Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

by Adam M. Grant

expressed curiosity with questions like “So you don’t see any merit in this proposal at all?”

Of every five comments the experts made, at least one ended in a question mark.

We won’t have much luck changing other people’s minds if we refuse to change ours. We can demonstrate openness by acknowledging where we agree with our critics and even what we’ve learned from them. Then, when we ask what views they might be willing to revise, we’re not hypocrites. Convincing other people to think again isn’t just about making a good argument—it’s about establishing that we have the right motives in doing so.

he considers the strongest version of their case, which is known as the steel man. A politician might occasionally adopt that tactic to pander or persuade, but like a good scientist, Harish does it to learn.

making too many points could come at the cost of developing, elaborating, and reinforcing his best ones. “If you have too many arguments, you’ll dilute the power of each and every one,” he told me. “They are going to be less well explained, and I don’t know if any of them will land enough—I don’t think the audience will believe them to be important enough. Most top debaters aren’t citing a lot of information.”

If they’re not invested in the issue or they’re receptive to our perspective, more reasons can help: people tend to see quantity as a sign of quality. The more the topic matters to them, the more the quality of reasons matters. It’s when audiences are skeptical of our view, have a stake in the issue, and tend to be stubborn that piling on justifications is most likely to backfire. If they’re resistant to rethinking, more reasons simply give them more ammunition to shoot our views down.

A single line of argument feels like a conversation; multiple lines of argument can become an onslaught.

We simply asked fans one question: are you planning to attend? Attendance climbed to 85 percent. The question gave fans the freedom to make their own case for going. Psychologists have long found that the person most likely to persuade you to change your mind is you. You get to pick the reasons you find most compelling, and you come away with a real sense of ownership over them. That’s where Harish’s final edge came in. In every round he posed more questions to contemplate.

When we point out that there are areas where we agree and acknowledge that they have some valid points, we model confident humility and encourage them to follow suit. When we support our argument with a small number of cohesive, compelling reasons, we encourage them to start doubting their own opinion. And when we ask genuine questions, we leave them intrigued to learn more. We don’t have to convince them that we’re right—we just need to open their minds to the possibility that they might be wrong. Their natural curiosity might do the rest.

In the hierarchy of disagreement created by computer scientist Paul Graham, the highest form of argument is refuting the central point, and the lowest is name-calling.

The more anger and hostility the other person expresses, the more curiosity and interest you show. When someone is losing control, your tranquility is a sign of strength. It takes the wind out of their emotional sails.

They were more likely to comment on their feelings about the process and test their understanding of the other side’s feelings:

In a heated argument, you can always stop and ask, “What evidence would change your mind?” If the answer is “nothing,” then there’s no point in continuing

expert witnesses and deliberating jurors are more credible and more persuasive when they express moderate confidence, rather than high or low confidence.*

she asked about experiments they’d run recently that had surprised them. The question itself surprised the team—they ended up talking about times when they were sure they were right but were later proven wrong.

An informed audience is going to spot the holes in our case anyway. We might as well get credit for having the humility to look for them, the foresight to spot them, and the integrity to acknowledge them.

By asking questions rather than thinking for the audience, we invite them to join us as a partner and think for themselves.

It’s one thing to love your team. It’s another to hate your rivals so much that you’d consider rooting for terrorists to crush them.

we disidentify with our adversaries, coming to define who we are by what we’re not. We don’t just preach the virtues of our side; we find self-worth in prosecuting the vices of our rivals.

Rivalries are most likely to develop between teams that are geographically close, compete regularly, and are evenly matched.

we become especially hostile when trying to defend opinions that we know, deep down, are false.

Socially, there’s another reason stereotypes are so sticky. We tend to interact with people who share them, which makes them even more extreme. This phenomenon is called group polarization, and it’s been demonstrated in hundreds of experiments.

Polarization is reinforced by conformity: peripheral members fit in and gain status by following the lead of the most prototypical member of the group, who often holds the most intense views.

Hotelling

when teams try to downplay a rivalry by reminding fans that it’s just a game, it backfires. Fans feel their identity is being devalued and actually become more aggressive.

Upon returning from space, astronauts are less focused on individual achievements and personal happiness, and more concerned about the collective good. “You develop an instant global consciousness . . . an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it,” Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell reflected. “From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty.

This reaction is known as the overview effect.

If the soccer fans had just written about why they loved their team, only 30 percent helped. If they had written about what they had in common with other soccer fans, 70 percent helped.

I had no idea so many people fantasized about crushing terrorists in their favorite sport.

We had succeeded in changing their attitudes toward the student, but failed in changing their stereotypes of the group.

I got to know an unusually kind woman in her seventies who works with Holocaust survivors. Last summer, when she mentioned that she had gone to Ohio State, my first response was “yuck.” My next reaction was to be disgusted with myself. Who cares where she went to school half a century ago? How did I get programmed this way? Suddenly it seemed odd that anyone would hate a team at all.

The ship of Theseus has a lot in common with a sports franchise.

“You’re actually rooting for the clothes,” Jerry Seinfeld quipped. “Fans will be so in love with a player, but if he goes to a different team, they boo him. This is the same human being in a different shirt; they hate him now. Boo! Different shirt! Boo!” I think it’s a ritual. A fun but arbitrary ritual—a ceremony that we perform out of habit.

assigned half of them to go the extra step of reflecting on the arbitrariness of their animosity: Think and write about how Yankee fans and Red Sox fans dislike each other for reasons that are fairly arbitrary. For example, if you were born into a family of fans of the rival team, you would likely also be a fan of them today.

thinking about the arbitrariness of their animosity—not the positive qualities of their rival—that mattered. Regardless of whether they generated reasons to like their rivals, fans showed less hostility when they reflected on how silly the rivalry was.

counterfactual thinking involves imagining how the circumstances of our lives could have unfolded differently. When we realize how easily we could have held different stereotypes, we might be more willing to update our views.

explore the origins of their own beliefs—and reconsider their stances toward other groups.

We might question the underlying belief that it makes sense to hold opinions about groups at all. If you get people to pause and reflect, they might decide that the very notion of applying group stereotypes to individuals is absurd. Research suggests that there are more similarities between groups than we recognize. And there’s typically more variety within groups than between them.

Daryl decided to beat the Cyclops at his own game. He challenged him to name three Black serial killers. When the Cyclops couldn’t name any, Daryl rattled off a long list of well-known white serial killers and told the Cyclops that he must be one. When the Cyclops protested that he’d never killed anybody, Daryl turned his own argument against him and said that his serial-killer gene must be latent.

those with greater power who need to do more of the rethinking, both because they’re more likely to privilege their own perspectives and because their perspectives are more likely to go unquestioned. In most cases, the oppressed and marginalized have already done a great deal of contortion to fit in.

the research on vaccine safety backfired: they ended up seeing vaccines as riskier.

doctor with a radical approach for helping young parents rethink their resistance to immunizations. He didn’t preach to parents or prosecute them. He didn’t get political. He put on his scientist hat and interviewed them.

motivational interviewing. The central premise is that we can rarely motivate someone else to change. We’re better off helping them find their own motivation to change.

motivational interviewing involves three key techniques: Asking open-ended questions Engaging in reflective listening Affirming the person’s desire and ability to change

To protect their freedom, instead of giving commands or offering recommendations, a motivational interviewer might say something along the lines of “Here are a few things that have helped me—do you think any of them might work for you?”

What does leadership mean to you? Jeff: Making systemic decisions, having a well-thought-out strategy. Me: Are there any leaders you admire for those qualities? Jeff: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs. That was a turning point. In motivational interviewing, there’s a distinction between sustain talk and change talk. Sustain talk is commentary about maintaining the status quo. Change talk is referencing a desire, ability, need, or commitment to make adjustments.

I’d ask Jeff how he was considering conveying his message and how he thought his team would receive it. A good guide doesn’t stop at helping people change their beliefs or behaviors. Our work isn’t done until we’ve helped them accomplish their goals.

Motivational interviewing requires a genuine desire to help people reach their goals.

We’re all vulnerable to the “righting reflex,” as Miller and Rollnick describe it—the desire to fix problems and offer answers. A skilled motivational interviewer resists the righting reflex—although

As Betty muses, “Even the devil appreciates being listened to.”