Considering the widespread calls for “mindshifts”, research into how worldviews change in practice is remarkably thin.
As far as we know, a full-blown shift of worldview tends to occur slow, and may take years. At the same time, a perspective shift can happen in a matter of moments. Such perspective shifts are perhaps to be understood as the ‘building blocks’ of larger worldview changes.
This process may be akin to Thomas Kunn’s groundbreaking depiction of how paradigm shifts happened in the history of science (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962). According to Kuhn’s observations, initially anomalies – observations that are at odds with, and contest, the current paradigm or way of understanding in a certain scientific field – tend to be resisted and oppressed. They are therefore not able to shift the paradigm. However, once more anomalies are observed and start to reach a certain threshold, the inevitable happens and the paradigm shifts. A radically and qualitatively new understanding of the same phenomena now takes over the field.
Like these paradigm shifts in science, our personal perspective-shifts may over time result in a shift of worldview. For example, one day you’re climbing a big mountain and while standing on its peak you have a powerful and deep experience like you’ve never had before. You experience an aliveness, a vastness, and a value that feels incredibly meaningful to you, and that evokes a different understanding of what nature is and the role it should play in your life. This experience  in itself , however powerful, will probably not immediately result in a shift of worldview. But when you start having more of these ‘perspective-shifting’ experiences, at some point the balance may tip and your larger understanding of reality – your worldview – may shift. (Check out this study.)
Though there is limited research available that explores how this happens in practice, many people have experienced such shift in their lives. However, this process may be so slow that one often only appreciates in retrospect, and upon conscious reflection, that that is what happened.
More research is needed to answer this vital question!