ASM159 The Art and Science of Changing Minds

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the art and science of changing minds this on a special episode of ask [Music] sciencemic [Music] welcome to another episode of ask science mike it's the weekly podcast where i answer questions about science and faith and life i'm your host i'm mike mccarg the internet calls me science mike it's a long story i'm your basic college dropout d de-ordained non-expert who answers questions for a living

if this is your first episode i'm sure that's super confusing um but i have made a discipline of researching things to check my own biases and trying to do that well and being honest in answering questions in public and talking about things that are difficult to discuss in our world things about spirituality about where we find facts and truth in our world about how we create a world that's fair and just and equitable for everyone

we talk about sexuality

ask science mike is your show it's a place where the question you've always wanted to voice but there's been a place or there's been no place where you've been allowed to do so this is that place it's a judgment free zone for questions and then i just give my best answer that i can sometimes those answers i think are pretty good and sometimes i think they're not very good at all but what i can tell you is i will respond to every question in a non-judgmental way with great empathy and compassion and an honest answer and uh before we kind of run into this week's special edition i did a couple of things that i want to tell you about one is there's a lot of events on the calendar but not on my website yet so i have a lot of dates booked that aren't on my website yet but coming up very soon are a few you'll want to know about um august 25th i'm going to be at saint andrews united methodist church in uh highlands ranch colorado that's the suburb of denver so all you denver friends i'd love to see you at evensong at saint saint andrews united methodist church uh which is a place i've been before got great friends there looking forward to see you all august 25th um october 5th and 6th we'll be in london for the liturgist gathering that's going to be me and michael gunger uh hosting that one so if you're in the london area we'd love to see you and then if you've been listening about our ken men retreat k-i-n a retreat for men to redefine what masculinity is that event is sold out but if you were wanting to go you can go and get on a list to be notified when the liturgists do retreats retreats are very small events for us 30 people or less to really get to know people and work through not just topics but like how to live a life well uh so those are three events i'd like to tell you about and then you know i had this like wild hair that i've been thinking about um and it's because i live in los angeles and la is this giant city la uh county is like 4 000 square miles the greater la area includes several massive counties um and hundreds of giant metro areas that together create this immense thing called los angeles and you know we really do have it all here in l.a we have oceans we have mountains we have surf and we have snow snow as a destination in los angeles it's not weather um and you have the freedom to be who you want to be to chase what you want to do in this mild sunny playground of creativity that catches on fire sometimes which is to me it's only flaw that the rent but other than that la also has a lot of lonely people i've noticed and some of those listen to my podcasts and when i get your emails and your social media messages uh you tell me that you're deconstructed and your post post post christian post atheist post everything your posts being post and maybe you'd like to go to church sometime yeah i know that sounds crazy to the science make audience some people actually do want to go to church but you have trouble going to church because going to a strange church by yourself is the weirdest thing in the world and a lot of you have been hurt by church in the past so there's a lot of fear there so i want to do something about that and i want to do something really small so this is not an announcement that i'm launching a church network or a denomination or any of those things that you ask me about all the time this is about just going to church together so i'm calling it church together it's for people in the la area all you do is go to mikemikharg.com church together that's all one word church together uh no spaces no dashes and if you can't spell my name it's m i k e m c h a r g u e dot com it's basically mch and then the word argue like we're going to argue about something dot com slash church together and you can sign up all i need your name and your email address and what part of town you live in and i am periodically based on my travel schedule going to email the people on that list and say this sunday i'm going to blank and blank will be a church in the la area that is open and affirming what do i mean i mean that they marry any two people regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity and they accept those people as church members and they ordain them as clergy so any church that i go to you know that women and trans folk and queer folk are all fully affirmed members of that community in no way uh you know structurally set aside or put down uh and that's the qualification for me to visit a church in la with you so i'll send the email if you want to go meet me there i don't know if this is gonna be me by myself over and over or there's gonna be three of us or there's gonna be 50 of us i have no idea what i'll commit to you is whatever church and whatever date i announce i will be at that church and we can sit together so you don't have to feel like you're going at this alone so it's a chance to try different churches it's a chance to reconnect with spiritual community if that's something you're interested in and then we'll go to lunch afterwards uh that's my plan we'll pick a lunch spot depending on how many people come hopefully i mean i don't know i'm i'm counting on la is kind of half-hearted response to when i do things compared to other places i don't know that i could even attempt this and say portland or seattle or minneapolis-st paul or somewhere like that where people tend to buy every ticket available for everything i do but la is a lot more chill so i think in my hometown or the town i live i guess my hometown is tallahassee but where i live we can try this mikemakark.com church together i'm really excited about it y'all i'm a church person i like church and i care about redeeming church and church won't get redeemed unless people like you start going and don't hear that as me telling you you should go to church i do not care if you go to church and i don't think you're ethically or morally in the wrong if you don't go to church what i'm saying is some of us just like church i'm one of those people i've had conversations with so many la area people who agree um so that's why we're doing church together boy that was a long announcement but i'm super excited about this i've been more excited about this than anything i've done in the last year uh the podcasts are great and i love your cards and your letters and your emails telling me how much the podcast has helped you through something difficult but i think it's important to foster in-person community connections because i just see there's a lot of you who feel really heard and known through these podcasts but never in your actual life and i can't stand that i just can't stand it so i live in la so we'll start trying this in la first okay this week i mentioned it's a special edition it's because i'm only answering one question but i think it's like the question right now um and i've get so many variations of this question every week in the ass science mike inbox i get this asked at events i get this asked on twitter um i get this is just a constant question i get asked this at parties with people who don't even listen to the podcast but know something about me i had this reputation for knowing stuff i don't know it's weird for a college dropout but here's the question hey science mike have you ever changed someone's mind on anything you speak about ever i think you're right on and that everyone else on earth is crazy but the only people that agree with me are people who already agree with me ha i've never changed anyone's mind ever do you think the holy spirit has to work their ground so to speak before your gentle logic can prevail you're the best me and my liberal women's bible study loves you for all eternity wow for all eternity that's impressive um i gotta be honest i have absolutely changed people's minds on a host of issues and am able to do so consistently let me tell you a couple stories one uh a woman came up to me with her wife after an event and she told me that before she heard the liturgist podcast episode called lgbt she was an evangelical who believed that same-sex relationships were sinful and then she heard the podcast and started to confront her own assumptions about the bible and about sexuality which allowed her to admit to herself that she was a lesbian and ultimately led her to meet her partner and get married in an affirming church and now attends a church with a queer pastor that's a big story of change now does that mean i single-handedly change this person's life of course not but it does mean the work played a role and i have gotten thousands and thousands of emails and cards and letters and in-person testimonies of people telling me that the liturgist podcast on lgbt q we didn't even know the q at the time we made that episode on lgbt issues um changed people's minds thousands tens of thousands maybe hundreds of thousands of people in the world are affirming now who wouldn't have been without that podcast we did another episode called black and white and folks i just can't tell you the number of messages i get from people who say you know what i didn't get race issues in america before that podcast i thought racism was something we had solved and then i heard that episode what can i do white folks are telling me that black folks are telling me that hispanic and latinx people are telling me that all kinds of people both christians and non-religious people and atheists have all told me black and white change the way they view race and racism so yes i have changed people's minds and i do so consistently and it's because one i'm an empathetic natural storyteller and two i spent 16 years working in advertising and marketing so i thought for this episode i would take you through some of the techniques and strategies that i use intentionally to change people's minds okay that's what this episode is about how to change people's minds the art and the science of that it is absolutely both just knowing the science and trying to apply it without an artful open-hearted approach won't be effective because people are not persuaded by information full stop facts don't matter wait did science might just say facts don't matter no i actually think facts are incredibly important in making sound decisions what i'm saying is we are not psychologically equipped to do that naturally we are not rational analytical creatures and the enlightenment assumption that we are is totally totally misguided it's unfounded it's wrong we are emotional creatures first and we are social creatures second and then then if those needs are satisfied and satiated we might use our rational analytical capacity and in fact often when we use our rational capacity we're simply trying to justify what our emotions are already telling us so let's start by talking about advertisers advertisers have a brilliant methodology for thinking about decision making it's been around forever it's called the sales funnel and the most old school basic sales funnel shows four stages broadest at the top narrowest at the bottom the top stage in the sales funnel is awareness someone has to be aware of whatever you're selling in order to buy it so if you make the most revolutionary pair of socks in human history your you have changed the sock game these are the most comfortable socks most supportive socks really economical they're long lasting they prevent microbial growth and you know they make you jump a foot higher whenever you wear them whatever amazing thing your socks do no one can buy your socks if they don't know they exist so your first step is to take people who aren't aware of you and make them aware of you that's why awareness is the first step of the funnel then once people are aware you exist you have to get them interested because you're not the only sock maker in the world let's be honest people are going to say why would i buy your socks when there's fruit of the loom socks or if i want cheap socks in a giant bag or gold toll socks if i want something a little fancier uh whatever uh you have to get them interested you have to start telling them why your product is different than all the other products they're aware of and a huge part of marketing is not only giving you awareness of a product but letting you form an interest in this product think about the ads you see right apple does this all the time look we have a new thing we want to make you aware of it but we also want to make you interested in it it's not enough to know the homepod exists we want you to be interested in buying one so after you become interested the next step is to get you to make a decision to purchase a desire sometimes it's called intent to purchase in newer versions of the sales funnel and why this is a separate stage from purchase is because if someone has made an intent to purchase someone else's product but hasn't done it yet you haven't lost your sale yet that's why action is the last step decision or intent is the third step and action is the last in our thing we're talking about today the action is changing their mind now why does this matter because marketers know that a given prospect a person who has a potential to take an action their propensity or likelihood of taking that action is dependent on where they are in the sales funnel there is no point spending money uh with a message that drives action to people who aren't aware of the product yet it won't work but people who are aware of the product and you create an interest now we can drive that intent and action message and that means uh i understand in my work in this podcast that a not everyone is a prospect at all some people just won't go into my what i call a decision funnel instead of a sales funnel at all they're going to sift out automatically who would be someone who would be very unlikely to be a prospect for the kinds of things i talk about on this program someone who is a young earth creationist who thinks science is a lie from the devil they're just not a prospect for my work so i don't worry about trying to convince that person of anything someone who thinks donald trump was sent by god to redeem america probably not a prospect that doesn't mean trump voters or trump supporters don't listen to astonished mike they do but the ones who keep listening are the ones who have a complex or nuanced stance on donald trump you know that they thought supreme court justices were very important because they're pro-life and so they support donald trump right those people absolutely listen to the show and might be a same-sex marriage affirming for example but you know also pro-life and i would also say people are pro-life who listen to science mike tend to be more holistically or comprehensively pro-life they don't just want to like block abortions they care about welfare for children they care about a social safety net right it's a comprehensive pro-life stance that is a different position those folks are absolutely kind of in that awareness stage of my decision funnel um on many issues but so i understand it's a numbers game so the liturgist podcast for example when we did lgbtq i knew who were at different points of the funnel right people who were oh they knew the bible and they knew their interpretation of the bible but they also saw some hurt in the world from a quote traditional unquote teaching on sexuality folks we can make some progress right so it's a numbers game and it's one thing you have to do is develop the capacity to understand where someone is in their decision process and whether they're a prospect at all how hard is that well it only took me 16 years of full-time work to get great at it doing it at scale it's not easy but just think about sales funnels and decision funnels so once you thought in a funnel context the next thing you do is you speak in the person's language you speak in their language not yours you don't bring your cultural assumptions and your subcultural ideas into the conversation you speak in their language when i answer a question for someone who is obviously um an evangelical christian and there are many evangelical christians who listen to ask science mike um conservative evangelicals are a similar slice of the audience as atheists um both of which make up a solid share of this program by the way i'm super proud of that [Laughter] i just find me another media channel where people who self-identify as atheists and conservative evangelicals show up in equal numbers i'm not aware of any so um i speak in their language so when an evangelical asks a question uh i don't say like my subjective perception of the divine i say god i can honestly use those words interchangeably um but i i speak in language that is familiar to them because that's comforting and it shows i care about where they are um i don't do this duplicitously i never uh try to project that i believe something i do not for example i make it obvious that i hold a different view of scripture than most evangelicals do but i emphasize that i also value scripture you see i look for common ground and that's part of speaking someone's language and my next point is searching for common ground what can you agree on are people loved by god can you both agree on that if you're not a person who believes in god don't go there but can you agree that all humans have inherent dignity and worth scope out as far as you can to search for common ground because the more someone can say yes the more they can nod to what you are saying the more cognitively and psychologically primed they are to keep saying yes as you go as you kind of push them a little bit right if you're gradual in this process for agreement agreement agreement agreement agreement a lot of people just kind of get in the zone where they become more accepting it's psychology it's cognition and one way to do that is to ask open-ended questions so how do you know what you hold in common you get people talking one of the most powerful ways and it's hard to do on podcasts but you see me do it in person all the time is you ask them questions and you do this in a non-threatening non-judgmental way and it doesn't matter how morally revolting you might find their stance if your goal is to change their mind if that's your goal then a non-judgmental receptive posture as you ask questions will help now this is this work is not for everyone i talk to people in the in-cell community and people in the alt-right why because i'm safe to do so i'm a straight white man my emotional psychological and physical safety are in no way threatened by even the most extreme elements of those communities that means it's my work what i don't listen to me saying how to change minds as a way of censoring women telling them to go into unsafe spaces and advocacy that's not what i'm saying i'm saying if you are in a position where you feel like you have the opportunity to change someone's mind you can do so without jeopardizing your safety that's the context i'm giving these tips and in that context open-ended questions are incredibly powerful in helping you search for common ground and in speaking someone's language they'll reveal to you their linguistic norms as they answer the questions adopt them use them without being deceptive or hypocritical that's when you think of like the used car salesman archetype and my apologies genuinely to any honest and ethical used car salesmen who are listening but that archetype that slick will say anything to get the sale that doesn't create durable change for folks that just makes you look like a jerk so honesty and integrity are critical in this process so you're you're thinking about a funnel you're speaking their language you're searching for common ground you're asking open-ended questions and now as you start to identify points of difference in your opinions and in your stances give people a means to claim a positive self-image and a way out what do i mean well first of all positive self-image means complimenting people wait what yes complimenting people when i have conversations with white people who have obvious and severe racial prejudice and racism um i look for opportunities to affirm their goodness as people everybody loves somebody everybody will stand up for someone um and i look for opportunities to tell people oh man i know you are a good person and that that there seems to be a tension there because i'm so disgusted by racism but i know like most people who are deeply racist that was something that was conditioned into them and there have some ongoing social pressure some stratified indoctrinating you know potentially ostracizing if they don't uphold these norms in their communities and that's why these beliefs persist because what we will just say in the beginning we're emotional social creatures first people are racist because their culture their community expects them to be why am i not racist because if i was racist my friends wouldn't hang out with me now there came a point when i started shifting community because i got more outspoken on racial justice issues and i got more outspoken on um all kinds of justice issues all kinds of issues of identity of ableism whatever and a lot of people are very uncomfortable and don't hang out with me anymore but the friends i have now it's not it's not difficult to name and call out racism in the communities i run in today everyone does it everyone all of my friends including my white friends are examining their role in systemic and structural racism and examining their personal attitudes they're doing the same for lgbtq folk and they're doing the same in regards to disabled folks so social emotional creatures that means in order to change people's minds we have to soothe the social and emotional parts of the human brain of people so that's why i compliment people that's why i accept a racist person and i name them as a friend so that they feel a sense of belonging with me a person who is extremely opposed to all forms of systemic and personal racism i'm shifting their sense of belonging to being in with me and that works below the cognitive level to start changing people's minds so let's talk about a very common phrase i see all the time men are trash i see it every time i open twitter i giggle honestly i know a lot of you get really upset men that listen um when you hear the term men are trash because you're like well i'm a man and i'm not trash and i don't know maybe you're not i am trash sometimes i'll admit it sometimes i'm trash um i am more comfortable uh being emotionally vulnerable with women than with men what does that mean it means on some level i expect women to carry my emotional burdens that's a trashy thing to do but i never say men are trash never ever ever do i say men are trash now i'm sure someone's gonna go quote tweet me and say science mike you did same in our trash okay i try not to say men are trash what do i say i say men have been handed a bad script by society that calls out the bad behavior without making um individual men feel preemptively ostracized now don't hear me wrong i'm not knocking women who say men are trash look at me too look at the pervasive rates of sexual assault in our society the universal uh sexual harassment in the workplace and in religious institutions look at pay discrimination look at how many women are in leadership and let me tell you you can make a great case that men are trash that statement is necessary to build relief via solidarity among women it's also a way to keep men from getting on board with women's liberation so i view my beloved women friends in feminism and womanist movements who say men is trash as vital allies in stirring something up in men that i can then come along later and say well hey oh you're not a bad person you've been handed a bad script you see i said let's let's not talk about let's talk about our feelings that's important but let's also talk about why so many women would say men are trash see what i'm doing let's go to an open-ended question and search for common ground can we agree in some way that women have a tougher time in our culture than men do can we get there first and let's dismantle this emotional reaction to the idea that men are trash see what i'm doing remember this is not prescriptive to everyone it's probably not for most women to have difficult conversations with men about sexism that's the job for men who are listening to women who are leading these movements so give people a means to maintain a positive self-image and give people a way out i'm going to quote an article that i will link on the show notes this week this is by a scientist turned lawyer and he says that the key is to trick the mind by giving it an excuse convince your own mind or your friend that your prior decision or prior belief was the right one given what you knew but now that the underlying facts have changed so should the mind i spend a lot of energy and time analyzing why i used to believe something so that i can establish why that was a reasonable belief in the context i was in the way i get people to shift their beliefs on affirming same-sex marriage and affirming all sexual orientations and gender identities is because i first explain in great detail why i used to agree with non-affirming people and i admit that i genuinely loved and cared for the lesbian gay bisexual trans and queer people in my life when i was a non-affirming evangelical and that also the beliefs i held were destructive and hurtful in those same people's lives i loved people and deeply hurt them i volunteer myself as the worst example first because i was i was gosh you know i was so eloquent in my defense of the quote traditional unquote sexuality and traditional biblical marriage i had so many conversations with gay and lesbian friends where i compassionately and empathetically told them that who they were was sinful and a choice most people i talk to they might hold traditional beliefs and they might support the institutions that oppress people but they personally have never had that conversation with someone i did let's talk about someone else someone else who comes up my news feed every day jordan peterson every time someone talks about jordan peterson in the communities i ran in someone says jordan peterson is terrible short men are trash jordan peterson is terrible um and then when i express any solidarity or agreement with the idea that jordan peterson is terrible i get 25 to 50 emails from dudes saying come on jordan peterson's great you're not giving him a fair shake you should read his book first i've totally read jordan peterson's book i read it i still don't like jordan peterson but i will say jordan peterson speaks to common insecurities in men and the sense of alienation and isolation they feel in society right now so when i talk about jordan peterson i don't talk about how much i don't like jordan peterson who cares if i like jordan peterson or not that's a completely irrelevant bit of information what i look for is what is jordan peterson speaking to that other people are missing right there's a lot of people who were really really hardcore justice folk who then for some reason felt alienated in justice work and now are in this like reclaiming of traditional views but not by jordan peterson um and here's why i don't slam jordan peterson if i trigger a defense of jordan peterson i've missed my chance to change someone's mind in fact if in a conversation i trigger a defensive posture about absolutely anything at all i've pushed someone back up the decision funnel i just undone work i was doing it's all about nero anatomy when someone gets defensive their amygdala starts to become active and they they lose the capacity to listen and be receptive neurologically your amygdala is like a uh like a i don't know like a an air brake um pushing you away from moving forward in your thought i avoid amygdala activation at all cost when i am trying to change someone's mind which means i dance around things now you would say i don't want to dance around things mike then don't that's fine it is perfectly okay to be an advocate who creates relief via solidarity and it creates awareness by calling out what is wrong that is fine i'm talking about if you care about changing people's minds who disagree with you if you care about changing minds who disagree with you which is something i care about that's a huge part of my work um i avoid defensive postures creating a defensive posture at all costs um to keep people in neurological perspective to keep them empathetic and the most powerful way to do that of course is to tell stories if you look at the fastest shift in public sentiment on an issue in american history it was moving an affirmation of same-sex marriage how did that happen so fast what in the world youtube youtube gave us the opportunity for people to sit in front of a web camera and tell the story about the pain and suffering they faced in life being lgbtq in our society what that was like maybe they cried maybe they gave some story that resonated with someone they heard they saw their behavior from another perspective they saw their attempts to encourage people actually tearing people down and people change their minds really quickly because of storytelling just storytelling storytelling is the most powerful human technology of all time i put it right up there with fire and the wheel probably above them we daydream a third of our waking hours but not when we're immersed in story when we're immersed in the story that's the only time we don't daydream at all storytelling puts us in another person's perspective it allows us to see the world through another's eyes and as it does so it shuts down our cognitive defense mechanisms you'll accept ideas told in a story and a narrative you would never accept as an argument or set of information storytelling promotes empathy through understanding it fosters learning studies have shown that people who listen to a story and the protagonist learned something in a couple of weeks they thought they learned it they forget they learned it from the story because they were so in the shoes of that protagonist and story actually changes people's behavior and changes their minds if you listen to me on the liturgist podcasts well all of us on the liturgies podcast we always include all these stories these vignettes and i've had people say science like why do y'all tell so many stories why do you talk so much oh my gosh because we actually like to change people's minds a concise summation of information isn't useful in changing minds if you listen to me do ask science mike what do i do i tell some story from my life or a story i've heard from someone else's life to draw people in and that changes behaviors and minds research is clear on that by the way they've done the work they've measured shifts in oxytocin level and bloodstream they've done behavioral study in conjunction with different presentations of information including double blind trials and control groups the whole ball of wax story works so if you want to change people's mind stop debating them stop arguing with them stop laying out the facts before them because you're not talking to someone who is rational you're talking to an emotional social animal to tell stories on the issues you care about constantly assemble stories in your mind that you can use practice telling them well remember that stories have a beginning a middle and an end a three-act structure and the most powerful stories are told that way even if that story is told in 45 seconds and when you start telling stories you start changing minds and you start changing lives and you start changing the world think about that lgbtq episode we talked about it was almost entirely stories from people's lives we didn't present a lot of information when we did it was in the context of story we didn't do a lot of debating we just let people tell their stories of what it was like to be a trans woman in church or what it was like to be a gay man in seminary and as those stories came out or oh my gosh what it was like to be a straight pastor who started affirming same-sex marriage people they put their minds in that perspective their story and it worked so here's how to change minds one think in funnels two speaking their language three ask open-ended questions four search for common ground five give people a means to claim a positive self-image six give people a way out and seven tell stories and i believe that changing minds matters we are at a critical moment in history folks we are belching carbon into the world into the atmosphere we are laying the seeds for our own cultural societal collapse our civilization globally exploits people we live in an age of profound and increasing income disparity we live in a world that is dare i say broken and story can change it so as you go to change minds i hope these tips are helpful and um let me know what i missed or what you'd like me to talk about more you can do that by going to asksciencemike.com and sending me a question for the show i love doing follow-ups thanks for listening everyone and i'll talk to you next week