13 Jun ‘How Minds Change’ chosen as 2023-24 Go Big Read book
“The ability to change our minds, update our assumptions, and entertain other points of view is one of our greatest strengths, an evolved ability that comes free with every copy of the human brain,” McRaney writes
Have you ever changed your mind about something you were very sure about? Why do we each believe what we believe, and what leads some of us, some of the time, to change our views? Why do some people change their mind in an instant, and others not at all, no matter the evidence? When are we more open to learning from others, and when less so?
These are some of the questions David McRaney explores in “How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion,” the 2023-24 Go Big Read selection.
Instead of focusing on what people believe, McRaney focuses more on why people believe the way they do and offers surprising evidence from psychology and neuroscience to explain what tends to be persuasive.
“The ability to change our minds, update our assumptions, and entertain other points of view is one of our greatest strengths, an evolved ability that comes free with every copy of the human brain,” McRaney writes. “You will soon see why, to leverage that strength, we must avoid debate and start having conversations.”