Uncle: I’m afraid he might direct the murdering toward me. Also, his followers promised me a fancy title. Uncle: Well, he’s the most powerful wizard alive. You: I’d love to better understand your feelings about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
Say you’re a student at Hogwarts, and you want to help your uncle reject Voldemort. Refuting a point of view produces antibodies against future attempts at influence, making people more certain of their own opinions and more ready to rebut alternatives. Much as a vaccine inoculates the physical immune system against a virus, the act of resistance fortifies the psychological immune system. Yet experiments show that preaching and prosecuting typically backfire - and what doesn’t sway people may strengthen their beliefs. When we try to change a person’s mind, our first impulse is to preach about why we’re right and prosecute them for being wrong. On more than one occasion, I’ve been called a “logic bully.” But when I go on the attack, my opponents either shut down or fight back harder. When someone seems closed-minded, my instinct is to argue the polar opposite of their position. But I don’t always practice what I teach. I’ve run experiments that led proponents of gun rights and gun safety to abandon some of their mutual animosity, and I even got Yankees fans to let go of their grudges against Red Sox supporters.
#Mutual animosity how to#
As an organizational psychologist, I’ve spent the past few years studying how to motivate people to think again.
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