite movie was. I said it was a Rival. He said,
Speaker 1: how do you rate it? I said a ten. He
Speaker 1: said why a ten and not an eight? I said,
Speaker 1: cause it's good. But then he was like, well, what
Speaker 1: did you like about it? I was like, maybe it
Speaker 1: isn't eight. I'm sorry. I doubt it Arrival, but it
Speaker 1: really got me out of debate mode and more to
Speaker 1: exploratory mode. He actually agreed with me that it was
Speaker 1: a good movie before I gave it a number, and
Speaker 1: so he was kind of working and pulling apart, like
Speaker 1: why I gave it a ten? And I guess that
Speaker 1: helps him understand my value system. When I tell him
Speaker 1: why it's important to me, you.
Speaker 2: Just listen and repeat and reflect and hold space. And
Speaker 2: I'm telling you, it seems like this can't be enough.
Speaker 2: I have watched videos from street epistemology and deep canvassing
Speaker 2: and smart politics, and then in therapeutic models motivational interviewing,
Speaker 2: which much of this is based on, and I have
Speaker 2: watched people talk themselves out of their position over and
Speaker 2: over and over again by just holding space.
Speaker 1: In this way. Of course, there is a caveat when
Speaker 1: you're dealing with prejudice, racism, sexism, or really hot issues
Speaker 1: like guns or abortions. You might not want to do this,
Speaker 1: especially if you're the target of that prejudice. And that
Speaker 1: is totally fine.
Speaker 2: I get that you feel this way and that it's
Speaker 2: not weird to feel that way. But if you want
Speaker 2: to change someone's mind, if that's your goal, do you
Speaker 2: have to approach it in this non judgmental, listening sort
Speaker 2: of way. And I know that sucks. It's weird. It's
Speaker 2: easy to justify any of your behaviors, and it's easy
Speaker 2: to rationalize what you want to do without introspecting the
Speaker 2: antecedents of all those things. Why do I want to
Speaker 2: do that? And that's also true in arguing. Why do
Speaker 2: I feel so strongly? Why does that person feel so strongly?
Speaker 2: It's very easy for a person in an argument to
Speaker 2: come up with justifications and rationalizations, and then I'll take
Speaker 2: my justifications and rationalizations and I'll throw them at yours
Speaker 2: and we'll do one of those things where we If
Speaker 2: you're online, I share links, you share links, I share videos,
Speaker 2: you share videos, and nothing happens. The reason nothing happens
Speaker 2: is because we are motivated reasoners, so we have some
Speaker 2: motivation at play that let us look at all the
Speaker 2: information available and cherry picked the evidence that supported the
Speaker 2: emotion that we felt regarding that issue. Then we put
Speaker 2: all that into a collection.
Speaker 1: David explains that motivated reasoning causes us to judge information
Speaker 1: differently because we're biased emotionally, so even if the evidence
Speaker 1: isn't really there, we want it to fit what we've
Speaker 1: already decided. I know plenty of people like that.
Speaker 2: And then we meet another person. We take stuff out
Speaker 2: of that collection and go, this is why I believe this,
Speaker 2: But that's not why you believe it. That was something
Speaker 2: you found after the fact, that was at the end
Speaker 2: of the process. But they also have done the same thing,
Speaker 2: and so they're like, oh, really, well, here's why I
Speaker 2: believe what I believe And you start throwing this stuff
Speaker 2: back and forth that never actually was the reason why
Speaker 2: you feel the way you feel.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting, and David talks about the truth being
Speaker 1: tribal in his book Yes. A lot of this has
Speaker 1: to do with your identity and how the truth aligns
Speaker 1: with your identity about you and your own group. He
Speaker 1: talks about this experiment where people are challenged with an
Speaker 1: issue and they have to choose a side or decide
Speaker 1: what the truth is. When that happens, their fight or
Speaker 1: flight mode is activated. Wow. And interestingly enough, the more
Speaker 1: they're asked to think about ideas that are associated with
Speaker 1: their own identity, the more the response ramps up. And
Speaker 1: that's because your brain's primary job is to protect yourself,
Speaker 1: and that extends past your physical self to your psychological self.
Speaker 1: We're social people, and part of being social is to
Speaker 1: make groups. And you can imagine groups where resources are limited.
Speaker 1: It's us versus them, and research has found that no
Speaker 1: matter how big or small a difference is between two
Speaker 1: people or two groups, folks will lean into that us
Speaker 1: versus them mentality. Yeah, and so as a result of that,
Speaker 1: because it's us versus them, they will do whatever it
Speaker 1: takes in order to establish a hierarchy that we are
Speaker 1: better than you, even if it's to our own destriment. So,
Speaker 1: now that we know that we have this us versus them,
Speaker 1: are we stuck in our own groups? Well, we argue forever.
Speaker 1: I don't want to argue.
Speaker 2: Reasoning is not flawed or irrational. It's biased and lazy,
Speaker 2: and that's actually a good thing. Arguing is a good thing.
Speaker 2: I think all the arguing we're doing online is the
Speaker 2: greatest thing ever and it's going to lead to a
Speaker 2: better world. I really truly believe that. I do also
Speaker 2: believe the context in which we find ourselves performing these
Speaker 2: arguments is not suited to the way that we evolve
Speaker 2: to interact with other human beings who disagree with us,
Speaker 2: and we'll have to fix that over time.
Speaker 1: David says we have two systems when it comes to debate, deliberation,
Speaker 1: and arguments. One is for producing them and the other
Speaker 1: is for evaluating them. And the system that produces these
Speaker 1: arguments has to be done on an individual level.
Speaker 2: We're individually producing our argument, but we're never individually evaluating arguments.
Speaker 2: I mean not really, because an argument sits out there
Speaker 2: for anyone to see and think and consider.
Speaker 1: So while arguments may be useful, the context around arguments,
Speaker 1: so in online discussions, might not be the best. So
Speaker 1: David is saying that arguing is a good thing and
Speaker 1: that we can all learn and grow from it depending
Speaker 1: on the context. But we can also see we're arguing
Speaker 1: and grouping and even arguing publicly can go wrong, and
Speaker 1: that's when the brain is overprotective it's protecting its social
Speaker 1: self even over its physical self. And David says that
Speaker 1: based on a study, the fear of social death is
Speaker 1: greater than the fear of physical death.
Speaker 2: At the baseline, a lot of resistance comes from something
Speaker 2: that's way simpler. It's almost outside of all those it's
Speaker 2: just something in psychology they call reactants. If you into
Speaker 2: it that your autonomy is at risk, you become motivationally
Speaker 2: aroused to remove the stimulus object, which is a fun
Speaker 2: way of saying, if you push, I will push back.
Speaker 2: What often happens is when I push back, you react,
Speaker 2: and so then you make me push harder, and we
Speaker 2: get into a loop where eventually go, let's agree to disagree,
Speaker 2: which I hate that language because you already agreed to disagree.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you reactants has been haunted me my
Speaker 1: entire life. If I wanted to clean up my room
Speaker 1: and then somebody came and said, hey, clean up your room,
Speaker 1: I immediately don't want to do it. I don't like
Speaker 1: my autonomy to be taken away. Well that doesn't sound
Speaker 1: too different from present day Zekiah, you know, talking about
Speaker 1: a long time ago, But actually today I don't see
Speaker 1: already I'm reacting about what you're saying. I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't even know what I don't. I just don't, Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't. Oh wait, I don't know what your truth is.
Speaker 1: But David talks about concerns about us becoming a post
Speaker 1: truth societ where you have true versus false, honesty versus lying,
Speaker 1: and depending on who you're talking to, what they say
Speaker 1: is going on may be completely different. But I think
Speaker 1: another thing is how people perceive things, like you saw
Speaker 1: it with their own eyes, and somebody it may be
Speaker 1: described somewhere. We saw this like inauguration crowd size. It
Speaker 1: was huge, everybody was there, and it's like, how many
Speaker 1: is everybody? What do you mean by that? I saw
Speaker 1: a lot of floor space? So what does this mean?
Speaker 1: Are we truly living in a post truth world?
Speaker 2: This is what Tom Stafford said to me about this.
Speaker 2: Germs were always a problem for human beings in groups,
Speaker 2: and then we built cities and it became an existential problem.
Speaker 2: So to solve that problem, we had to at the
Speaker 2: level of society develop things like sanitation, and the level
Speaker 2: of the individual, we had to develop things like boiling
Speaker 2: water and washing your hands. And we overcame it, and
Speaker 2: he said, misinformation has always been a problem for people
Speaker 2: in groups. Then we got the Internet and it became existential.
Speaker 2: So we will have to generationally learn the equivalent of
Speaker 2: sanitation and washing our hands when it comes to the
Speaker 2: exchange of ideas and information.
Speaker 1: You know, this is perfect. I think it ties in
Speaker 1: all the things we've been trying to do with dope labs.
Speaker 1: I want to hear other people's opinions. I want to
Speaker 1: understand the experiences they may be having that are different
Speaker 1: from me. I want to take that into account when
Speaker 1: I'm considering my own experiences. I also want to see
Speaker 1: what's factually happening. I want to know that what I'm
Speaker 1: experiencing and what you're experiencing these things might not be isolated.
Speaker 1: They may be part of a bigger pattern. And just
Speaker 1: because I've observed something thirty times on that thirty first time,
Speaker 1: it could be different, and I want to be open
Speaker 1: to seeing that truth. Yeah, there has to be a process,
Speaker 1: and I'm hoping that we can eventually get to that
Speaker 1: point where checking sources, not just reading headlines and reading
Speaker 1: the whole article, becomes a part of how we consume
Speaker 1: information on the Internet. And it feels hard. I feel
Speaker 1: like I can't fight evolution and what our brains telling
Speaker 1: us to do, which is to use all these cognitive biases.
Speaker 1: And so we asked David, should we just give up?
Speaker 1: I mean, this feels tiring.
Speaker 2: No one's unreachable, no one is impossible to persuade, and
Speaker 2: most of us share very common values, and most of
Speaker 2: us will agree that the problems that are the problems
Speaker 2: are the problems. If you in research where they have
Speaker 2: people look at the UN survey of values, they find
Speaker 2: incredible agreement on those issues. A lot of our assumptions
Speaker 2: of us versus them are lose rey to the point
Speaker 2: of causing real harm in the world. That's not to
Speaker 2: say there aren't bad actors people who do not wish
Speaker 2: to engage you in good faith and who actually do
Speaker 2: want to cause harm and would be totally okay with
Speaker 2: your harm. I feel that those people are in a
Speaker 2: fringe that has been magnified by the way we engage
Speaker 2: in discourse today. Their numbers are few, and their power
Speaker 2: is we can it'll stay that way if we keep
Speaker 2: it that way. And traditionally, over the course of our
Speaker 2: long history, there have been moments where those bad actors
Speaker 2: have risen to power and have exerted political and influence,
Speaker 2: and it was the work of people who are diligent
Speaker 2: and indefatigable and refuse to give into hopelessness, who push.
Speaker 1: That stuff down. I really like what David said, to
Speaker 1: not give in too hopelessness. Yes, and you know we're
Speaker 1: both human. Well you know I'm a little bit more
Speaker 1: human than you. Yes, I'm a little bit more martian.
Speaker 1: It's easy for us to also, you know, watch the
Speaker 1: news and watch conversation about things and be like, what
Speaker 1: that's not true. I feel like, I know we both
Speaker 1: have been looking at the conversation around monkey pox, you know,
Speaker 1: and saying, what that's not true? Are we going to
Speaker 1: make these same mistakes from before? And so it can
Speaker 1: be easy to slip into that hopelessness. But David says,
Speaker 1: stand up. Yeah. So I actually had a conversation with
Speaker 1: you about this where someone that we both know had
Speaker 1: posted something on their Instagram about monkey that I was like,
Speaker 1: this is not true. When we had just talked to
Speaker 1: David and you were like, hey, David would say say something.
Speaker 1: So I went back and said, hey, y'all, that ain't this,
Speaker 1: This ain't right, because we cannot give up hope. We
Speaker 1: have to keep pushing truth. I think we maybe have
Speaker 1: this unrealistic expectation that everybody will be on board. I
Speaker 1: think it's never going to be one hundred percent. But
Speaker 1: what we do want to do is to equip folks
Speaker 1: who are in that middle area that are just uninformed.
Speaker 1: We want to equip them with some tools to be
Speaker 1: able to know how to evaluate information and to be
Speaker 1: able to even recognize bias for themselves, confirmation bias. I
Speaker 1: am good for that. If I think I need a
Speaker 1: thing and then I see an Instagram post for it,
Speaker 1: I say, I knew I needed it. Look when really
Speaker 1: the internet knows what you're doing, right, Yes, And so
Speaker 1: I think we're all susceptible and it's easy to fall prey,
Speaker 1: and so I think we just got to remain diligent.
Speaker 1: All right, y'all, it's time for one thing. What is
Speaker 1: our one thing this week? Zee? Our one thing this
Speaker 1: week is David mcrainey's book, How Minds Change. The Surprising
Speaker 1: Science of Belief, opinion, and Persuasion. I really enjoyed this book.
Speaker 1: We're gonna link it in the show notes. Please please
Speaker 1: please check it out. We're also gonna link some other
Speaker 1: books that we mentioned in this lab that are linked
Speaker 1: to previous labs that we also think you should check out. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's it for Lab seventy five. Did I Change your Mind?
Speaker 1: Are you ready to change other people's minds? Call us
Speaker 1: at two zero two five six seven seven zero two
Speaker 1: eight and tell us what you thought, or give us
Speaker 1: an idea for a lab you think we should do
Speaker 1: the semester that's two zero two five six seven seven
Speaker 1: zero two eight. And don't forget that there is so
Speaker 1: much more to dig into on our website. There'll be
Speaker 1: a cheap key for Today's life, additional links and resources
Speaker 1: in the show notes. Plus you can sign up for
Speaker 1: our newsletter check it out at dope blabspodcast dot com.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to today's guest expert David mcrainey. You can
Speaker 1: find him on Twitter at David McRaney. Also check out
Speaker 1: his book How Mind's Changed. Wherever you get your reading
Speaker 1: materials and you can find us on Twitter and Instagram
Speaker 1: at Dope Labs Podcast. TT's on Twitter and Instagram at
Speaker 1: dr Underscore t Sho, and you can find Zakia at
Speaker 1: z Said So. Dope Labs is a Spotify original production
Speaker 1: from Mega Own Media Group. Our producers are Jenny Rattlet,
Speaker 1: maass Lydia Smith and Izzy Ross of Waverunder Studios. Editing
Speaker 1: and scoring by Rob Smerciak and Griffin Jennings, Mixing by
Speaker 1: Hannes Brown. Original music composed and produced by Taka Yasuzawa
Speaker 1: and Alex Sugier from Spotify. Creative producer Miguel Contreras. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Shirley Ramos, Jess Borison, Yasmine A Fifi, tillkrat
Speaker 1: Key and Brian Marquis. Executive producers from Mega Oh Media Group,
Speaker 1: r us T t Show, Dia and Zakiah Wattley