Adam Grant Thinks Again

you are to fall victim to that bias. They're smarter you are, the more feedback you've gotten throughout your life that you're right, and that gives you an illusion of objectivity. I wanted to talk with Adam because he's an expert on the science of changing people's minds, a topic we've been diving into on this season of A Slight Change of Plans. We all have that friend, that family member that we disagree with on something, and it can feel daunting to engage with them on the topic, so daunting

that oftentimes we just give up. In this episode, we're trying to change that. Adam and I discuss science based tactics that you can use to approach these conversations differently and hopefully with more success. I'm Maya Shunker and this is a slight change of plans. Well, it's great to meet you, Adam. Great to meet you. I've been hearing about you for years. I'm so excited that you're able to join us for this podcast. I'm just eager to pick your brain today. Well, my brain is sitting here

waiting to be picked. Awesome. Okay. We don't like changing our minds, right, It's uncomfortable, it can create a lot of cognitive dissonance. It takes a lot of hard work, and so it's just easier to live our lives in an unreflective mode where we persistently believe what we believe and we double down, and we surround ourselves with people who help us double down on those beliefs over time. Yeah.

And one of the things that I loved about the focus of your book is that it opens with ideas of how we can get ourselves to have an more open mind, ourselves to rethink things. So one reason you say that we might not be open to rethinking is because we're overconfident. And you talk in your book about not confusing over confidence with competence. Do you mind saying a bit more about that? Sure? I think when people are lacking knowledge or skill, sometimes they also don't know

what knowledge or skill looks like in that domain. Right, So if you know nothing, let's say, I always think about a Super Bowl party. You gather a bunch of football fans, and there's always one who's screaming at the coach for calling the wrong place. That is usually the fan who knows the least about football. But it's a fan, it's not somebody who's, you know, who's not at all interested in the game, because they's not like me, who's

just sitting at the food table profiting the entire time. Exactly. Yeah, you know that you know nothing. I'm not weighing in. No, you and you shouldn't, right, But if you if you watched a couple of games and you learned a little bit about football, that's when that tiny bit of knowledge can become a little bit dangerous, right because it you.

What starts to happen is, as your knowledge grows, you confuse your rate of learning for how much you've actually learned, and your confidence rises faster than your competence, and pretty soon you're trapped on the summit of Mount Stupid where you know very little, but you don't know how little you know. Yeah, you mentioned your book that imposter syndrome gets a bad rap, but actually there might be some silver linings to fueling imposter syndrome. Can you say a

bit more about that, Yeah, I kind of. I was struck by this paradox that when you look at where imposter syndrome exists, one of the places it's most prevalent is among high achievers. And I think a lot of people have assumed that they've succeeded in spite of their doubts, and I started to wonder whether their doubts are actually helping to fuel their success. Well, maybe we don't have

to turn this into a syndrome. Right when you call it imposter syndrome, it's like you have some kind of chronic disease, that is, it's just abilitating and it's with you at all times. We ended up having a doctoral student at Wark and Besima's too Fick, who is now an MT professor, and she studied how often people doubt themselves. She studied investment professionals and medical professionals and found no consistent costs of having more frequent imposter thoughts and some

surprising benefits. The investment professionals, when they felt like imposters more often, they actually made better decisions. The medical professionals who felt like imposters more often, they actually listened to their patients. And what was happening was when people felt those imposter thoughts, their confidence was a little bit below their competence, and that led them to work harder to

prove themselves. It led them to work smarter to learn new things, and it made them much more receptive to listening to other people, which filled gaps in their knowledge. And it almost makes me think that instead of trying to have our confidence match our competence perfectly, we are

better off slightly underestimating ourselves. You know, there's a tension that can emerge here, right because I'm thinking about, for example, communities of color who fall prey to stereotype threat and the fact that boosting confidence in those cases is really productive because in many ways they're starting off in an unreasonable position relative to their actual abilities. And so well, one, I'm just wondering in those studies that we're done, what

were the demographics of the group. And two, in terms of prescriptions. Where is that appropriate line between humility and confidence, especially because some of these psychological effects can disproportionately hit different communities. Yeah, I think I think that's a really

important question. And I think Bassima had good data on gender less on race, but when she looked at gender differences, the odds were greater that women were sort of discouraged or debilitated by very frequent imposter thoughts, and men were

much more likely to be motivated by them. And I think that tracks with everything we know about about basically the world I live in as a white man, which is people take for granted that I'm competent, whereas if you grow up as a woman, and I think this is obviously the case for people of color as well. It's you know, you have to prove your competence every day, and those doubts because other people are doubting you are

more likely to get internalized over time. And I think your spot on that we need to work harder to build confidence among people who are not white men. Does that Does that track with your experience? Yeah, I think it's it is, I would Freeman is just really complex. I mean, obviously there's no one size fits all approach here.

But I do think that there are profound public policy implications, right, because if we're going on the road with a message of imposter syndromes good, we might find that that has a disproportionately negative effect on some subsets of the population, right, women, people of color, etc. And so we just have to be careful about the messaging. I almost want the messaging to be imposter syndrome is good, white men. You know, I think a disclaimer is critical here. I would just

I would rewrite that message completely. You don't have to take imposter syndrome as a curse. You can recognize that it's a double edged sword, and you can try to get some of those benefits of doubt to say, Okay, you know what, the fact that I am questioning myself means I'm not going to get complacent, and I think that's that's the message that I want to get across. Yeah,

that makes sense. One of my favorite parts of the book was the fact that a smarter a person is, the faster they recognize patterns, and so the more likely they are to notice and reinforce stereotypes. So you also mentioned that the smarter you are, the more likely you are to struggle with updating your beliefs right, to be willing to rethink. So what is the mechanism at play in that ladder finding that would make that so? Well? People generally assume that they're less biased than others, right,

This is my favorite bias. It's the I'm not biased biased, Right, everybody else is biased. I am objective. I see things with perfect neutrality. And I think that the higher your intelligence, the more likely you are to fall victim to that

bias in the data. And I think there's probably the jury is still out on what the different mechanisms might be, but I think I think one of them is that this smarter you are, the more feedback you've gotten throughout your life that you're right, and that gives you an illusion of objectivity. What you know, what you're consistent right answers or a pluses or you know, genius level, like

you're the smartest person I've ever met. Feedback, Yeah, is really signaling is that you're good at thinking and learning, not that you're objective in the way that you process information. And I think people miss that distinction. Yeah, it's it's a reflection back to you. Ah, So the current mechanisms that I use to analyze information in the world are paying off because I keep getting the A plus. So

clearly something's going well here exactly. Yeah, you're getting positive feedback. Interesting. Yeah, it reminds me. I interviewed Megan Phelps Roper, who was part of the Westboro Baptist Church, which is a religious cult, and she eventually ended up leaving in her mid twenties. But I think one thing that compelled her to stay for so long is that she grew up in a

family of lawyers. They were all very, very smart, highly educated, and their pride point was constructing these very logical arguments, and I mean logical in the definitional sense of the word. And as a result, I think there was some sort

of reinforcing that was happening within the Phelps family. They're using sophisticated patterns and thinking and analysis, but because again their axioms or batshit crazy, they're reaching the wrong conclusions, but they are in their minds doubling down on those conclusions.

Do you have thoughts on that. Yeah. I think one of the other risks of growing up in a family like that is you're taught from an early age to make your own arguments, and we forget that when you make an argument to persuade someone else, the person you're most likely to persuade is yourself because you trust yourself, right, you are a highly credible source in your own eyes, and you also came up with the reasons that you found most convincing, and as you explain them, you start

to take ownership over them. Right. Part of that is cognitive dissonance. Well, I've said this out loud. I don't want to be a hypocrite, so now it becomes part of my belief system. And another reason why we do feel so much Adjita when it comes to admitting that we're wrong, is that we get deeply attached to quote our past selves who held those beliefs, and we do feel like a departure from that past self in some

way poses a full on identity threat. So can you say more about the importance of trying to detach yourself

from your past self. Yeah, there's there's a growing body of evidence in psychology that people who feel quote unquote derailed that you know, I'm not I'm not quite the same person I was two or three years ago, they actually end up getting happier that you know, there's a little bit of a period of feeling unsettled, but then they realize, oh, I'm not going to let my old ideas of who I wanted to be hold me back.

And I think one of the easiest ways to get comfortable with rethinking is to detach your current self from your old self. So there are so many times when I've looked back at my old decisions and opinions, I'm like, Wow, I should be really embarrassed by that. How can I possibly think that? And yet I mostly just laugh at myself because I don't think I'm the same person. Yes, I realize I have fundamentally the same brain and the

same body, right, and it's still me. But I think I've grown and evolved in a lot of ways from that version of me, and so I don't feel like what I did with the ideas I had about my future and the opinions I held at twenty one are reflective of who I am now at thirty nine, even

though some of my values are very similar. One a interesting flip on this, it's reminding me so In this interview with Megan fels Roper, who was mentioning, I asked her I said, when you look back on your life, right, you have this in the Westboro Baptist Church and then post Westboro Baptist Church, like this total life split moment. Is it jarring to remember that you are that same Megan?

And so one thing I found fascinating about her experience is that she makes an intentional effort not to distance herself from that Megan. And the reason for that is she can both acknowledge that she has different views today, but reminding herself a former Megan helps her continue to have empathy towards people who continue to think like old Megan.

And in order for her to do the anti extremist work she does today, she also has to have that posture of understanding and empathy because she needs to remember what it was like to feel persuaded by terrible ideas. That is fascinating. Yeah, it kind of blew me away that answer. Yeah, I mean the idea that you could you could still accept that, you know, sort of unacceptable version of past you and say, yeah, you know, I'm not totally different from that anymore, while stilling your values

and your beliefs. I mean that that is that is walking proof of what is it the is it the f Scott Fitzgerald line that the sign of intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in your mind at the same time and retain the ability to function like that. That's it. She has two opposing identities, one you know, recently abandoned, one relatively recently adopted that she is keeping in some kind of dynamic tension. I don't think.

I can't imagine doing that, honestly. I think that. I mean, we all have multiple identities, right, But to have such conflicting values and beliefs and and say yeah, one is one is me now, one is me before, but it's not that different from you now. The equanimity required to do that, I think is extraordinary. Can't imagine it exactly. Another reason that it's hard for a lot of people to admit that they're wrong is that we tend to

strongly attach our opinions to our sense of identity. And you challenge this in the book, right, you say you should really be defining your identity in terms of values, not opinions. To me, that's kind of a blurry line, like how are you defining the difference between a value and an opinion? And shouldn't we also be open minded about our value systems, because obviously we see huge variation

in moral values across cultures. In addition to the fact that when we do do that thought experiment of if I were born in a different century, or in a different family, or you know, growing up in a different religion, we would have wildly different values, and so I would I guess I would want to cultivate a same openness to changes in one's value system. You're willing to change those fundamental beliefs. I think I think that's a good point, and I'm definitely open to rethinking what I wrote in

the book. It would be ironic if I weren't. It gets very met up, very quickly. But I think I think I agree with you. I think that I might make one distinction before I agree, which is to say, when I think about values, to me, the core definition of a value is what you think is important, and the definition of a belief or an opinion is what

you think is true. And when you do that that counterfactual thinking exercise where you imagine, yeah, would I believe different things if I was raised in a different family, or in a different country, or in a different point in history. You're not necessarily rethinking your values, you're definitely rethinking your beliefs, right, And yeah, I think, okay, sorry, So I think I disagree with that. I do think that you are changing potentially what's important to you through

some of these exercises, depending on your exposure. So, for example, I can imagine so in the United States, huge sanctity when it comes to life. Right, we care about existence, we care about life. I talk to my Indian relatives and they're far more concerned with quality of life and suffering, right,

So that is like what's important to them. And so over the course of my life, I have evolved and I have started to value like what's important to me now is much more about suffering than existence, and that would inform my opinions, but it is my fundamental view about what's important or not. Yeah, I think I think you're right. I think I think that's less likely to change though. I think it's slower to change, right, because it's deeper seated. And that's where that's where I think

you're spot on that. I don't think our values should be set in stone, right. Sometimes sometimes people end up choosing values that are harmful to themselves. And or others. But I think we should rethink those a little bit less frequently and maybe with stronger reasons. Right. I think that to me, opinions should just be tentative period. Right.

You should walk around with a set of things that you think are true, and the moment you come across better data and sharper logic, you should say, all right, maybe I should revisit that. I don't think you should be willing to flip flop on your values every day or every week. Right. That feels like more of a once a year kind of exercise to reflect on how is how is what's important to me changing? And I think that that kind of rethinking ought to be a

more deliberate and maybe even slower process. I agree with that. I think the cadence along which we revisit our values is going to be far less frequent as it should be, because, like you said, they're more deeply entrenched in our systems. I guess the reason I care so deeply about this is I think that the values people hold can also be really pernicious if they are the wrong ones, and so compelling people to try to revisit their values on occasion,

it can have transformative effects on society. I think you're right on that too. I think I'm less optimistic than you are about how easy it is to compel people to change their values. Say, I didn't say I was optimistic about it. I just care about it. Well, I care about it too, and I just I think it's incredibly difficult to even invite people to rethink their values. Yeah, this is why I'm obsessed with the moral reframing research

that's coming out. Basically, it says, look, hold the value these fixed, assume those are constant to your earlier point, but present them in a new way. Right. So it's like, Okay, you want folks to care about the environment. Right. To liberals, you frame it as like, okay, we can save the environment, we will help the underprivileged among us rise up, you know, social equality. And then with conservatives, it's patriotic to save

our planet. It can help create new jobs, to invest in climate change, or even we need to protect the purity of God's Earth. Right, It's such. It's a completely different kind of argument, but it reaches the same ends. Okay, so we're on this opening our mind journey. Right, So we're now at the point where we are. We are aware of the benefits of having a more open mind, and you've given us some strategies for how to do that. One thing that can prevent us from admitting that we're

wrong is pride. Right. We don't like admitting that we're wrong. It's uncomfortable. We sometimes feel that we will lose credibility with other people we express that we're wrong or express vulnerability, and the research doesn't corroborate that. Can you say more about it? Yeah? I mean you see this. There's a whole literature on scientists saying, you know what, I made a mistake in my published paper, and it turns out

that they're perceived more positively afterward. Going back half a century, there's a lot of research on the pratfall effect showing that if a successful person fails or makes a mistake, people actually like them more. They don't ding them for confidence at all, and now they see them as human and relatable and approachable instead of being untouchable. I think one of the things I've I've realized over time is that the faster you are to admit when you're wrong,

the faster you can move toward being right. And that's where we all want to land right. We'd like to be right more often, and that means you have to be quicker to at least internally right. See those moments when you were wrong, but then if you don't ever admit them out loud, then you're continuing to stigmatize the behavior.

And saying I was wrong is the equivalent of admitting defeat or showing weakness, or signaling a lack of intelligence, as opposed to actually signaling that you have confident humility, which is I am secure enough in my expertise and my strengths to be willing to be forthcoming about all the things I got wrong and didn't know, and gosh, I would love to live in a world where that

was the norm rather than the exception. After the break, Adam and I discussed tactics for changing other people's minds. So I would love to talk a little bit deeper about how it is that we can change other people's minds. So I'm going to set the scene for you. Okay, we are, We're at the proverbial Thanksgiving dinner. Okay, I'm dreading the dinner because the proverbial aunt uncle is at the table, And every year I have felt enraged by

their political beliefs. This is not a hypothetical example is yeah, I know, I'm asking on behalf of a friend and so so typically I eat and then I leave the table because I just don't want to engage. But this year I read, uh, you know, how to better rethink, and I'm feeling really embolded. I'm feeling really motivated. So I'm going to stick it out. I'm gonna stay at that table. What are some of the tactics that we can use to navigate the preceding conversation? What are you

trying to accomplish? I am trying to one stay sane and to maybe try to make a slight dent in their minds. Okay, and do you do you have an agenda around what you want them to believe or do you just want them to be a little bit more open about what they believe? Okay, So let's say this hypothetical person has such deeply entrenched beliefs, I want them to even be open to the idea of rethinking. Okay, And what's what's an issue that you want them to

be open to rethinking? Um? Oh gosh, there's so many today. Let's say immigration reform, Okay, I'm assuming this uncle is anti immigration, and you're mar pro yeah. I mean the I already here is that it's a little bit of hypothetical for me given that I'm from a family of immigrants. So yes, let's say the average uncle is anti immigration. Okay.

I think where tactically, where I would starts with motivational interviewing principles to recognize that you can't force your uncle to change his mind, but you could help him find his own motivation to change his mind. I think one of the things I've noticed consistently is I just give a barrage of data points and facts and reasons, and

the other person either attacks, defends, or withdrawals. And one of the things I've seen in research on expert negotiators comparing them to average negotiators is the experts have a higher question to statement ratio, which is also something you see incidentally in productive charge conversations as opposed to conversations that just go off the rails. What are some questions that I could ask you that might lead you to question some of your own beliefs? How did you how

did you come to that opinion? Like, tell me more about what your sources are, I'd love to understand them better. Yeah, so you so, it's really important that we ask questions and not make statements. And another one that I that I love. My husband and I were talking about this yesterday is asking people what evidence they would need in

order to change their minds. And the reason I ask this is that it presupposes that the person ought to be willing to change their mind in the face of evidence, and that's something that you know, we we can sometimes, you know, not always be even open to in the first place. So, yeah, I absolutely love that one, and it really gets people to dig into why it is

they believe the thing in the first place. Yeah, I've it's it's my go to question whenever I'm in an argument and somebody is not Usually it's it's I've presented some data already and then the other person rejects the data. You know, my instinct is than to just give them more data and instead again trying to go into scientists mode and be curious and say, okay, well, it seems like you're not buying the argument I've made. What evidence

would change your mind? And it's very rare that anybody says nothing and once they start to walk through the evidence, I know what kind of data they find convincing. We're also agreeing on the standards of conversation, right then, Okay, we're going to talk about what qualifies as rigorous evidence, and we can possibly find some consensus on that, even

if we disagree about how to interpret the evidence. One thing that resonated with me when reading the book is how is how often people can disagree with an argument, not because they actually disagree with it, but because they feel in some way like they're being controlled, right, that they're being told what to do. So how can we get around this? Well, one of the places where I've run into this a lot actually is in office hours

with my students. I've changed my approach dramatically. What I do now is if you come into office hours and you say, hey, I'm you know, I'm thinking about this banking job, first thing I want to do is I'm going to ask you why you're here. What's what's your goal?

Do you just want my stamp of approval on your decision because you already have it, or maybe you're here because you want me to point out blind spots in your thinking, and you know, invite you to do a little bit of rethinking, like what is it and whatever they say right that that gives me a guide to figure out how I can best help them. And at that point, they don't feel controlled anymore, and I don't

have an agenda anymore. I'm trying to align what their goals are with the way that I, you know, I respond to their questions and life change, I mean honestly life changing in my office hours conversations because I've had so many tug of war sort of battles like no, I think you're making a decision you're going to regret, and I want to save you from it. And now it's like, hey, you just you just in you just ask me to tell you what you might be missing.

And then once once I have your permission, I'm not trying to influence you anymore. I'm just sharing with you what I've learned. Yeah, you're recruiting their own agency, right, and we know that that's such a good way to describe it. Yeah, It's like people love being in the driver's seat. Like even with these driverless cars, even if the steering wheel doesn't work, it doesn't matter. They just want it there. They want to feel like they're in

control recruiting their own agency. That is a powerful way to describe it. And you know, I think once once they get to exercise it, sometimes they become more open to the advice at the end. So you know, they almost never used to ask me which which job should

I take? And when I start the conversation by asking them what their goals are and how can I best help them, they almost always at the end of the conversation say, well, you know, it's it's been helpful to hear some of the things that I've overlooked, or you know, I appreciated the the insight on the decision process. But what I really want to know is which job do you think will make me happier or which one will do you help? Do you think will help me succeed?

And I think my responsibility in that moment is to say, I don't know, that is your choice, Yes, that that is great, and yeah, like you said, leads to better outcomes in your office hours. So I think we all feel anxious about the next generation and how divisive things feel and how much people do dig in their heels.

One of the other ideas that I thought was so great was to invite kids to do multiple drafts of things right, to not strive for that, you know, for perfection, and also to see that there are many versions of this thing that could exist in the world. And I was reflecting on that last night, like as a kid practicing the violin, there was no such thing as a

final product. And in many ways, I think that helped me cultivate this mindset of growth and the fact that things can always sound different than what it sounded like in my head. And I think that was actually very positive in terms of the way that I looked at honing a craft in general so interesting. Same although mine was not artistic, it was athletic, and that's exactly what this idea of sitting down with our kids it was. It was eye opening instead of just praising the first

drawing that they did on a given day. I remember saying to our fourth grader, Hey, that's really interesting. Have you tried a second draft? And she got excited about all the things she can rethink. She ended up voluntarily doing five drafts and was that much prouder of the fifth one than she would have been at the first.

And it was it was a good both lesson and probably reminder for me that kids are not so fragile that they need to be told that everything they do is great, and sometimes you can highlight the potential in them in whatever they've produced or created, and then encouraged them to think again and reach that potential. All right, have one final question for you, added, I imagine you get lots of emails from people who've read your books. Can you share any of the best change stories that

you might have read? Yeah, I actually got a great email last week. Hold On, let me pull it up because it was so powerful that I need to read a line from it. Okay, And he said, I'm reaching out because I wanted to tell you about something that happened to me yesterday that I think he might appreciate. He said. It was my first outdoor weekend of the year.

I was in a hammock finishing Think Again, and right after I finished it, a kind of twenty twenty one year old guy was, you know, just kind of hanging out outdoors, and we struck up a conversation and he was just expressing all these fears about vaccines, he said. The young man immediately voiced his concerns about the vaccines and how he's heard some pretty scary things about what they can do to us. This is where I paused.

I'd literally just finished a reading think again, not an hour before, and now I have someone in front of me who has his defenses down, who is clearly expressing doubts about the vaccines. I decided to put your book to the test. I told the young man that I agreed it's very confusing knowing which information on vaccines to trust while also trying to stay safe and not get our loved one sick. And I asked him how he

plans to make an informed decision. He paused, clearly not being used to that question, and said he'd use sources he trusts. I asked him how he knows which sources to trust, which is harder and harder in this day and age, and he paused again and said, yeah, it is hard, and then said he might call his primary care physician and ask for medical advice, and I said I would do the same. He said, The story doesn't

end there. We struck up a conversation, we became friends, and I'm grateful that I responded to do his stance on vaccines in a way that not only possibly opened his mind, but more importantly made him feel seen and heard, and this safety allowed him to open up. And I thought that was so cool to see that a beautiful Yeah, what an impact. I love that so much. All Right, thank you so much, Adam. I'm so glad we got a chance to discuss. Oh. I feel like we barely

scratched the surface. You are so smart and such a clear thinker and communicator and asked him almost impossibly difficult questions that I'm going to be thinking about for the next few weeks. Hey, thanks for listening. Next week I talked with Elena Baker, a woman who believed that if she could just become thin, she could live her dream life. And she did it. She lost close to one hundred pounds in five and a half months. But what she didn't expect is that she lose herself in the process.

I was like, Oh, this is the trade off, right, Like, you can get what you want, but you have to give up other parts of yourself. And how bad do you want this? A slight change of Plans is created an executive produced by me Maya Schunker. Big thanks to everyone at Pushkin Industries, including our producer Mola Board associate producers David Jaw and Julia Goodman, Executive producers Mia Lavelle and Justine Lange, Senior editor Jen Guera, and sound design

and mixed engineers Ben Holliday and Jason Gambrel. Thanks also to Louis Gara who wrote our theme song, and Ginger Smith who helped arrange the vocals, incidental music from Epidemic Sound, and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow a slight change of plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker. It was fun to think out loud, but also I'm like, oh, this is why I always like to be the interviewer, Because I have questions I'm

going to ask back to you. Next time, we'll trade spots. How about that? To be continued me