CHANGING HEARTS AND MINDS

As my career as a psychologist progresses, the one aspect of my job that continues to humble me is how resistant people are to change, and how slowly change occurs in psychotherapy. Sure, people can change their outward behavior, even after a single session, but if that behavior change is not rooted in a deeper change in attitude then it is only a matter of time before the behavior reverts back to its pre-existing condition. When I think back on the most successful cases of my career I’ve discovered that meaningful and lasting changes in behavior required dozens, even hundreds, of hours in intensive weekly therapy, over the span of several years, involving aspects of people’s lives that they voluntarily wanted to change because they saw direct benefits to their lives. As one can imagine, it is even more difficult to help people to change when the impetus comes from some other person, and/or it is not immediately clear to them how the change will benefit them, or they are simply being pushed to change to satisfy someone else’s arbitrary beliefs about what is best for them.

I believe that my experiences helping patients in psychotherapy are relevant to many contexts, but especially the context of social change. It seems not a week passes when there isn’t a march or rally for a range of causes across the political spectrum. These rallies often involve pithy slogans on placards and acute rhetoric from ideologues at podiums, oversimplifying what are eminently complex social issues. What all of these rallies – on both the left and the right – have in common is that they seek to change public opinion in their direction. But these rallies, which are vestiges from the halcyon days of protest movements in the 1960s, seem less effective in terms of actually changing people’s hearts and minds than they are at capturing an avalanche of media attention and winning the current news cycle.

At best, these rallies may lead to legislative advancements when the political winds change, but if the hearts and minds of the electorate have not changed with the laws, it is only a matter of time before those laws are undermined in one way or another when the political winds revert back. Indeed, it is as if a pendulum has been pushed far in one direction, only to swing back with increasing force in the opposite direction later on. We can even look at the election of Donald Trump – whom, even his supporters would agree, is the most openly politically incorrect politician since Strom Thurmond – as a pendulum swing backwards in reaction to workplace policies and civic laws aimed at increasing political correctness. Though well-intentioned, these workplace policies and civic laws – many of which were established in response to highly-publicized cases of social injustice – only succeeded in changing the outward behavior of the populace, not the attitudes underlying them. In fact, one could argue that the attitudes of those in disagreement with these policies have only hardened in the opposite direction of that intended by the policies and laws.

At this point, my friends in academia and on the front lines of myriad social justice movements must be wondering if I’m suggesting that they just give up their fight for a better world. In a word, No! However, I am suggesting a radical change in strategy. Rather than working to win your cause the most media attention with a march or rally, stay home and work on winning the hearts and minds of those closest to you. Try to understand why your MAGA hat-wearing uncle feels rejected at Thanksgiving when he’s told that his opinions are invalid, simply because he’s a heterosexual White male; or why your feminist sister believes that her university cares more about protecting its football players accused of sexual assault than helping their alleged victims obtain justice. Ask your police-officer neighbor how he feels when media portrayals of the police in low SES neighborhoods focus only on the mistakes officers have made and ignore the many times they put their lives in danger trying to do the right thing. Lend a sympathetic ear to the frustration of your manager at work when she vents about being followed in a store by a clerk with half her education, just because her skin color is darker than a paper bag.

If you follow this path, you are likely to learn several things. First, when you earnestly listen to people and validate their struggles, they are much more likely to listen to you and consider your ideas. Second, you will realize just how hard it is to actually get people to change their opinions – even among those you know well, who may like you. And if it’s so hard to change the opinions of those who like you, even after sharing intimate discussions, imagine how hard it is to change the minds of total strangers, whose view of your message at a rally will likely be skewed by an opposing media outlet.

This leads to my final point. I have a friend, a Mets fan, who, during the height of the Yankees recent dynasty, would often say: “It’s not that I hate the Yankees themselves, they have so many classy players: I just can’t stand their fans.” The irony is that many of his most beloved friends and family members are Yankees fans. When it comes to sociopolitical issues, we are all tribalists, “fans” of one team or another. As such, it is my belief that when complex issues are discussed primarily in the form of Astroturf rallies, projected onto the screen of the mainstream news cycle, discussions about these issues devolve into dodgeball grudge matches between “fans” of opposing “teams,” where the balls thrown back and forth represent propagandized talking points and invalidating slurs. Here, it is nearly impossible to change the hearts and minds of those with opposing views. But when these issues are discussed with the nuance and sensitivity they require, in private one-on-one conversations, over the course of months or years, there is a much greater chance of getting people to at least recognize the validity of the opposing perspective, if not getting them to change their mind on the issue. Oh, and one last thing: when trying to change the minds of others by listening earnestly to what they have to say, you may find blind spots in your own assumptions and that others have the capacity to change your mind as well.