People like to live within their comfort zones. I remember a study being referenced that claimed to show introducing facts contrary to a person’s existing viewpoint don’t get them to change, it just made them double-down and be more defensive.
Oh look, misinformation, lol. The study was about how science communication is based on outdated ideas and that simply presenting facts is not as effective as whole-person education. The media seems to have just read the title and maybe abstract, and ran with “you can’t change minds, stop trying”, when that’s not what it concluded.
Facts will not always change minds, but there is promise that other things will, including creating spaces for group dialogue and debate, targeting emotions and embodied knowledge, embracing multiple perspectives, altering environments to create new behaviors, and being strategic about whom we seek to target with our message. We need to provide training for our students in cognitive and behavioral science, as human attitudes and actions are both the primary cause of and the solution to the current conservation crisis (Nielsen et al., 2021).
People like to live within their comfort zones. I remember a study being referenced that claimed to show introducing facts contrary to a person’s existing viewpoint don’t get them to change, it just made them double-down and be more defensive.
Oh look, misinformation, lol. The study was about how science communication is based on outdated ideas and that simply presenting facts is not as effective as whole-person education. The media seems to have just read the title and maybe abstract, and ran with “you can’t change minds, stop trying”, when that’s not what it concluded.
To quote from the conclusion of the study itself: