Speaker 1: Pushkin. People generally assume that they're less biased than others. Right.
Speaker 1: This is my favorite bias. It's that I'm not biased biased, Right,
Speaker 1: everybody else is biased. I am objective. I see things
Speaker 1: with perfect neutrality. That's Adam Grant. He's a psychologist and
Speaker 1: author of the book Think Again, and he's talking here
Speaker 1: about a surprising feature of our own psychology that prevents
Speaker 1: us from changing our minds even when we should. And
Speaker 1: I think that the higher your intelligence, the more likely
Speaker 1: you are to fall victim to that bias. They're smarter
Speaker 1: you are, the more feedback you've gotten throughout your life
Speaker 1: that you're right, and that gives you an illusion of objectivity.
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk with Adam because he's an expert
Speaker 1: on the science of changing people's minds, a topic we've
Speaker 1: been diving into on this season of A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans. We all have that friend, that family member
Speaker 1: that we disagree with on something, and it can feel
Speaker 1: daunting to engage with them on the topic, so daunting
Speaker 1: that oftentimes we just give up. In this episode, we're
Speaker 1: trying to change that. Adam and I discuss science based
Speaker 1: tactics that you can use to approach these conversations differently
Speaker 1: and hopefully with more success. I'm Maya Shunker and this
Speaker 1: is a slight change of plans. Well, it's great to
Speaker 1: meet you, Adam. Great to meet you. I've been hearing
Speaker 1: about you for years. I'm so excited that you're able
Speaker 1: to join us for this podcast. I'm just eager to
Speaker 1: pick your brain today. Well, my brain is sitting here
Speaker 1: waiting to be picked. Awesome. Okay. We don't like changing
Speaker 1: our minds, right, It's uncomfortable, it can create a lot
Speaker 1: of cognitive dissonance. It takes a lot of hard work,
Speaker 1: and so it's just easier to live our lives in
Speaker 1: an unreflective mode where we persistently believe what we believe
Speaker 1: and we double down, and we surround ourselves with people
Speaker 1: who help us double down on those beliefs over time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I loved about the
Speaker 1: focus of your book is that it opens with ideas
Speaker 1: of how we can get ourselves to have an more
Speaker 1: open mind, ourselves to rethink things. So one reason you
Speaker 1: say that we might not be open to rethinking is
Speaker 1: because we're overconfident. And you talk in your book about
Speaker 1: not confusing over confidence with competence. Do you mind saying
Speaker 1: a bit more about that? Sure? I think when people
Speaker 1: are lacking knowledge or skill, sometimes they also don't know
Speaker 1: what knowledge or skill looks like in that domain. Right,
Speaker 1: So if you know nothing, let's say, I always think
Speaker 1: about a Super Bowl party. You gather a bunch of
Speaker 1: football fans, and there's always one who's screaming at the
Speaker 1: coach for calling the wrong place. That is usually the
Speaker 1: fan who knows the least about football. But it's a fan,
Speaker 1: it's not somebody who's, you know, who's not at all
Speaker 1: interested in the game, because they's not like me, who's
Speaker 1: just sitting at the food table profiting the entire time. Exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know that you know nothing. I'm not weighing in. No,
Speaker 1: you and you shouldn't, right, But if you if you
Speaker 1: watched a couple of games and you learned a little
Speaker 1: bit about football, that's when that tiny bit of knowledge
Speaker 1: can become a little bit dangerous, right because it you.
Speaker 1: What starts to happen is, as your knowledge grows, you
Speaker 1: confuse your rate of learning for how much you've actually learned,
Speaker 1: and your confidence rises faster than your competence, and pretty
Speaker 1: soon you're trapped on the summit of Mount Stupid where
Speaker 1: you know very little, but you don't know how little
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, you mentioned your book that imposter syndrome
Speaker 1: gets a bad rap, but actually there might be some
Speaker 1: silver linings to fueling imposter syndrome. Can you say a
Speaker 1: bit more about that, Yeah, I kind of. I was
Speaker 1: struck by this paradox that when you look at where
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome exists, one of the places it's most prevalent
Speaker 1: is among high achievers. And I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people have assumed that they've succeeded in spite of their doubts,
Speaker 1: and I started to wonder whether their doubts are actually
Speaker 1: helping to fuel their success. Well, maybe we don't have
Speaker 1: to turn this into a syndrome. Right when you call
Speaker 1: it imposter syndrome, it's like you have some kind of
Speaker 1: chronic disease, that is, it's just abilitating and it's with
Speaker 1: you at all times. We ended up having a doctoral
Speaker 1: student at Wark and Besima's too Fick, who is now
Speaker 1: an MT professor, and she studied how often people doubt themselves.
Speaker 1: She studied investment professionals and medical professionals and found no
Speaker 1: consistent costs of having more frequent imposter thoughts and some
Speaker 1: surprising benefits. The investment professionals, when they felt like imposters
Speaker 1: more often, they actually made better decisions. The medical professionals
Speaker 1: who felt like imposters more often, they actually listened to
Speaker 1: their patients. And what was happening was when people felt
Speaker 1: those imposter thoughts, their confidence was a little bit below
Speaker 1: their competence, and that led them to work harder to
Speaker 1: prove themselves. It led them to work smarter to learn
Speaker 1: new things, and it made them much more receptive to
Speaker 1: listening to other people, which filled gaps in their knowledge.
Speaker 1: And it almost makes me think that instead of trying
Speaker 1: to have our confidence match our competence perfectly, we are
Speaker 1: better off slightly underestimating ourselves. You know, there's a tension
Speaker 1: that can emerge here, right because I'm thinking about, for example,
Speaker 1: communities of color who fall prey to stereotype threat and
Speaker 1: the fact that boosting confidence in those cases is really
Speaker 1: productive because in many ways they're starting off in an
Speaker 1: unreasonable position relative to their actual abilities. And so well, one,
Speaker 1: I'm just wondering in those studies that we're done, what
Speaker 1: were the demographics of the group. And two, in terms
Speaker 1: of prescriptions. Where is that appropriate line between humility and confidence,
Speaker 1: especially because some of these psychological effects can disproportionately hit
Speaker 1: different communities. Yeah, I think I think that's a really
Speaker 1: important question. And I think Bassima had good data on
Speaker 1: gender less on race, but when she looked at gender differences,
Speaker 1: the odds were greater that women were sort of discouraged
Speaker 1: or debilitated by very frequent imposter thoughts, and men were
Speaker 1: much more likely to be motivated by them. And I
Speaker 1: think that tracks with everything we know about about basically
Speaker 1: the world I live in as a white man, which
Speaker 1: is people take for granted that I'm competent, whereas if
Speaker 1: you grow up as a woman, and I think this
Speaker 1: is obviously the case for people of color as well.
Speaker 1: It's you know, you have to prove your competence every day,
Speaker 1: and those doubts because other people are doubting you are
Speaker 1: more likely to get internalized over time. And I think
Speaker 1: your spot on that we need to work harder to
Speaker 1: build confidence among people who are not white men. Does
Speaker 1: that Does that track with your experience? Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's it is, I would Freeman is just really complex.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously there's no one size fits all approach here.
Speaker 1: But I do think that there are profound public policy implications, right,
Speaker 1: because if we're going on the road with a message
Speaker 1: of imposter syndromes good, we might find that that has
Speaker 1: a disproportionately negative effect on some subsets of the population, right, women,
Speaker 1: people of color, etc. And so we just have to
Speaker 1: be careful about the messaging. I almost want the messaging
Speaker 1: to be imposter syndrome is good, white men. You know,
Speaker 1: I think a disclaimer is critical here. I would just
Speaker 1: I would rewrite that message completely. You don't have to
Speaker 1: take imposter syndrome as a curse. You can recognize that
Speaker 1: it's a double edged sword, and you can try to
Speaker 1: get some of those benefits of doubt to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: you know what, the fact that I am questioning myself
Speaker 1: means I'm not going to get complacent, and I think
Speaker 1: that's that's the message that I want to get across. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. One of my favorite parts of the
Speaker 1: book was the fact that a smarter a person is,
Speaker 1: the faster they recognize patterns, and so the more likely
Speaker 1: they are to notice and reinforce stereotypes. So you also
Speaker 1: mentioned that the smarter you are, the more likely you
Speaker 1: are to struggle with updating your beliefs right, to be
Speaker 1: willing to rethink. So what is the mechanism at play
Speaker 1: in that ladder finding that would make that so? Well?
Speaker 1: People generally assume that they're less biased than others, right,
Speaker 1: This is my favorite bias. It's the I'm not biased biased, Right,
Speaker 1: everybody else is biased. I am objective. I see things
Speaker 1: with perfect neutrality. And I think that the higher your intelligence,
Speaker 1: the more likely you are to fall victim to that
Speaker 1: bias in the data. And I think there's probably the
Speaker 1: jury is still out on what the different mechanisms might be,
Speaker 1: but I think I think one of them is that
Speaker 1: this smarter you are, the more feedback you've gotten throughout
Speaker 1: your life that you're right, and that gives you an
Speaker 1: illusion of objectivity. What you know, what you're consistent right
Speaker 1: answers or a pluses or you know, genius level, like
Speaker 1: you're the smartest person I've ever met. Feedback, Yeah, is
Speaker 1: really signaling is that you're good at thinking and learning,
Speaker 1: not that you're objective in the way that you process information.
Speaker 1: And I think people miss that distinction. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: a reflection back to you. Ah, So the current mechanisms
Speaker 1: that I use to analyze information in the world are
Speaker 1: paying off because I keep getting the A plus. So
Speaker 1: clearly something's going well here exactly. Yeah, you're getting positive feedback. Interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it reminds me. I interviewed Megan Phelps Roper, who was
Speaker 1: part of the Westboro Baptist Church, which is a religious cult,
Speaker 1: and she eventually ended up leaving in her mid twenties.
Speaker 1: But I think one thing that compelled her to stay
Speaker 1: for so long is that she grew up in a
Speaker 1: family of lawyers. They were all very, very smart, highly educated,
Speaker 1: and their pride point was constructing these very logical arguments,
Speaker 1: and I mean logical in the definitional sense of the word.
Speaker 1: And as a result, I think there was some sort
Speaker 1: of reinforcing that was happening within the Phelps family. They're
Speaker 1: using sophisticated patterns and thinking and analysis, but because again
Speaker 1: their axioms or batshit crazy, they're reaching the wrong conclusions,
Speaker 1: but they are in their minds doubling down on those conclusions.
Speaker 1: Do you have thoughts on that. Yeah. I think one
Speaker 1: of the other risks of growing up in a family
Speaker 1: like that is you're taught from an early age to
Speaker 1: make your own arguments, and we forget that when you
Speaker 1: make an argument to persuade someone else, the person you're
Speaker 1: most likely to persuade is yourself because you trust yourself, right,
Speaker 1: you are a highly credible source in your own eyes,
Speaker 1: and you also came up with the reasons that you
Speaker 1: found most convincing, and as you explain them, you start
Speaker 1: to take ownership over them. Right. Part of that is
Speaker 1: cognitive dissonance. Well, I've said this out loud. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be a hypocrite, so now it becomes part
Speaker 1: of my belief system. And another reason why we do
Speaker 1: feel so much Adjita when it comes to admitting that
Speaker 1: we're wrong, is that we get deeply attached to quote
Speaker 1: our past selves who held those beliefs, and we do
Speaker 1: feel like a departure from that past self in some
Speaker 1: way poses a full on identity threat. So can you
Speaker 1: say more about the importance of trying to detach yourself
Speaker 1: from your past self. Yeah, there's there's a growing body
Speaker 1: of evidence in psychology that people who feel quote unquote
Speaker 1: derailed that you know, I'm not I'm not quite the
Speaker 1: same person I was two or three years ago, they
Speaker 1: actually end up getting happier that you know, there's a
Speaker 1: little bit of a period of feeling unsettled, but then
Speaker 1: they realize, oh, I'm not going to let my old
Speaker 1: ideas of who I wanted to be hold me back.
Speaker 1: And I think one of the easiest ways to get
Speaker 1: comfortable with rethinking is to detach your current self from
Speaker 1: your old self. So there are so many times when
Speaker 1: I've looked back at my old decisions and opinions, I'm like, Wow,
Speaker 1: I should be really embarrassed by that. How can I
Speaker 1: possibly think that? And yet I mostly just laugh at
Speaker 1: myself because I don't think I'm the same person. Yes,
Speaker 1: I realize I have fundamentally the same brain and the
Speaker 1: same body, right, and it's still me. But I think
Speaker 1: I've grown and evolved in a lot of ways from
Speaker 1: that version of me, and so I don't feel like
Speaker 1: what I did with the ideas I had about my
Speaker 1: future and the opinions I held at twenty one are
Speaker 1: reflective of who I am now at thirty nine, even
Speaker 1: though some of my values are very similar. One a
Speaker 1: interesting flip on this, it's reminding me so In this
Speaker 1: interview with Megan fels Roper, who was mentioning, I asked
Speaker 1: her I said, when you look back on your life, right,
Speaker 1: you have this in the Westboro Baptist Church and then
Speaker 1: post Westboro Baptist Church, like this total life split moment.
Speaker 1: Is it jarring to remember that you are that same Megan?
Speaker 1: And so one thing I found fascinating about her experience
Speaker 1: is that she makes an intentional effort not to distance
Speaker 1: herself from that Megan. And the reason for that is
Speaker 1: she can both acknowledge that she has different views today,
Speaker 1: but reminding herself a former Megan helps her continue to
Speaker 1: have empathy towards people who continue to think like old Megan.
Speaker 1: And in order for her to do the anti extremist
Speaker 1: work she does today, she also has to have that
Speaker 1: posture of understanding and empathy because she needs to remember
Speaker 1: what it was like to feel persuaded by terrible ideas.
Speaker 1: That is fascinating. Yeah, it kind of blew me away
Speaker 1: that answer. Yeah, I mean the idea that you could
Speaker 1: you could still accept that, you know, sort of unacceptable
Speaker 1: version of past you and say, yeah, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not totally different from that anymore, while stilling your values
Speaker 1: and your beliefs. I mean that that is that is
Speaker 1: walking proof of what is it the is it the
Speaker 1: f Scott Fitzgerald line that the sign of intelligence is
Speaker 1: the ability to hold two opposing ideas in your mind
Speaker 1: at the same time and retain the ability to function
Speaker 1: like that. That's it. She has two opposing identities, one
Speaker 1: you know, recently abandoned, one relatively recently adopted that she
Speaker 1: is keeping in some kind of dynamic tension. I don't think.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine doing that, honestly. I think that. I mean,
Speaker 1: we all have multiple identities, right, But to have such
Speaker 1: conflicting values and beliefs and and say yeah, one is
Speaker 1: one is me now, one is me before, but it's
Speaker 1: not that different from you now. The equanimity required to
Speaker 1: do that, I think is extraordinary. Can't imagine it exactly.
Speaker 1: Another reason that it's hard for a lot of people
Speaker 1: to admit that they're wrong is that we tend to
Speaker 1: strongly attach our opinions to our sense of identity. And
Speaker 1: you challenge this in the book, right, you say you
Speaker 1: should really be defining your identity in terms of values,
Speaker 1: not opinions. To me, that's kind of a blurry line,
Speaker 1: like how are you defining the difference between a value
Speaker 1: and an opinion? And shouldn't we also be open minded
Speaker 1: about our value systems, because obviously we see huge variation
Speaker 1: in moral values across cultures. In addition to the fact
Speaker 1: that when we do do that thought experiment of if
Speaker 1: I were born in a different century, or in a
Speaker 1: different family, or you know, growing up in a different religion,
Speaker 1: we would have wildly different values, and so I would
Speaker 1: I guess I would want to cultivate a same openness
Speaker 1: to changes in one's value system. You're willing to change
Speaker 1: those fundamental beliefs. I think I think that's a good point,
Speaker 1: and I'm definitely open to rethinking what I wrote in
Speaker 1: the book. It would be ironic if I weren't. It
Speaker 1: gets very met up, very quickly. But I think I
Speaker 1: think I agree with you. I think that I might
Speaker 1: make one distinction before I agree, which is to say,
Speaker 1: when I think about values, to me, the core definition
Speaker 1: of a value is what you think is important, and
Speaker 1: the definition of a belief or an opinion is what
Speaker 1: you think is true. And when you do that that
Speaker 1: counterfactual thinking exercise where you imagine, yeah, would I believe
Speaker 1: different things if I was raised in a different family,
Speaker 1: or in a different country, or in a different point
Speaker 1: in history. You're not necessarily rethinking your values, you're definitely
Speaker 1: rethinking your beliefs, right, And yeah, I think, okay, sorry,
Speaker 1: So I think I disagree with that. I do think
Speaker 1: that you are changing potentially what's important to you through
Speaker 1: some of these exercises, depending on your exposure. So, for example,
Speaker 1: I can imagine so in the United States, huge sanctity
Speaker 1: when it comes to life. Right, we care about existence,
Speaker 1: we care about life. I talk to my Indian relatives
Speaker 1: and they're far more concerned with quality of life and suffering, right,
Speaker 1: So that is like what's important to them. And so
Speaker 1: over the course of my life, I have evolved and
Speaker 1: I have started to value like what's important to me
Speaker 1: now is much more about suffering than existence, and that
Speaker 1: would inform my opinions, but it is my fundamental view
Speaker 1: about what's important or not. Yeah, I think I think
Speaker 1: you're right. I think I think that's less likely to
Speaker 1: change though. I think it's slower to change, right, because
Speaker 1: it's deeper seated. And that's where that's where I think
Speaker 1: you're spot on that. I don't think our values should
Speaker 1: be set in stone, right. Sometimes sometimes people end up
Speaker 1: choosing values that are harmful to themselves. And or others.
Speaker 1: But I think we should rethink those a little bit
Speaker 1: less frequently and maybe with stronger reasons. Right. I think
Speaker 1: that to me, opinions should just be tentative period. Right.
Speaker 1: You should walk around with a set of things that
Speaker 1: you think are true, and the moment you come across
Speaker 1: better data and sharper logic, you should say, all right,
Speaker 1: maybe I should revisit that. I don't think you should
Speaker 1: be willing to flip flop on your values every day
Speaker 1: or every week. Right. That feels like more of a
Speaker 1: once a year kind of exercise to reflect on how
Speaker 1: is how is what's important to me changing? And I
Speaker 1: think that that kind of rethinking ought to be a
Speaker 1: more deliberate and maybe even slower process. I agree with that.
Speaker 1: I think the cadence along which we revisit our values
Speaker 1: is going to be far less frequent as it should be, because,
Speaker 1: like you said, they're more deeply entrenched in our systems.
Speaker 1: I guess the reason I care so deeply about this
Speaker 1: is I think that the values people hold can also
Speaker 1: be really pernicious if they are the wrong ones, and
Speaker 1: so compelling people to try to revisit their values on occasion,
Speaker 1: it can have transformative effects on society. I think you're
Speaker 1: right on that too. I think I'm less optimistic than
Speaker 1: you are about how easy it is to compel people
Speaker 1: to change their values. Say, I didn't say I was
Speaker 1: optimistic about it. I just care about it. Well, I
Speaker 1: care about it too, and I just I think it's
Speaker 1: incredibly difficult to even invite people to rethink their values. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is why I'm obsessed with the moral reframing research
Speaker 1: that's coming out. Basically, it says, look, hold the value
Speaker 1: these fixed, assume those are constant to your earlier point,
Speaker 1: but present them in a new way. Right. So it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: you want folks to care about the environment. Right. To liberals,
Speaker 1: you frame it as like, okay, we can save the environment,
Speaker 1: we will help the underprivileged among us rise up, you know,
Speaker 1: social equality. And then with conservatives, it's patriotic to save
Speaker 1: our planet. It can help create new jobs, to invest
Speaker 1: in climate change, or even we need to protect the
Speaker 1: purity of God's Earth. Right, It's such. It's a completely
Speaker 1: different kind of argument, but it reaches the same ends. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we're on this opening our mind journey. Right, So
Speaker 1: we're now at the point where we are. We are
Speaker 1: aware of the benefits of having a more open mind,
Speaker 1: and you've given us some strategies for how to do that.
Speaker 1: One thing that can prevent us from admitting that we're
Speaker 1: wrong is pride. Right. We don't like admitting that we're wrong.
Speaker 1: It's uncomfortable. We sometimes feel that we will lose credibility
Speaker 1: with other people we express that we're wrong or express vulnerability,
Speaker 1: and the research doesn't corroborate that. Can you say more
Speaker 1: about it? Yeah? I mean you see this. There's a
Speaker 1: whole literature on scientists saying, you know what, I made
Speaker 1: a mistake in my published paper, and it turns out
Speaker 1: that they're perceived more positively afterward. Going back half a century,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of research on the pratfall effect showing
Speaker 1: that if a successful person fails or makes a mistake,
Speaker 1: people actually like them more. They don't ding them for
Speaker 1: confidence at all, and now they see them as human
Speaker 1: and relatable and approachable instead of being untouchable. I think
Speaker 1: one of the things I've I've realized over time is
Speaker 1: that the faster you are to admit when you're wrong,
Speaker 1: the faster you can move toward being right. And that's
Speaker 1: where we all want to land right. We'd like to
Speaker 1: be right more often, and that means you have to
Speaker 1: be quicker to at least internally right. See those moments
Speaker 1: when you were wrong, but then if you don't ever
Speaker 1: admit them out loud, then you're continuing to stigmatize the behavior.
Speaker 1: And saying I was wrong is the equivalent of admitting
Speaker 1: defeat or showing weakness, or signaling a lack of intelligence,
Speaker 1: as opposed to actually signaling that you have confident humility,
Speaker 1: which is I am secure enough in my expertise and
Speaker 1: my strengths to be willing to be forthcoming about all
Speaker 1: the things I got wrong and didn't know, and gosh,
Speaker 1: I would love to live in a world where that
Speaker 1: was the norm rather than the exception. After the break,
Speaker 1: Adam and I discussed tactics for changing other people's minds.
Speaker 1: So I would love to talk a little bit deeper
Speaker 1: about how it is that we can change other people's minds.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to set the scene for you. Okay,
Speaker 1: we are, We're at the proverbial Thanksgiving dinner. Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: dreading the dinner because the proverbial aunt uncle is at
Speaker 1: the table, And every year I have felt enraged by
Speaker 1: their political beliefs. This is not a hypothetical example is yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, I'm asking on behalf of a friend and
Speaker 1: so so typically I eat and then I leave the
Speaker 1: table because I just don't want to engage. But this
Speaker 1: year I read, uh, you know, how to better rethink,
Speaker 1: and I'm feeling really embolded. I'm feeling really motivated. So
Speaker 1: I'm going to stick it out. I'm gonna stay at
Speaker 1: that table. What are some of the tactics that we
Speaker 1: can use to navigate the preceding conversation? What are you
Speaker 1: trying to accomplish? I am trying to one stay sane
Speaker 1: and to maybe try to make a slight dent in
Speaker 1: their minds. Okay, and do you do you have an
Speaker 1: agenda around what you want them to believe or do
Speaker 1: you just want them to be a little bit more
Speaker 1: open about what they believe? Okay, So let's say this
Speaker 1: hypothetical person has such deeply entrenched beliefs, I want them
Speaker 1: to even be open to the idea of rethinking. Okay,
Speaker 1: And what's what's an issue that you want them to
Speaker 1: be open to rethinking? Um? Oh gosh, there's so many today.
Speaker 1: Let's say immigration reform, Okay, I'm assuming this uncle is
Speaker 1: anti immigration, and you're mar pro yeah. I mean the
Speaker 1: I already here is that it's a little bit of
Speaker 1: hypothetical for me given that I'm from a family of immigrants.
Speaker 1: So yes, let's say the average uncle is anti immigration. Okay.
Speaker 1: I think where tactically, where I would starts with motivational
Speaker 1: interviewing principles to recognize that you can't force your uncle
Speaker 1: to change his mind, but you could help him find
Speaker 1: his own motivation to change his mind. I think one
Speaker 1: of the things I've noticed consistently is I just give
Speaker 1: a barrage of data points and facts and reasons, and
Speaker 1: the other person either attacks, defends, or withdrawals. And one
Speaker 1: of the things I've seen in research on expert negotiators
Speaker 1: comparing them to average negotiators is the experts have a
Speaker 1: higher question to statement ratio, which is also something you
Speaker 1: see incidentally in productive charge conversations as opposed to conversations
Speaker 1: that just go off the rails. What are some questions
Speaker 1: that I could ask you that might lead you to
Speaker 1: question some of your own beliefs? How did you how
Speaker 1: did you come to that opinion? Like, tell me more
Speaker 1: about what your sources are, I'd love to understand them better. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you so, it's really important that we ask questions
Speaker 1: and not make statements. And another one that I that
Speaker 1: I love. My husband and I were talking about this
Speaker 1: yesterday is asking people what evidence they would need in
Speaker 1: order to change their minds. And the reason I ask
Speaker 1: this is that it presupposes that the person ought to
Speaker 1: be willing to change their mind in the face of evidence,
Speaker 1: and that's something that you know, we we can sometimes,
Speaker 1: you know, not always be even open to in the
Speaker 1: first place. So, yeah, I absolutely love that one, and
Speaker 1: it really gets people to dig into why it is
Speaker 1: they believe the thing in the first place. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: it's it's my go to question whenever I'm in an
Speaker 1: argument and somebody is not Usually it's it's I've presented
Speaker 1: some data already and then the other person rejects the data.
Speaker 1: You know, my instinct is than to just give them
Speaker 1: more data and instead again trying to go into scientists
Speaker 1: mode and be curious and say, okay, well, it seems
Speaker 1: like you're not buying the argument I've made. What evidence
Speaker 1: would change your mind? And it's very rare that anybody
Speaker 1: says nothing and once they start to walk through the evidence,
Speaker 1: I know what kind of data they find convincing. We're
Speaker 1: also agreeing on the standards of conversation, right then, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about what qualifies as rigorous evidence,
Speaker 1: and we can possibly find some consensus on that, even
Speaker 1: if we disagree about how to interpret the evidence. One
Speaker 1: thing that resonated with me when reading the book is
Speaker 1: how is how often people can disagree with an argument,
Speaker 1: not because they actually disagree with it, but because they
Speaker 1: feel in some way like they're being controlled, right, that
Speaker 1: they're being told what to do. So how can we
Speaker 1: get around this? Well, one of the places where I've
Speaker 1: run into this a lot actually is in office hours
Speaker 1: with my students. I've changed my approach dramatically. What I
Speaker 1: do now is if you come into office hours and
Speaker 1: you say, hey, I'm you know, I'm thinking about this
Speaker 1: banking job, first thing I want to do is I'm
Speaker 1: going to ask you why you're here. What's what's your goal?
Speaker 1: Do you just want my stamp of approval on your
Speaker 1: decision because you already have it, or maybe you're here
Speaker 1: because you want me to point out blind spots in
Speaker 1: your thinking, and you know, invite you to do a
Speaker 1: little bit of rethinking, like what is it and whatever
Speaker 1: they say right that that gives me a guide to
Speaker 1: figure out how I can best help them. And at
Speaker 1: that point, they don't feel controlled anymore, and I don't
Speaker 1: have an agenda anymore. I'm trying to align what their
Speaker 1: goals are with the way that I, you know, I
Speaker 1: respond to their questions and life change, I mean honestly
Speaker 1: life changing in my office hours conversations because I've had
Speaker 1: so many tug of war sort of battles like no,
Speaker 1: I think you're making a decision you're going to regret,
Speaker 1: and I want to save you from it. And now
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, you just you just in you just
Speaker 1: ask me to tell you what you might be missing.
Speaker 1: And then once once I have your permission, I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to influence you anymore. I'm just sharing with you
Speaker 1: what I've learned. Yeah, you're recruiting their own agency, right,
Speaker 1: and we know that that's such a good way to
Speaker 1: describe it. Yeah, It's like people love being in the
Speaker 1: driver's seat. Like even with these driverless cars, even if
Speaker 1: the steering wheel doesn't work, it doesn't matter. They just
Speaker 1: want it there. They want to feel like they're in
Speaker 1: control recruiting their own agency. That is a powerful way
Speaker 1: to describe it. And you know, I think once once
Speaker 1: they get to exercise it, sometimes they become more open
Speaker 1: to the advice at the end. So you know, they
Speaker 1: almost never used to ask me which which job should
Speaker 1: I take? And when I start the conversation by asking
Speaker 1: them what their goals are and how can I best
Speaker 1: help them, they almost always at the end of the
Speaker 1: conversation say, well, you know, it's it's been helpful to
Speaker 1: hear some of the things that I've overlooked, or you know,
Speaker 1: I appreciated the the insight on the decision process. But
Speaker 1: what I really want to know is which job do
Speaker 1: you think will make me happier or which one will
Speaker 1: do you help? Do you think will help me succeed?
Speaker 1: And I think my responsibility in that moment is to say,
Speaker 1: I don't know, that is your choice, Yes, that that
Speaker 1: is great, and yeah, like you said, leads to better
Speaker 1: outcomes in your office hours. So I think we all
Speaker 1: feel anxious about the next generation and how divisive things
Speaker 1: feel and how much people do dig in their heels.
Speaker 1: One of the other ideas that I thought was so
Speaker 1: great was to invite kids to do multiple drafts of
Speaker 1: things right, to not strive for that, you know, for perfection,
Speaker 1: and also to see that there are many versions of
Speaker 1: this thing that could exist in the world. And I
Speaker 1: was reflecting on that last night, like as a kid
Speaker 1: practicing the violin, there was no such thing as a
Speaker 1: final product. And in many ways, I think that helped
Speaker 1: me cultivate this mindset of growth and the fact that
Speaker 1: things can always sound different than what it sounded like
Speaker 1: in my head. And I think that was actually very
Speaker 1: positive in terms of the way that I looked at
Speaker 1: honing a craft in general so interesting. Same although mine
Speaker 1: was not artistic, it was athletic, and that's exactly what
Speaker 1: this idea of sitting down with our kids it was.
Speaker 1: It was eye opening instead of just praising the first
Speaker 1: drawing that they did on a given day. I remember
Speaker 1: saying to our fourth grader, Hey, that's really interesting. Have
Speaker 1: you tried a second draft? And she got excited about
Speaker 1: all the things she can rethink. She ended up voluntarily
Speaker 1: doing five drafts and was that much prouder of the
Speaker 1: fifth one than she would have been at the first.
Speaker 1: And it was it was a good both lesson and
Speaker 1: probably reminder for me that kids are not so fragile
Speaker 1: that they need to be told that everything they do
Speaker 1: is great, and sometimes you can highlight the potential in
Speaker 1: them in whatever they've produced or created, and then encouraged
Speaker 1: them to think again and reach that potential. All right,
Speaker 1: have one final question for you, added, I imagine you
Speaker 1: get lots of emails from people who've read your books.
Speaker 1: Can you share any of the best change stories that
Speaker 1: you might have read? Yeah, I actually got a great
Speaker 1: email last week. Hold On, let me pull it up
Speaker 1: because it was so powerful that I need to read
Speaker 1: a line from it. Okay, And he said, I'm reaching
Speaker 1: out because I wanted to tell you about something that
Speaker 1: happened to me yesterday that I think he might appreciate.
Speaker 1: He said. It was my first outdoor weekend of the year.
Speaker 1: I was in a hammock finishing Think Again, and right
Speaker 1: after I finished it, a kind of twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: year old guy was, you know, just kind of hanging
Speaker 1: out outdoors, and we struck up a conversation and he
Speaker 1: was just expressing all these fears about vaccines, he said.
Speaker 1: The young man immediately voiced his concerns about the vaccines
Speaker 1: and how he's heard some pretty scary things about what
Speaker 1: they can do to us. This is where I paused.
Speaker 1: I'd literally just finished a reading think again, not an
Speaker 1: hour before, and now I have someone in front of
Speaker 1: me who has his defenses down, who is clearly expressing
Speaker 1: doubts about the vaccines. I decided to put your book
Speaker 1: to the test. I told the young man that I
Speaker 1: agreed it's very confusing knowing which information on vaccines to
Speaker 1: trust while also trying to stay safe and not get
Speaker 1: our loved one sick. And I asked him how he
Speaker 1: plans to make an informed decision. He paused, clearly not
Speaker 1: being used to that question, and said he'd use sources
Speaker 1: he trusts. I asked him how he knows which sources
Speaker 1: to trust, which is harder and harder in this day
Speaker 1: and age, and he paused again and said, yeah, it
Speaker 1: is hard, and then said he might call his primary
Speaker 1: care physician and ask for medical advice, and I said
Speaker 1: I would do the same. He said, The story doesn't
Speaker 1: end there. We struck up a conversation, we became friends,
Speaker 1: and I'm grateful that I responded to do his stance
Speaker 1: on vaccines in a way that not only possibly opened
Speaker 1: his mind, but more importantly made him feel seen and heard,
Speaker 1: and this safety allowed him to open up. And I
Speaker 1: thought that was so cool to see that a beautiful Yeah,
Speaker 1: what an impact. I love that so much. All Right,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Adam. I'm so glad we got
Speaker 1: a chance to discuss. Oh. I feel like we barely
Speaker 1: scratched the surface. You are so smart and such a
Speaker 1: clear thinker and communicator and asked him almost impossibly difficult
Speaker 1: questions that I'm going to be thinking about for the
Speaker 1: next few weeks. Hey, thanks for listening. Next week I
Speaker 1: talked with Elena Baker, a woman who believed that if
Speaker 1: she could just become thin, she could live her dream life.
Speaker 1: And she did it. She lost close to one hundred
Speaker 1: pounds in five and a half months. But what she
Speaker 1: didn't expect is that she lose herself in the process.
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, this is the trade off, right, Like,
Speaker 1: you can get what you want, but you have to
Speaker 1: give up other parts of yourself. And how bad do
Speaker 1: you want this? A slight change of Plans is created
Speaker 1: an executive produced by me Maya Schunker. Big thanks to
Speaker 1: everyone at Pushkin Industries, including our producer Mola Board associate
Speaker 1: producers David Jaw and Julia Goodman, Executive producers Mia Lavelle
Speaker 1: and Justine Lange, Senior editor Jen Guera, and sound design
Speaker 1: and mixed engineers Ben Holliday and Jason Gambrel. Thanks also
Speaker 1: to Louis Gara who wrote our theme song, and Ginger
Speaker 1: Smith who helped arrange the vocals, incidental music from Epidemic Sound,
Speaker 1: and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee.
Speaker 1: You can follow a slight change of plans on Instagram
Speaker 1: at doctor Maya Schunker. It was fun to think out loud,
Speaker 1: but also I'm like, oh, this is why I always
Speaker 1: like to be the interviewer, Because I have questions I'm
Speaker 1: going to ask back to you. Next time, we'll trade spots.
Speaker 1: How about that? To be continued me