I’d later find research that helped explain the phenomenon I saw in the archives, something psychologists call belief-change blindness: when people seemed unaware that their arguments from the beginning of the conversation didn’t match the ones they shared at the end. (Location 879) #✂️

A series of experiments conducted by psychologists Michael Wolfe and Todd J. Williams in 2017 captured this process in action. They asked college students whether spanking, a relatively neutral topic for that age group, was effective as a disciplinary tool. Some said yes, some no, but whatever subjects said they believed, the scientists then presented them with an essay that outlined strong arguments to the contrary. When they brought the subjects back into the lab after some time had passed, they asked about their spanking beliefs a second time. A portion of the group returned to Wolfe and Williams with changed opinions. Considering the persuasive essays, if they were pro-spanking before, they had become anti-spanking in the time since, and vice versa. But when Wolfe and Williams pulled those subjects aside and asked them to recall how they had originally answered at the beginning of the research, most reported that their answers hadn’t changed. Though the researchers had proof of it, the subjects themselves had no awareness of their own flips. (Location 881) #✂️ #blue

“There is no superior argument, no piece of information that we can offer, that is going to change their mind,” he said, taking a long pause before continuing. “The only way they are going to change their mind is by changing their own mind—by talking themselves through their own thinking, by processing things they’ve never thought about before, things from their own life that are going to help them see things differently.” (Location 628) #✂️