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Elephant to Elephant:  How to Change People’s Minds

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Friends!!  If you read only one thing today, stop here and click on this link to James Clear’s essay on why facts do not change minds.  It’s very similar to Ozan Varol’s post of a similar title from last year.  That piece prompted a prolonged conversation on my Facebook page two months ago, which I described and shared here.

The Trigger

I’m thinking hard again about facts and changing minds now, as the number of new measles cases skyrockets not just in the US but around the world.  I’m so angry that we have to fight his war again—a war we had won as of 2000.  I’m so frustrated that because of the actions of a relative few, the health and safety of the very many and vulnerable are once again at risk.  I know my colleagues and many in the general public share my sentiments, and we often end up shaming and deriding our ‘anti-vaxxer’ peers.  We hurl facts and statistics at them, incredulous at their intransigence to the truth of science.

In the end everybody digs in, feelings get hurt, relationships suffer, and the outbreaks progress.

There is a better way.

James and Ozan (I imagine them as friends and so refer to them by first name) explain it eloquently in the posts I share here, and I really encourage you to click on those links.

The Metaphor

Personally, I return often to Jonathan Haidt’s analogy of our mind as an elephant (the emotional, limbic brain) and its rider (cognitive, rational brain).  We think, as rational beings, that our riders steer our elephants.  But psychology research and evidence tells us that the elephant goes where it wants; the rider rationalizes the path.  That is why facts do not change people’s minds—they are the rider’s domain.

Chip and Dan Heath, in their book Switch, take Haidt’s idea further in their formula for behavior change:

  1. Direct the rider (provide the facts, rationale, and method),
  2. Motivate the elephant (make the message meaningful on a personal, emotional level), and
  3. Shape the path (shorten the distance, remove obstacles).

It occurred to me recently that when I flood you with facts about measles and vaccines, I speak only through my rider.  You listen (or not) as both rider and elephant.  But as Simon Sinek describes eloquently in Start With Why, the elephant limbic brain has no capacity for language.  And facts, conveyed in words, have no emotional meaning or context.  So unless your rider is somehow really driving in this moment, my rider’s appeal will not move you.  Your elephant does not understand my rider, thus I cannot steer you where I want you to go.

The Approach

So how can I motivate your elephant?  If I’m using words, I can tell a story.  But the words of any story matter far less than the emotions the story evokes.  If I can relate with your own past experience, point you to a loss, a gratitude, or some shared connecting experience between us, then your elephant may hear me.  If I tell my story with honesty, authenticity, and humility, then my rider serves as translator for my elephant, communicating directly with your elephant.

But the most important connection between our elephants, if I really want to change your mind, is my presence.  Researchers agree that a vast majority of communication, up to 90%, occurs non-verbally.  Even if my rider interpreter tells a great story, my attitude carries the real message.  This manifests in my tone of voice, facial expressions, posture, stance, and all kinds of other subtle, nonverbal, subconscious cues—all seen and understood by your elephant, because they emanate from mine.  Even if my story tugs at your heart strings, you will defend your position if you feel me to be righteous, shaming, condescending, etc.  Elephants are smart; they know not to come out if it’s not safe.  And if my elephant is at all on the attack (see anger and frustration above), your elephant knows full well not to show itself.

It’s not the words we say or the things we do—it’s not the method that counts.  It’s how we are, how we make people feel—the approach—that gains us access to people’s consciousness and allows us to influence their thinking (which is really their feeling).

So I calm my rider and elephant first.  Deep breaths.  Then instead of my rider jumping off my elephant and charging at you with a wad of sharp verbal sticks, she sits back in her seat.  My elephant humbly ambles alongside yours on the savannah of community and (humanity), shares some sweet grass, points to the water hole where we both want to go.  I invite your inner pachyderm lovingly on a shared adventure toward optimal health for us all.  Rather than rush, berate, or agitate you, I wait.  I encourage.  I welcome.

James Clear writes, “Facts don’t change minds.  Friendship does,” and “Be kind first, be right later.”

My elephant fully concurs.

 

Some Facts, because I’m a doctor after all:

  • As of last Friday, May 3, 2019, there were 764 known cases of measles in the United States. According to the CDC, “This is the greatest number of cases reported in the U.S. since 1994 and since measles was declared eliminated in 2000.”
  • About 2/3 of patients are unvaccinated; 1/10 have been vaccinated, and the vaccination status of the rest is unknown.
  • 44% of patients are children under 4 years of age.

See this article in the Washington Post from today for more statistics.

For answers to frequently asked questions about Measles, please refer to the CDC measles FAQ webpage.

Please talk to your doctor if you are unsure about your risk.

 

The Optimist and the Cynic

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Are you an optimist or a cynic?

I consider myself to be, wholly and without question, an Optimist—with a Big O.

In The Art of Possibility, Ben and Roz Zander describe a cynic as a passionate person who doesn’t want to be disappointed again.

By this definition, cynics are not altogether hopeless and negative; they are simply wary and cautious based on past experience.  Still, I judge cynics and find them tiresome.  I reject their gloom and doom outlook.  Sometimes I really just want to throttle them.  In their presence I turn up my outward optimism to happy headbanger volume.  I can tell this makes them a little crazed—they see me as Pollyannish, idealistic, and naïve—and likely wish to strangle me, too.

And here’s the thing:  I also possess a deep cynical streak; one that can really overtake my consciousness sometimes.

Every day I campaign ardently to empower myself and those around me, pointing to all the ways we can claim our agency and effect positive change.  I advocate for using all of our kindness, empathy, compassion, and connecting communication skills, in every situation—take the high road!  Be our Best Selves!  And yet at the same time, a darker part of me, my shadow side, silently tells a contemptuous story of the forces we fight against.  I paint a sinister picture in my mind of impediments made of ‘the other’ people—the small minded, the pessimistic, the underestimating, unbelieving, rigid, unimaginative, distrustful, conventional, supercilious, and condescending them.  They are not like us.  They are the problem.

Of course this is not true.  It’s just a story I tell—a counterproductive and self-sabotaging story.  How fascinating.

Sometimes I tell this unsympathetic story aloud, out of frustration, impatience, and exasperation.  Sometimes I actually name people and label them all those negative things I listed.  It feels justified and righteous.  But then I feel guilty, as if my worse self kidnapped the better me and held my optimism hostage until I vented against my better judgment.  I wonder when my words will come back and bite me in the butt?  What will I do then?

I suppose I can only claim passion and disappointment.  Sometimes I let the latter get the best of me and allow shadow to overtake the light.  It happens to the best of us; I can own it.  There is no need to disavow the disappointment and disillusionment, the dissatisfaction with what is.  If I didn’t care so much—about patient care, public policy, physician burnout, patient-physician relationship, and relationships in general—I would not suffer such vexations.  And it’s because I care so much that I fight on, to do my part to make it better.  I stay engaged in the important conversations, even if I have to take breaks and change forums at times.

Yes, I, the eternal optimist, harbor an inner, insubordinate cynic.  While most of me exclaims, “Humanity is so full of love and potential!” another part of me mutters subversively, “Also people suck.”  Some days (some weeks) the dark side wins, but it’s always temporary.  The Yin and the Yang, the shadow and the light, the tension of opposite energies—that’s what makes life so interesting, no?  We require both for contrast and context, to orient to what is in order to see what could be. 

The struggle for balance is real and at times exhausting.  And it’s always worth the effort.

On Easter: Separate and Unite

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Sheil Easter 2019

What does Easter mean to you?

It occurred to me as I sat in the second pew today, coming to church on Easter labels me.  I declare myself Catholic on this occasion, in this place.  I separate myself, in a sense, from all who are not Catholic or Christian, from all who do not celebrate.  You might consider that I do this every Sunday at church, or every time I say I’m Catholic.  But on Easter it feels more intense, because this mass is all about the definition of Christianity—He died for us—we hold this to be true (I still have questions about that, actually) and that is what makes us Christian.  I apply this label to myself by my attendance at this mass.

I generally dislike being labeled, because of the assumptions that inevitably and automatically accompany labels of any kind.  You are Catholic, therefore you must be pro-life and thus anti-woman (I am pro-choice).  Your church is full of pedophiles and those who abet them; your religion, and you as an extension, represent the worst kinds of repression of the reality and diversity of human expression (if you think this please read about Father James Martin).  You are Chinese, you must be so smart and have a Tiger Mom (I am so smart but I don’t attribute it to being Chinese, and my mom is not Amy Chua).  You are a doctor in executive health, you must have done it for the money (this one slapped me recently, and I still seethe a little over it).

I have attended my church for 28 years this fall, starting my freshman year in college.  I was confirmed here, my children were baptized here, and I would have been married by the priest here, had it not been New Student Week that year.  I have so many friends here, from the couple who sponsored me for confirmation to the woman who ran the nursery where both of my kids played, to the director of the prison ministry who has kept the pencil record of my kids’ heights on the wall in his office.  I return to this community not for the ‘body and blood’ mass parts, which I could get at any Catholic church.  It’s how the people here put their faith into action that I admire—seeking connection across diversity, holding space for differing viewpoints and discoursing with respect and compassion.  Next month there will be a dialogue on the Ten Commandments led by our pastoral associate and a Northwestern campus rabbi, entitled, “The Big 10.”

I consider myself not religious at all, rather faithful and spiritual, and this is where I practice.  So while I separate from non-Christians this Easter, I unite with this particular Catholic tribe.  And let me be clear: separating into tribes is a GOOD thing.  Humans are wired for belonging and shared identity.  Support from those we identify with and relate to is essential for survival and thriving, especially in chaotic and uncertain times like now.

But it is in exactly such times when we must be wary of over-identifying with those we perceive as similar to ourselves.  Separating (or sorting, as Bill Bishop calls it) ourselves by religion, ideology, profession, or any other in-group carries risks for us all.  As I looked around the chapel today, I saw a widely diverse group.  Most people were white, many at least a generation older than I.  But there are always college students here, bringing balance, which I love.  I see also families like mine, our children growing up as members of the community, making it a whole of many assorted parts.  No doubt we are not all of one political persuasion, and we each have our own reasons for whatever opinions and positions we take.  We must not assume that just because we attend the same church, in this little building or the Catholic church of the world, that we are all the same, or wholly different from those outside of our church or faith.

As we unite as Christians this Easter, then, separating ourselves from ‘non-believers,’ what is the best object of our spiritual focus?  When we think of ourselves in terms of this religious tribe, how does it impact our identity and relationships in the tribe of humanity?

What are we called to do with this faith of ours, how are we meant to best manifest it here on Earth?

I hear Brennan Manning’s words in my mind all the time, like a warning:

The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.

By the end of mass, I decided that if I choose to accept this ‘religious’ label, oversimplified and overgeneralized as it is, then I must represent it well.  I must not personify the corruption and hypocrisy that so many identify with Christianity—I must demonstrate the opposite.  My faith in action must be driven first and always by love, and never by fear, never by suspicion.  If I can pull this off, then separating myself as Catholic or Christian serves wholly to unite me with all of humanity, because that is what my faith, and what I believe the best of all faiths, calls us all to do.