(单词翻译:单击)
With the holidays coming up, you might be thinking that this is finally the year to get your uncle to stop blaming millennials for everything.
假期到了,你可能会想,今年终于可以让叔叔不再把一切责任归咎于千禧一代了 。
After all, you've got the facts on your side, right?
毕竟,你有事实根据,对吧?
Persuasion is a huge area of psychology, but most of the things that work are when you're persuading people of something new.
说服是心理学的一大板块,但大多数时候,说服在针对新事物的时候才会有效 。
Convincing someone to change their mind when they already disagreed with you is much harder.
当和别人的意见不一致时,说服人们改变意见要难得多 。
There are a few things that kind of work, but mostly it's an uphill battle.
说服别人涉及到的事情有很多,大部分都是一场硬仗 。
This is for a lot of reasons, like the fact
这有很多原因,比如,
that when people have thought about their opinions for a bit, they often tie those opinions to their social identities.
人们在思考观点时,通常会把这些观点和他们的社会身份联系起来 。
For instance, one study asked people to try and understand some tables with numbers about whether a skin cream helped get rid of rashes.
例如,在一项研究中要求人们试着去理解表格上的一些数字,这些数字是关于护肤霜是否有助于消除皮疹的 。
And pretty much everyone did fine.
几乎每个人都理解对了 。
But when the researchers took the same numbers and made them about whether a gun control measure worked, people had a harder time understanding—
但是,当研究人员取同样的数字,让他们判断枪支管制措施是否有效时,人们就很难理解了——
unless it agreed with their political views.
除非他们在枪支管制措施上的意见一致 。
When you scan people's brains while they're being shown arguments against their beliefs,
当你扫描那些观点和信仰背离人的大脑时,
the people who aren't very likely to change show activation in the amygdala and insula.
观点不太可能改变人的扁桃腺和脑岛被激活 。
These brain regions are associated with emotional reactions and avoiding threats,
这些脑区关联着情绪反应和威胁规避,
as if they had been personally insulted or were in physical danger.
就好像他们受到了侮辱或处于危险之中 。
So, it can be pretty tricky to get someone in that headspace to carefully consider a peer-reviewed paper.
所以,要让那些人仔细考虑一篇同行审评论文相当棘手 。
But a few strategies can help.
但一些策略会帮助到他们 。
One thing to try is focusing on how things work, instead of why you hold your beliefs.
一是关注事情是如何运作的,而不是你为什么坚持你的信念 。
People often hold really strong opinions about really complicated topics like climate change, healthcare, or international relations.
人们对气候变化、医疗保健或国际关系等非常复杂的话题往往持有非常强烈的观点 。
Despite those opinions, most people don't know those subjects as well as they think they do.
很多人认为自己很了解,但其实大多数人对于这些话题并不十分了解 。
This is called the illusion of explanatory depth.
我们把这种现象称为解释性深度错觉 。
Researchers tested this by having people write about a variety of topics—
研究人员通过让人们描写各种各样的话题——
like raising the retirement age for social security benefits, or merit-based pay for teachers.
比如提高退休年龄以获得社会保障福利,或者教师的择优薪酬来测试解释性深度错觉 。
The participants either listed reasons why they held certain opinions or described how their preferred solution would work.
参与者要么列出自己持有某些观点的原因,要么描述自己喜欢的解决方案如何有效 。
The ones who explained how their opinion would fix things discovered they didn't know as much as they thought they did.
那些描述自己喜欢的解决方案如何有效的人发现,他们了解的并不如他们以为的那么多 。
And they became a little less extreme in their support.
他们的支持也不那么偏激了 。
Another helpful persuasive strategy might be tailoring an argument to the other person's viewpoint.
另一个策略是根据他人的观点调整论点 。
Some recent research about political opinions found that one reason why people tend to fall into two big groups on issues is because of common moral principles—
最近一些有关政治见解的研究发现,人们对问题的认识往往分成两大组是因为共同的道德原则——
like, the rules about what you feel is good and right.
比如,你感觉好的、正确的规则 。
For example, people who are more politically liberal tend to hold principles of fairness and care for others.
例如,在政治问题上持自由观点的人往往坚持公平和关心他人的原则 。
Whereas politically conservative people are more likely to value purity and respect for authority.
在政治问题上持保守观点的人更看重纯粹和对权威的尊重 。
So, by trying to tailor arguments to the other groups' moral principles, researchers were able to get some people to soften their position a bit.
研究人员根据其它群体的道德原则调整论点能够稍微缓和一些人的立场 。
Like, on average, self-identified conservatives were a little more likely to support universal healthcare after they read about stopping the spread of harmful diseases.
一般来说,自我认同的保守主义者在阅读了关于阻止有害疾病传播的文章后,往往更加支持全民医疗 。
And self-identified liberals were a little more likely to support a national language after reading how it might level the playing field for immigrants.
自我认同的自由主义者在阅读如何为移民创造公平竞争的环境后,更可能支持民族语言 。
These weren't huge shifts.
这些转变并不大 。
Like, on a five point scale of agree to disagree, tailoring the argument moved people about half a point on average.
比如,在同意与不同意的5分量表上,使用调整论点的策略,观点转变的人数达到0.5% 。
But similar studies have found that framing arguments to align with someone's values can affect their opinions, regardless of political alignment.
但类似的研究发现,不管政治立场如何,与某人的价值观一致会影响他们自己的观点 。
For instance, one experiment involved a group of people who were opposed to policies that curb climate change and strongly valued stability and certainty.
例如,有一组人参与了一项实验,该组人反对阻止气候变化、尊崇气候稳定的政策 。
When the message was tailored to their values, 75% were up for signing a pro-environmental petition, as opposed to just 30% when the message wasn't.
当信息符合他们的价值观时,75%的人赞成签署一份环保请愿书,而只有30%的人反对 。
Now, a third strategy that might help change minds is just knocking on doors and having a conversation.
第三个策略是敲门和交谈 。
Psychologists have been burned before with door-to-door canvassing, though.
不过,心理学家们之前也曾因挨家挨户的拉票而饱受煎熬
A major study in 2014 about this technique was retracted for fraud... like, just-made-up-the-data fraud.
2014年关于该技术的重大研究因欺诈而被撤回……数据伪造 。
But pretty recently, the researchers who discovered the fraud gave the canvassing thing a try, for real.
但就在最近,发现欺诈行为的研究人员尝试进行了一次真正的拉票 。
They knocked on doors in Florida and talked to five hundred voters about prejudice against transgender people.
他们在佛罗里达州挨家挨户走访,向500名选民讲述了对变性人的偏见 。
And… it kind of worked. They used a technique called analogic perspective-taking.
有点效果 。他们使用了一种叫做模拟换位思考的策略 。
Basically, this meant they asked voters about a time they felt judged for being different.
从根本上来说,这意味着他们询问的时刻让选民觉得自己与众不同 。
And they encouraged voters to use that feeling as a window into others' perspectives.
他们鼓励选民把这种感觉当作了解他人观点的窗口 。
In follow up surveys from 3 days to 3 months after the conversation,
交谈后3天到3个月的跟踪调查显示,
the voters reported less prejudice and more support for an anti-discrimination law, compared to a control group who got a conversation about recycling.
选民对反歧视法案的偏见减少了,而更多的是支持反歧视法 。另一组则是关于回收利用的对话 。
Overall, though, what this research shows is that persuading people to change their mind can be done. But it's hard.
总之,该研究表明说服人们改变主意是可以做到的,但很难 。
In all these studies, just a few people changed their mind.
在所有这些研究中,只有少数人改变了主意 。
Or, more often, they just reported a slightly less extreme position.
或者,更常见的是,他们只是报告了不那么极端的情况 。
And to get there, you might have to carefully consider what other people think and value, and give reasons that could work for them—even if you might disagree.
要做到这一点,你可能需要仔细考虑其他人的想法和评价,并给出充分的理由——即使你可能不同意 。
Or it might involve coaching people through a conversation about empathy,
或者是借助一场关于同理心的谈话,
which is basically impossible to do in a heated Twitter argument, instead of face-to-face.
不通过面对面的方式,而通过激烈的推特辩论的方式基本上不可能做到 。
So in the end, changing people's minds is hard because people are complicated.
总之,改变人们的想法是困难的,因为人是复杂的动物 。
It's still worth a shot with your uncle…
还是值得和你叔叔喝一杯的……
but who knows what the outcome will be.
但谁知道结果会怎样 。
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Psych,
感谢收看本集心理科学秀,
and thanks especially to our patrons on Patreon who make these videos possible.
特别要感谢Patreon对本节目的大力支持 。
If you want to join a community of people who value free online education as much as we do, you can go to patreon.com/scishow.
如果您想加入和我们一样重视免费在线教育的社区,可以访问patreon.com/scishow 。