A thoughtful little conversation can lead to big viewpoint changes if you let go of controlling the dialogue and winning arguments.

The beauty of this method for changing minds is that it lets you sit back and guide your target audience through their own thought process.  As we previously mentioned, you cannot talk someone out of their reality or into a new one.  We can, however, provide environments where someone encounters a new situation that offers an opportunity for them to experience a different reality, therefore shifting theirs.  Today’s strategy is based on numerous experiments which asked students to write an essay that disagrees with their personal beliefs.  The results of these studies show that after writing the essays, the students were more favorable to the position they supported in the essay than they previously were.

So, let’s translate these results into something we can use in our daily life.  Finding a way to get your audience to play devil’s advocate to themselves is the key goal. They need to reason through the information in their own brain, no one can do it for them.  You may need to employ some creativity getting them to the point where this can happen, but we have a few suggestions to get you started. Continue reading →

Facts and rationale do little to change perspective, this is why debate and civil discourse fail us so often. 

We have all been there, desperately trying to convince the dummy next to us that they have things figured out incorrectly. We lay out our facts and tell them why their rationale does not add up. We do or see this everyday, whether it is on the internet, at the coffee shop, at the family dinner table or on the news. It is really frustrating and both sides leave thinking the other is an idiot for not being able to see things the way they really are.  There are two big reasons that verbal persuasion often fails to change hearts and minds, no matter how overwhelming the material presented may be.  They are also two scientifically based phenomena that every speaker, politician, or organization should consider before they strategize their message delivery.

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