Are You Open Minded? Are You SURE?

Hearts and Minds, Swords and Mirrors

According to Christopher Joyce of NPR, in his article Belief In Climate Change Hinges On Worldview, we're not as open-minded as we'd like to believe.

From the article:

Dan Kahan, a law professor at Yale University and a member of The Cultural Cognition Project says people test new information against their preexisting view of how the world should work.

The operative word here is "should".

"If the implication, the outcome, can affirm your values, you think about it in a much more open-minded way," he says.

And if it doesn't?

It's headed for the trash can -- mostly out of fear. "Basically the reason that people react in a close-minded way to information is that the implications of it threaten their values."

Huh. Isn't that interesting.

Whether the world actually works the way you think it does or not, you fit the data to what you believe about the world. Not whether it fits your (or anyone else's) empirical data or even experience. Your VALUES.

To quote Mark Twain, "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."

This finding sheds some interesting light on why trying to change people's hearts is more effective than trying to change their minds.

There's another side to this coin, too.

The saying,

"I'll believe it when I see it,"

is actually the wrong way around, because the truth is,

"I'll see it only after I believe it's possible."

A double-edged sword, it cuts both ways. We can be deluded by our values into seeing what isn't there. And we can be prevented by our ignorance and prejudice from seeing what really IS there.



What's even more interesting to me is that how you see yourself impacts how you see the world. That may sound abstract, but here's where the rubber meets the road:

The participants tended to believe the message that came from the person they considered to be more like them.

So, how do you see yourself? As open? Closed? Certain? Doubtful? Are you kind and compassionate? Are you afraid? Are you aggressive? Are you weak?

Here's an interesting test. Take a look at what you believe in. Take a look at who you listen to on those topics. Then look at the messenger, and make an assessment.

That's an interesting mirror, now, isn't it?

The article ends with a "what to do about it" theme, which is useful enough. Kahan says, "The goal can't be to create a kind of psychological house of mirrors so that people end up seeing exactly what you want. The goal has to be to create an environment that allows them to be open-minded."

That's a challenge in dissolving dualism, so that we don't see ourselves as "different" or separate from one another or the universe. (A topic for another day.)

But I'd like to end somewhere a little different.

It's not about them and what they believe or what they do to try to get you to believe. No sir. It's about you.

Find the mirrors that enable you to see yourself clearly.



Then decide whether you like what you see. Change what you don't like.

And when you change yourself, you'll change the world.