Speaker 1: Pushkin Happy New Year's slight change listeners. New Year's resolutions
Speaker 1: can feel impossible to keep, But in the last few years,
Speaker 1: I've made it a point to internalize research insights from
Speaker 1: behavioral science, and they've helped me set smarter goals and
Speaker 1: actually stick to them. And so we've decided to go
Speaker 1: back into the archives and share interviews with experts who
Speaker 1: delve deep into some useful strategies for making change. They'll
Speaker 1: give you the practical tools and motivation to not only
Speaker 1: set great goals, but to sustain your commitments well into
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. One thing that can hold us back
Speaker 1: from becoming better versions of ourselves is when we stubbornly
Speaker 1: cling to old beliefs and ways of thinking. So today
Speaker 1: we'll hear from my friend Adam Grant, a psychologist and
Speaker 1: author of the book Think Again, The Power of Knowing
Speaker 1: what you don't Know. Adam gives us strategies for cultivating
Speaker 1: a more open mind. As always, i'd love to hear
Speaker 1: which insights resonate most with you. You can connect with
Speaker 1: me on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker. People generally assume
Speaker 1: that they're less biased than others. Right, this is my
Speaker 1: favorite bias. It's I'm not biased biased right, everybody else
Speaker 1: is biased. I am objective. I see things with perfect neutrality.
Speaker 1: That's Adam Grant. He's a psychologist and author of the
Speaker 1: book Think Again, and he's talking here about a surprising
Speaker 1: feature of our own psychology that prevents us from changing
Speaker 1: our minds even when we should. And I think that
Speaker 1: the higher your intelligence, the more likely you are to
Speaker 1: fall victim to that bias. They're smarter you are, the
Speaker 1: more feedback you've gotten throughout your life that you're right,
Speaker 1: and that gives you an illusion of objectivity. I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk with Adam because he's an expert on the
Speaker 1: science of changing people's minds, a topic we've been diving
Speaker 1: into on this season of A Slight Change of Plans.
Speaker 1: We all have that friend, that family member that we
Speaker 1: disagree with on something, and it can feel daunting to
Speaker 1: engage with them on the topic, so daunting that oftentimes
Speaker 1: we just give up. In this episode, we're trying to
Speaker 1: change that. Adam and I discuss science based tactics that
Speaker 1: you can use to approach these conversations differently and hopefully
Speaker 1: with more success. I'm Maya Shunker and this is a
Speaker 1: slight change of plans. Well, it's great to meet you, Adam.
Speaker 1: Great to meet you. I've been hearing about you for years.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited that you're you're able to join us
Speaker 1: for this podcast. I'm just eager to pick your brain today. Well,
Speaker 1: my brain is sitting here waiting to be picked. Awesome. Okay.
Speaker 1: We don't like changing our minds, right, It's uncomfortable. It
Speaker 1: can create a lot of cognitive dissonance. It takes a
Speaker 1: lot of hard work, and so it's just easier to
Speaker 1: live our lives in an unreflective mode where we persistently
Speaker 1: believe what we believe and we double down, and we
Speaker 1: surround ourselves with people who help us double down on
Speaker 1: those beliefs over time. Yeah. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that I loved about the focus of your book is
Speaker 1: that it opens with ideas of how we can get
Speaker 1: ourselves to have an more open mind, ourselves to rethink things.
Speaker 1: So one reason you say that we might not be
Speaker 1: open to rethinking is because we're overconfident, And you talk
Speaker 1: in your book about not confusing over confidence with competence.
Speaker 1: Do you mind saying a bit more about that? Sure?
Speaker 1: I think when people are lacking knowledge or skill. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they also don't know what knowledge or skill looks like
Speaker 1: in that domain. Right, So if you know nothing, let's say,
Speaker 1: I always think about a Super Bowl party. You gather
Speaker 1: a bunch of football fans, and there's always one who's
Speaker 1: screaming at the coach for calling the wrong place. That
Speaker 1: is usually the fan who knows the least about football.
Speaker 1: But it's a fan, it's not somebody who's, you know,
Speaker 1: who's not at all interested in the game, because they're
Speaker 1: not like me, who's just sitting at the food table
Speaker 1: perfeting the entire time. Exactly. Yeah, you know that you
Speaker 1: know nothing. I'm not weighing in. No, you and you shouldn't, right,
Speaker 1: But if you if you watched a couple of games
Speaker 1: and you learned a little bit about football, that's when
Speaker 1: that tiny bit of knowledge can become a little bit dangerous,
Speaker 1: right because it what starts to happen is as your
Speaker 1: knowledge grows, you confuse your rate of learning for how
Speaker 1: much you've actually learned, and your confidence rises faster than
Speaker 1: your competence, and pretty soon you're trapped on the summit
Speaker 1: of Mount stupid, where you know very little but you
Speaker 1: don't know how little, you know. Yeah, you mentioned your
Speaker 1: book that imposter syndrome gets a bad rap, but actually
Speaker 1: there might be some silver linings to fueling imposter syndrome.
Speaker 1: Can you say a bit more about that, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: kind of. I was struck by this paradox that when
Speaker 1: you look at where imposter syndrome exists, one of the
Speaker 1: places it's most prevalent is among high achievers. And I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people have assumed that they've succeeded
Speaker 1: in spite of their doubts. And I started to wonder
Speaker 1: whether their doubts are actually helping to fuel their success. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe we don't have to turn this into a syndrome.
Speaker 1: Right when you call it imposter syndrome, it's like you
Speaker 1: have some kind of chronic disease, that is, it's just
Speaker 1: abilitating and it's with you at all times. We ended
Speaker 1: up having a doctoral student at Wark and Besimatofickho is
Speaker 1: now an MT professor, and she studied how often people
Speaker 1: doubt themselves. She studied investment professionals and medical professionals and
Speaker 1: found no consistent costs of having more frequent imposter thoughts
Speaker 1: and some surprising benefit the investment professionals when they felt
Speaker 1: like imposters more often, they actually made better decisions. The
Speaker 1: medical professionals who felt like imposters more often, they actually
Speaker 1: listened to their patients. And what was happening was when
Speaker 1: people felt those imposter thoughts, their confidence was a little
Speaker 1: bit below their competence, and that led them to work
Speaker 1: harder to prove themselves. It led them to work smarter
Speaker 1: to learn new things, and it made them much more
Speaker 1: receptive to listening to other people, which filled gaps in
Speaker 1: their knowledge. And it almost makes me think that instead
Speaker 1: of trying to have our confidence match our competence perfectly,
Speaker 1: we are better off slightly underestimating ourselves. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a tension that can emerge here, right because I'm thinking about,
Speaker 1: for example, communities of color who fall prey to stereotype
Speaker 1: threat and the fact that boosting confidence in those cases
Speaker 1: is really productive because in many ways they're starting off
Speaker 1: in an unreasonable position relative to their actual abilities, and
Speaker 1: so well, one, I'm just wondering, in those studies were done,
Speaker 1: what were the demographics of the group. And two, in
Speaker 1: terms of prescriptions, where is that appropriate line between humility
Speaker 1: and confidence, Especially because some of these psychological effects can
Speaker 1: disproportionately hit different communities. Yeah, I think I think that's
Speaker 1: a really important question. And I think Basima had good
Speaker 1: data on gender less on race, but when she looked
Speaker 1: at gender differences, the odds were greater that women were
Speaker 1: sort of discouraged or debilitated by very frequent imposter thoughts
Speaker 1: and men were much more likely to be motivated by them.
Speaker 1: And I think that tracks with everything we know about
Speaker 1: about basically the world I live in as a white man,
Speaker 1: which is people take for granted that I'm competent, whereas
Speaker 1: if you grow up as a woman, and I think
Speaker 1: this 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: you're 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,
Speaker 1: right because if we're going on the road with a
Speaker 1: message of imposter syndromes good. We might find that that
Speaker 1: has 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've that's
Speaker 1: 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: the 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
Speaker 1: educated did and their pride point was constructing these very
Speaker 1: logical arguments, and I mean logical in the definitional sense
Speaker 1: of the word. And as a result, I think there
Speaker 1: was some sort of reinforcing that was happening within the
Speaker 1: Phelps family. They're using sophisticated patterns and thinking and analysis,
Speaker 1: but because again their axioms or batshit crazy, they're reaching
Speaker 1: the wrong conclusions, but they are in their minds doubling
Speaker 1: down on those conclusions. Do you have thoughts on that? Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think one of the other risks of growing up
Speaker 1: in a family like that is you're taught from an
Speaker 1: early age to make your own arguments, and we forget
Speaker 1: that when you make an argument to persuade someone else.
Speaker 1: The person you're most likely to persuade is yourself because
Speaker 1: you trust yourself, right, you are a highly credible source
Speaker 1: in your own eyes, and you also came up with
Speaker 1: the reasons that you found most convincing, and as you
Speaker 1: explain them, you start to take ownership from them, right.
Speaker 1: Part of that is cognitive dissonance. Well, I've said this
Speaker 1: out loud. I don't want to be a hypocrite, so
Speaker 1: now it becomes part of my belief system. And another
Speaker 1: reason why we do feel so much Adjita, when it
Speaker 1: comes to admitting that we're wrong, is that we get
Speaker 1: deeply attached to quote our past selves who held those beliefs,
Speaker 1: and we do feel like a departure from that past
Speaker 1: self in some way poses a full on identity threat.
Speaker 1: So can you say more about the importance of trying
Speaker 1: to detach yourself from your past self. Yeah, there's there's
Speaker 1: a growing body of evidence in psychology that people who
Speaker 1: feel quote unquote derailed that you know, I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not quite the same person I was two or three
Speaker 1: years ago, they actually end up getting happier that you know.
Speaker 1: There's a little bit of a period of feeling unsettled,
Speaker 1: but then they realize, oh, I'm not going to let
Speaker 1: my old ideas of who I wanted to be hold
Speaker 1: me back. And I think one of the easiest ways
Speaker 1: to get comfortable with with rethinking is to detach your
Speaker 1: current self from your old self. So there are so
Speaker 1: many times when I've looked back at my old decisions
Speaker 1: and opinions, I'm like, Wow, I should be really embarrassed
Speaker 1: by that. How can I possibly think that? And yet
Speaker 1: I mostly just laugh at myself because I don't think
Speaker 1: I'm the same person. Yes, I realize I have fundamentally
Speaker 1: the same brain and the same body, right, and it's
Speaker 1: still me. But I think I've grown and evolved in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways from that version of me, and
Speaker 1: so I don't feel like what I did, the ideas
Speaker 1: I had about my future and the opinions I held
Speaker 1: at twenty one are reflective of who I am now
Speaker 1: at thirty nine, even though some of my values are
Speaker 1: very similar. One interesting flip on this, it's reminding me
Speaker 1: so in this interview with Megan fels Roper, who was mentioning,
Speaker 1: I asked her, I said, when you look back on
Speaker 1: your life, right, you have this in the Westboro Baptist
Speaker 1: Church and then post Westboro Baptist Church like this total
Speaker 1: life split moment. Is it jarring to remember that you
Speaker 1: are that same Megan? And so one thing I found
Speaker 1: fascinating about her experience is that she makes an intentional
Speaker 1: effort not to distance herself from that Megan. And the
Speaker 1: reason for that is she can both acknowledge that she
Speaker 1: has different views today, but reminding herself a former Megan
Speaker 1: helps her continue to have empathy towards people who continue
Speaker 1: to think like old Megan. And in order for her
Speaker 1: to do the anti extremist work she does today, she
Speaker 1: also has to have that posture of understanding and empathy
Speaker 1: because she needs to remember what it was like to
Speaker 1: feel persuaded by terrible ideas. That is fascinating. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: kind of blew me away that answer. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: the idea that you could you could still accept that,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of unacceptable version of past you and say, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not totally different from that anymore while
Speaker 1: still changing your values in your I mean that that
Speaker 1: is that is walking proof of what is it? The
Speaker 1: is it? The f Scott Fitzgerald line that the sign
Speaker 1: of intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas
Speaker 1: in your mind at the same time and retain the
Speaker 1: ability to function like that. That's it. She has two
Speaker 1: opposing identities, one recently abandoned, one relatively recently adopted, that
Speaker 1: she is keeping in some kind of dynamic tension. I
Speaker 1: don't think. I can't imagine doing that, honestly. I think that.
Speaker 1: I mean, we all have multiple identities, right, But to
Speaker 1: have such conflicting values and beliefs and and say yeah,
Speaker 1: one is one is me now, one is me before,
Speaker 1: but it's not that different from you now. The equanimity
Speaker 1: required to do that, I think is extraordinary. Can't imagine
Speaker 1: it exactly. Another reason that it's hard for a lot
Speaker 1: of people to admit that they're wrong is that we
Speaker 1: tend to strongly attach our opinions to our sense of identity.
Speaker 1: And you challenge this in the book, right, you say
Speaker 1: you 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 what 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
Speaker 1: occasion it can have transformative effects on society. I think
Speaker 1: you're right on that too. I think I'm less optimistic
Speaker 1: than you are about how easy it is to compel
Speaker 1: people to change their values. Say, I didn't say I
Speaker 1: was optimistic about it. I just care about it. Well,
Speaker 1: I care about it too, and I just I think
Speaker 1: it's 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 values fixed,
Speaker 1: assume those are constant to your earlier point, but present
Speaker 1: 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. So, 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: to 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, gosh, there's so
Speaker 1: many today say immigration reform. Okay, I'm assuming this uncle
Speaker 1: is anti immigration and you're mar pro yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: the I already here is that it's a little bit
Speaker 1: of hypothetical for me given that I'm from a family
Speaker 1: of immigrants. So yes, let's say the average uncle is
Speaker 1: anti immigration. Okay, I think where tactically, where I would
Speaker 1: starts with motivational interviewing principles to recognize that you can't
Speaker 1: force your uncle to change his mind, but you could
Speaker 1: help him find his own motivation to change his mind.
Speaker 1: I think one of the things I've noticed consistently is
Speaker 1: I just give a barrage of data points and facts
Speaker 1: and reasons, and the other person either attacks, defends, or withdrawals.
Speaker 1: And one of the things I've seen in research on
Speaker 1: expert negotiators comparing them to average negotiators is the experts
Speaker 1: have a higher question to statement ratio, which is also
Speaker 1: something you see incidentally in productive charge conversations as opposed
Speaker 1: to conversations that just go off the rails. What are
Speaker 1: some questions that I could ask you that might lead
Speaker 1: you to question some of your own beliefs? How did
Speaker 1: you how did you come to that opinion? Like, tell
Speaker 1: me more about what your sources are. I'd love to
Speaker 1: understand them better. Yeah, so you So, it's really important
Speaker 1: that we ask questions and not make statements. And another
Speaker 1: one that I that I love. My husband and I
Speaker 1: were talking about this yesterday is asking people what evidence
Speaker 1: they would need in order to change their minds. And
Speaker 1: the reason I ask this is that it presupposes that
Speaker 1: the person ought to be willing to change their mind
Speaker 1: in the face of evidence, and that's something that you know,
Speaker 1: we we could sometimes you know, not always be even
Speaker 1: open to in the first place. So yeah, I absolutely
Speaker 1: love that one, and it really gets people to dig
Speaker 1: into why it is they believe the thing in the
Speaker 1: first place. Yeah, I've it's it's my go to question
Speaker 1: whenever I'm in an argument and somebody is not. Usually
Speaker 1: it's it's I've presented some data already and then the
Speaker 1: other person rejects the data. You know, my instinct is
Speaker 1: than to just give them more data, and instead I'm
Speaker 1: again trying to go into scientists mode and be curious
Speaker 1: and say, okay, well, it seems like you're not buying
Speaker 1: the argument I made. What evidence would change your mind?
Speaker 1: And it's very rare that anybody says nothing, and once
Speaker 1: they start to walk through the evidence, I know what
Speaker 1: kind of data they find convincing. We're also agreeing on
Speaker 1: the standards of conversation, right that, Okay, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about what qualifies as rigorous evidence, and we can
Speaker 1: possibly find some consensus on that, even if we disagree
Speaker 1: about how to interpret the evidence. One thing that resonated
Speaker 1: with me when reading the book is how is how
Speaker 1: often people can disagree with an argument, not because they
Speaker 1: actually disagree with it, but because they feel in some
Speaker 1: way like they're being controlled, right, that they're being told
Speaker 1: what to do. So how can we get around this? Well,
Speaker 1: one of the places where I've run into this a
Speaker 1: lot actually is in office hours with my students. I've
Speaker 1: changed my approach dramatically. What I do now is if
Speaker 1: you come into office hours and you say, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: you know, I'm thinking about this banking jobst thing I
Speaker 1: want to do is I'm going to ask you why
Speaker 1: you're here. What's what's your goal? Do you just want
Speaker 1: my stamp of approval on your decision because you already
Speaker 1: have it, or maybe you're here because you want me
Speaker 1: to point out blind spots in your thinking and you know,
Speaker 1: invite you to do a little bit of rethinking, like
Speaker 1: what is it? And whatever they say? Right that that
Speaker 1: gives me a guide to figure out how I can
Speaker 1: best help them, and at that point, they don't feel
Speaker 1: controlled anymore, and I don't have an agenda anymore. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to align what their goals are with the way
Speaker 1: that I, you know, I respond to their questions and
Speaker 1: life change, I mean honestly life changing in my office
Speaker 1: hours conversations because I've had so many tug of war
Speaker 1: sort of battles like no, I think you're making a
Speaker 1: decision you're going to regret, and I want to save
Speaker 1: you from it. And now it's like, hey, you just
Speaker 1: you just in you just ask me to tell you
Speaker 1: what you might be missing. And then once once I
Speaker 1: have your permission, I'm not trying to influence you anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm just sharing with you what I've learned. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: recruiting their own agency, right, and we know that that's
Speaker 1: such a good way to describe it. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: people love being in the driver's seat. Like even with
Speaker 1: these driverless cars, even if the steering wheel doesn't work,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. They just want it there. They want
Speaker 1: to feel like they're in control. Recruiting their own agency.
Speaker 1: That is a powerful way to describe it. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think once. Once they get to exercise it, sometimes
Speaker 1: they become more open to the advice at the end.
Speaker 1: So you know, they almost never used to ask me
Speaker 1: which which job should I take? And when I start
Speaker 1: the conversation by asking them what their goals are and
Speaker 1: how can I best help them, they almost always at
Speaker 1: the end of the conversation say, well, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's been helpful to hear some of the things that
Speaker 1: I've overlooked, or you know, I appreciated the the insight
Speaker 1: on the decision process. But what I really want to
Speaker 1: know is which job do you think will make me
Speaker 1: happier or which one will do you help? Do you
Speaker 1: think will help me succeed? And I think my responsibility
Speaker 1: in that moment is to say, I don't know that
Speaker 1: is your choice, Yes, that that is great, and yeah,
Speaker 1: like you said, leads to better outcomes in your office hours.
Speaker 1: So I think we all feel anxious about the next
Speaker 1: generation and how divisive things feel and how much people
Speaker 1: do dig in their heels. One of the other ideas
Speaker 1: that I thought was so great was to invite kids
Speaker 1: to do multiple drafts of things right, to not strive
Speaker 1: for that, you know, for perfection, and also to see
Speaker 1: that there are many versions of this thing that could
Speaker 1: exist in the world. And I was reflecting on that
Speaker 1: last night, Like as a kid practicing the violin, there
Speaker 1: was no such thing as a final product, And in
Speaker 1: many ways, I think that helped me cultivate this mindset
Speaker 1: of growth and the fact that things can always sound
Speaker 1: different than what it sounded like in my head. And
Speaker 1: I think that was actually very positive in terms of
Speaker 1: the way that I looked at honing a craft in
Speaker 1: general so interesting. Same although mine was not artistic, it
Speaker 1: was athletic, and that's exactly what this idea of sitting
Speaker 1: down with our kids it was. It was eye opening
Speaker 1: instead of just praising the first drawing that they did
Speaker 1: on a given day. I remember say to our fourth grader, hey,
Speaker 1: that's really interesting. Have you tried a second draft? And
Speaker 1: she got excited about all the things she can rethink.
Speaker 1: She ended up voluntarily doing five drafts and was that
Speaker 1: much prouder of the fifth one than she would have
Speaker 1: been at the first. And it was a good both
Speaker 1: lesson and probably reminder for me that kids are not
Speaker 1: so fragile that they need to be told that everything
Speaker 1: they do is great, and sometimes you can highlight the
Speaker 1: potential in them, in whatever they've produced or created, and
Speaker 1: then encouraged them to think again and reach that potential.
Speaker 1: All right, I have one final question for you. Added,
Speaker 1: I imagine you get lots of emails from people who've
Speaker 1: read your books. Can you share any of the best
Speaker 1: change stories that you might have read? Yeah? I actually
Speaker 1: got a great email last week. Hold On, let me
Speaker 1: pull it up because it was so powerful that I
Speaker 1: need to read a line from it. Okay, And he said,
Speaker 1: I'm reaching out because I wanted to tell you about
Speaker 1: something that happened to me yesterday that I think he
Speaker 1: might appreciate. He said. It was my first outdoor weekend
Speaker 1: of the year. I was in a hammock finishing Think Again,
Speaker 1: and right after I finished it, a kind of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one year old guy was, you know, just kind
Speaker 1: of hanging out outdoors, and we struck up a conversation
Speaker 1: and he was just expressing all these fears about vaccines,
Speaker 1: he said. The young man immediately voiced his concerns about
Speaker 1: the vaccines and how he's heard some pretty scary things
Speaker 1: about what they can do to us. This is where
Speaker 1: I paused. I'd literally just finished a reading think again
Speaker 1: not an hour before, and now I have someone in
Speaker 1: front of me who has his defenses down, who is
Speaker 1: clearly expressing doubts about the vaccines. I decided to put
Speaker 1: your book to the test. I told the young man
Speaker 1: that I agreed it's very confusing knowing which information on
Speaker 1: vaccines to trust while also trying to stay safe and
Speaker 1: not get our loved one sick. And I asked him
Speaker 1: how he plans to make an informed decision. He paused,
Speaker 1: clearly not being used to that question, and said he'd
Speaker 1: use sources he trusts I asked him how he knows
Speaker 1: which sources to trust, which is harder and harder in
Speaker 1: this day and age, and he paused again and said, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is hard, and then said he might call his
Speaker 1: primary care physician and ask for medical advice, and I
Speaker 1: said I would do the same. He said, The story
Speaker 1: doesn't 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 in that
Speaker 1: beautiful Yeah, what an impact. I love that so much.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you so much, Adam. I'm so glad
Speaker 1: we got a chance to discuss. Oh. I feel like
Speaker 1: we barely scratched the surface. You are so smart and
Speaker 1: such a clear thinker and communicator and ask him almost
Speaker 1: impossibly difficult questions that I'm going to be thinking about
Speaker 1: for the next few weeks. A Slight Change of Plans
Speaker 1: is created an executive produce by me Maya Shunker. Big
Speaker 1: thanks to everyone at Pushkin Industries, including our producer Mola Board,
Speaker 1: associate producers David ja and Julia Goodman, executive producers Mia
Speaker 1: Lavelle and Justine Lange, senior editor Jen Guera, and sound
Speaker 1: design and mixed engineers Ben Taliday and Jason Gambrel. Thanks
Speaker 1: also to Louis Gara who wrote our theme song, and
Speaker 1: Ginger Smith who helped arrange the vocals, incidental music from
Speaker 1: Epidemic Sound, and of course a very special thanks to
Speaker 1: Jimmy Lee. You can follow A Slight Change of Plans
Speaker 1: on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker. It was fun to
Speaker 1: think out loud, but also I'm like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: why I always like to be the interviewer because I
Speaker 1: have questions I'm going to ask back to you next time.
Speaker 1: We'll trade spots. How about that to be continu