Estimated reading time at 200 wpm: 2 minutes
It was 00:30 2008-09-13 – when I decided to start writing this. Crazy? So what.
Whether or not you agree our Fat Disclaimer applies
I’ve been thinking about what changes people’s minds about things. For example what changes your mind about accepting something, believing something or doing something. Why the heck am I interested in that? Because of my statement that “The human mind can move mountains, yet there is no mountain as immovable as the human mind“.
But somehow minds do change. And over the last few hours it is been at the back of my mind to list the things that I’ve seen or heard of that change minds.
- Culture
- Shared experience
- Force of authority
- Compelling logic
- Pain and suffering
- Feedback from multiple others
- Direct experience
- Traumatic events/experiences including pain or suffering
- Kindness
- Threats
- Time
- Leaders
I’ve decided to stop there with the list, because there is an important observation that ‘reason’ and ‘evidence’ are not on the list. And that’s interesting in itself, because I have little faith in ‘reason’ and ‘evidence’ changing minds. Logic is sometimes taken to mean ‘reason’ but the two are not the same. People can and do reason outside of the rules of logic. When I say evidence I mean some kind of research; something that is very very reliable. Why do these two factors not change minds? Because minds are free to find alternative reasoning or to disregard evidence.
So that led me to think about the things can cause minds to resist change. I think this could be a big list.
- Fear
- Uncertainty
- Anxiety
- Tradition
- Culture
- Shared experience
- Personal experience
- Image of one’s self
- Habit
- Lack of time to update knowledge, think or effect change
- Inability to see the consequences of change
- Lack of perceived benefit for self or loved ones
- Narrow focus on basic human needs
- Narrow focus on life
- Personal characteristics – e.g. stubbornness, laziness
Okay – I’m gonna go away and think some more about this. If anyone out there has other ideas do post up some comments.
