How to Persuade People to Change Their Minds

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The methods that seem to work wherever you pull them from, they all have very similar tenets. It starts with socratic stuff and then we go out from there depending on which academic silo you are playing with or which activist group has A.B. tested something to the point of success. The question is this oftentimes when I'm presenting these ideas to people, this is where I get the next level of pushback: why should I offer anything nice?

This is the third episode in a three-part series about how to have difficult conversations with people who see the world differently, how to have better debates about contentious issues, and how to ethically and scientifically persuade one another about things that matter – in short, this is a three-part series about How Minds Change (which is also the title of my new book).

There seems to be a movement afoot, a new wave of nonfiction about how to reduce all this argumentative madness and epistemic chaos. I want to boost everyone’s signal on this issue, so I thought it would be nice to collaborate instead of compete, since that’s part of what we are all proselytizing with these books.

So this episode’s guest is Anand Giridharadas, the author of The Persuaders – a book about activists, politicians, educators, and everyday citizens who are on the ground working to change minds, bridge divisions, and fight for democracy.

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