1. People are persuaded by stories, not by facts.
Look, it’s not that facts don’t matter. If you want to make a serious argument to serious people, at some point you have to bring the goods. If you can’t, or if you are presenting demonstrably wrong information and are called on it, that will be discrediting. However, we humans alive in the 2020s are awash in facts. We are drowning in facts. There are more facts available to us at the swipe of a finger than people could have imagined a mere 30 years ago, let alone at literally any other point in human history. We have far more access to information than our minds have any ability to make sense of it, to organize and catalog it. We rely, more than ever, on narratives to tell us which facts matter, and how.
Think about how your senses work. When you hear sounds, the actual input arriving in your ears is a chaotic mess. But your brain can pick out patterns in the vibrations reaching your eardrums, patterns that past experience has taught it are relevant. Your visual cortex does something similar, turning raw data (photons) into a coherent story through organizing concepts developed through experience of the world—object permanence, perspective, light and shadow, the opacity of physical materials. We are largely not conscious of this process.
The way our minds do the same thing with information is through the power of narrative as an organizing device. And likewise, we are often only dimly conscious that we are actually doing this. If I hand you a fact, you are going to search for a piece of mental scaffolding to hang that fact on, a story that it supports or challenges or simply relates to in some way. If you cannot readily find one, whatever I told you is going to be quickly forgotten. Not doubted, mind you: this isn’t really about whether we assume others’ factual claims are correct or incorrect. It’s about whether we receive them as significant. A lot of research confirms that we are far more apt to remember and make future use of facts that fit a pre-existing frame.
2. The spread of beliefs is a social process, not an individual one.
Ideas spread within networks. You are much more likely to take an idea seriously once you have seen it repeated many times by people you know and like, or by thought leaders whose values you perceive as in alignment with your own. A lot of smart people chafe at this idea, because we like to think of ourselves as dispassionate judges of the evidence in front of us, both from our own lived experience and from what we read and watch. And indeed, those who think of themselves as evidence-minded and well-read might lean more heavily on information presented to us with citations, with data points, with appeals to academic or scientific authority.
But we’re still almost certainly pre-screening that information. Lots of ideas floating out in the world come with the veneer of credible authority but are, upon inspection, flimsy. None of us have time to inspect it all, outside of maybe a narrow area of deep personal expertise. So how do we pre-screen? Most of the time, we are far more likely to examine an idea closely and take it seriously if it comes pre-approved by people we find credible. Very often, the power of an idea comes simply from the fact that we believe lots of other people believe it. Our sense of which topics or debates or conflicts are important to talk about is mostly driven by what we believe lots of other people are talking about.
And again, a lot of this is not about which ideas we judge to be correct, it’s about which ideas we judge to be important.
3. Our minds are changed by trusted messengers.
Ideas spread within networks, but certain people or information sources within those networks have vastly disproportionate influence. They’re the ones who are pre-screening ideas and information for many others within a like-minded community.
Think of two concentric circles. Circle A, the larger one, consists of those sources you rely on to help form your opinions on issues where they are not yet fully formed. It will consist somewhat of people you know personally, but probably also a lot of trusted publications and institutions. The specific author of an article might be someone you know nothing about, but if the publication is one you find trustworthy and compelling, and (this part is essential) the substance of what you’re reading aligns with narratives you already buy into, you are likely to find it persuasive.
There is likely a very small circle of people who are actually capable of challenging your core narratives, or changing a well-formed belief you already hold. This is Circle B.
In local politics Circles A and especially B are tremendously important. The key is to reach the people who play this role for those in positions of influence: the community’s trusted messengers. Find the people who are the trusted messengers, and work to move them.
4. Nobody trusts a jerk (except the jerk who’s already on their side).
“You yelled at me and called me an idiot in front of an audience of your jeering friends. I now see the error of my ways,” said no one ever. We all know this, right? Nobody’s mind is changed by hostility.
Instead, Say things that are true. Write a sentence, step back from it. Read it. Ask, “Is this true?” If the answer isn’t an unequivocal yes, revise or scrap it.
Characterize the views of your opponents in terms that they themselves would accept. Ask yourself how you know you’re doing this. If you’re not sure, talk less and listen more until you are. But even an onlooker will see you kind of being a jerk.
Remember that people experience online spaces as “their” space—in the algorithmically curated world of social media in 2024, you are always on their turf from their perspective.
5. Our fundamental beliefs are changed bit by bit, not all at once.
An incisive argument or observation, planted at the right time (with at least the co-sign of the right trusted messenger), can seed some nagging doubt about a narrative it clashes with. Then that doubt has to take root. It’s pretty easy to get someone to go from “X is absolutely right” to “X is basically right with some caveats”—that doesn’t introduce much cognitive dissonance. It doesn’t threaten your standing in a group that is centered around acceptance of X. It actually makes you feel like a smart, independent thinker. It’s also the first step toward actually rejecting X, if X is, in fact, wrong.
6. Social consensus is less solid than it seems.
When you see a narrative you think is wrong circulating within a community, the vast majority of people who are reiterating some part of that narrative are not unmovable true believers. Most are simply repeating something that is broadly affirmed within those circles, to which they are moderately committed at best. They are part of the crowd watching the crowd. Arguing directly with the loudest and most demagogic participants in such a community—and thus with the apparent social consensus—doesn’t work very well. So what does? How do you start to shift that social consensus if you think that there's a whole community that has got something basically wrong?
Point out things that aren't at 180-degree odds with the majority view, but that complicate it or introduce nuance. Point out a perspective that isn't usually heard. Don’t be preachy or obnoxious about it. Don’t act like you’re trying to win a debate. Do it with an awareness of the core narratives of the space you’re in. Do it in a way that one or two of the group’s trusted messengers—those who are prominent voices but also appear amenable to nuance and disagreement—will hear you as a basically friendly countervailing voice. And this does a couple things for people observing these interactions who aren't deeply committed to that loudest narrative—which, again, is probably more of them than it seems like. Maybe they had doubts, but they didn’t hear anyone else really validating those doubts. A little bit of validation can fracture what once appeared to be a monolithic consensus. This is where you get to be transformative, not by winning the argument with a mic drop, but by steadily planting seeds.
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