5 ms·

The best technique I’ve heard of for nudging someone away from a deeply held (but maladaptive) belief is called deep canvassing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

The best technique I’ve heard of for nudging someone away from a deeply held (but maladaptive) belief is called deep canvassing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_canvassing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_canvassing The idea is basically that if you attack a strong belief head on, the person you’re talking to will reject your arguments instinctively. It’s a natural psychological defense mechanism. No one likes being wrong, particularly about things that are tied to their identity. Instead of dictating facts, you start a dialogue and ask questions that encourage critical thinking. If you are empathic, patient, and non-threatening, they sometimes (sometimes!) start making realizations on their own that change their opinion. And as many a good therapist has said, the patient has to want to change.

emptybottle 5y ago
Interesting, I've never heard of it called deep canvassing but it's something I'd been aware of for a long time. That essentially you can't get what you want through arguing. It's much more effective to act with patience, and in time either both people will compromise or one will accept the others idea as if it was their own.
themodelplumber 5y ago
Back when I was a cultist I was proud of how effectively I could canvas. :-) For context: If you look into street epistemology, it's similar to what I was doing. From the other side, so to speak. We then played doubt (I think the SE creator calls it the pebble in the shoe) into action, and as long as we could suggest the action, in the absence of other suggested actions, the actions we suggested were taken. Pray in this way, listen for the answers we tell you to listen for, act as if God told you to do this, add this new structure to your life, keep this one, subtract that one. Review what you're grateful for and be happy feeling content with all these amazing blessings...BTW did we mention that you have successfully changed your life, the thing you told us you wanted? You spread this across months of friendly visits against a backdrop of loneliness in a chillingly pragmatic society...I mean we taught people how to visit, respect and take care of their elders, which is STILL not something that's exactly on blast in modern society. Cults have pros in addition to the cons, those pros are where followers come from, the followers look at the cons and say "everything has faults," bada-bing, they're in, and that's the simple truth you have to come to terms with. It's infuriating to think about now in a lot of ways, but this is also a good lesson in how human psych works in general. Using these techniques I was told that I got doubters into the church at about 9x the average rate for our first-world region. I gave all credit to the big guy.
- technothrasher 5y ago
  > If you look into street epistemology, it's similar to what I was doing. I don't see that what you were doing is all that close to what they do in street epistemology. Sure, you're both canvasing, and you're both attempting it instill doubt in people by asking questions, but the SE folks are trying to teach people better epistemological skills to evaluate any belief they hold or claim they come across. You were just attempting to fill the doubt void with some new claim, without teaching the people you talked to anything about how to evaluate the truth of a claim.
  - themodelplumber 5y ago
    I didn't describe how I used the SE-like techniques, just the context in which they were used. Watch the recent Mormon Stories podcast with Shawn McCraney having SE used on him by Anthony Magnabosco and you'll see a good sample of A) how I talked to people a lot of the time and B) exemplary failure cases for SE based around ethics and subjective considerations. SE is in large part based around the metabolization of logic, specifically subjective-contextual logic, which I think the founder did a good job (humbly) showing has important boundaries as well. With some psychologies it will be like bringing MMA skills into an aerial dogfight. You have to decide if you want to win by holding out somehow or reassess the situation and toolset, maybe even ditching the win/lose idea if that's the way the situation started.
- 7952 5y ago
  I went to a funeral for a Jehovah's Witnesses once. The priest came and talked to me and my 2 atheist friends afterwards. He asked if we were baptized. And then said how in his church they wait until people are older to decide for themselves. We all nodded in agreement, sounded sensible. But in hindsight he was just canvasing us. Prompt some critical thinking and plant an idea that people will lazily agree with. Total bs of course as to an atheist a baptised baby is exactly the same as an unbaptised one!
  - themodelplumber 5y ago
    Sounds familiar...I was kinda that guy a lot. I also had a weird pride in being on HN, reading phys.org, participating in FOSS projects alongside scientific community members, meeting up with them and hosting them at my house...but also being so extra as to know even more than these scientists, in some incredible ways! I hoped someday they'd see the truth. (Sigh) There's this power of location and meeting context in your example too. When I was young and not yet even part of leadership, we were taught to invite people to come to our favorite spiritual locations with us. Then, while there, we would gently and firmly declare our beliefs and ask the other if they could deny that they felt the truth in it...and by that point they are, even just relationally speaking, posed with one hell of a problem. BTW organizing funerals for people you don't know very well is stressful AF.
thesz 5y ago
I see asking question as an ultimate offensive tactics. Because in Russian culture, at the very least, answering with a question is unpolite, very close to show rudeness. So with Russians, at the very least, you cannot be non-threatening if you are the one asking questions. I also had the privilege to be a team lead for some short period of time. What I found being one is that simple propaganda tactic works quite well - if you tell the same thing several times, almost literally word-for-word the same, people start to show understanding. This is almost miraculous, getting from blank stare to collaboration in three repeats of the simplest problem explanation. What all that means to me is that I cannot be non-agressive or non-authoritharian inflicting change in people's minds. That's a deduction for me, at the very least. May be someone can be non-agressive changing people's mind, but even Jesus bore that proverbial sword.
- cainxinth 5y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dToNqP7mtwU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dToNqP7mtwU
- stouset 5y ago
  I have also found that the simple propaganda tactic of telling the same thing several times, almost literally word-for-word the same, works. People will start to show understanding. It's almost miraculous, going from blank stares to collaboration in three repetitions of the simplest problem explanation.
  - techbio 5y ago
    By simply telling people the same thing several times, almost literally word-for-word, people will go from blank stares almost miraculously to collaborating with and understanding the simplest explanations. Or else.
    - philipswood 5y ago
      Ah. Now I get it! By repeating something to people a few times you can get them to start to absorb it and eventually understand it.
technothrasher 5y ago
> Instead of dictating facts, you start a dialogue and ask questions that encourage critical thinking. If you are empathic, patient, and non-threatening, they sometimes (sometimes!) start making realizations on their own that change their opinion. Check out Street Epistemology if you haven't already, as this is exactly what they're doing. They ask random people on the street if they'd like to pick a belief and discuss it. Any belief is acceptable, often it is politics or religion, but sometimes people want to talk about ghosts, or seat belt laws, or karma, or whatever. If the person is interested, they ask questions to try to get them to think about why they hold the belief, how confident they are, and if that may or may not be justified. There are a ton of videos on YouTube of these conversations and many of them are fun to watch. They really do get people to think about things, and most of the time the people leave still on friendly terms, which is a difficult thing to do when questioning people's beliefs. https://streetepistemology.com/ https://streetepistemology.com/
mrfusion 5y ago
Reasonable advice but it comes off as an arrogant comment. How are you so sure what you believe is correct?
austincheney 5y ago
The resistance to modify an opinion in the face of contrary evidence is called cognitive conservatism * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_(belief_revision) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_(belief_revision) Challenging a deeply held opinion whether with logic, examples, or facts only reinforces the prior held belief. Most typically this has nothing to do with perceptions of wrong, but rather negative social stature associated with ones beliefs called loss of face where on the other hand reinforcement results in positive social statue described as pride. The social repercussions of face and pride are dynamically and mutually reinforced within a social reference group. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept) * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride Given these dynamics the best way to change a person's opinions is to provide a connection that benefits their presence within their social reference group whether by enhancing a person's perceived status within their group or by modifying/redefining the group. This line of thinking works the same whether you are selling soda or convincing people to join an underage sex cult.
kbos87 5y ago
Agree 100%. This got me thinking about a quote that I heard recently that has stuck with me - it was something to the effect of “being right and being effective can be two very different things.” Unfortunately, a lot of the time the person who is trying to do the convincing is just as unwilling to let go of their desire to be proven right, so they aren’t willing to employ more effective but less satisfying approaches like this.
- philipswood 5y ago
  Similar distinction for me is the difference between being right (or being convinced that you are right to be more precise) an needing others to know that you are right. Often being willing to settle for the first can keep you out of a lot of trouble.
luisehk 5y ago
This reminds me of a scene in The Sopranos where Tony talks about homosexuality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=688XMcEchFQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=688XMcEchFQ Tony starts going off on a homophobic rant, the therapist asks the right questions, and Tony slowly realizes that he doesn't really care about a person's sexuality.
routerl 5y ago
Very weird to see this rebranding of a 2000+ year old technique. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method#Method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method#Method

emptybottle 5y ago

Interesting, I've never heard of it called deep canvassing but it's something I'd been aware of for a long time. That essentially you can't get what you want through arguing. It's much more effective to act with patience, and in time either both people will compromise or one will accept the others idea as if it was their own.

themodelplumber 5y ago

Back when I was a cultist I was proud of how effectively I could canvas. :-) For context: If you look into street epistemology, it's similar to what I was doing. From the other side, so to speak. We then played doubt (I think the SE creator calls it the pebble in the shoe) into action, and as long as we could suggest the action, in the absence of other suggested actions, the actions we suggested were taken. Pray in this way, listen for the answers we tell you to listen for, act as if God told you to do this, add this new structure to your life, keep this one, subtract that one. Review what you're grateful for and be happy feeling content with all these amazing blessings...BTW did we mention that you have successfully changed your life, the thing you told us you wanted? You spread this across months of friendly visits against a backdrop of loneliness in a chillingly pragmatic society...I mean we taught people how to visit, respect and take care of their elders, which is STILL not something that's exactly on blast in modern society. Cults have pros in addition to the cons, those pros are where followers come from, the followers look at the cons and say "everything has faults," bada-bing, they're in, and that's the simple truth you have to come to terms with. It's infuriating to think about now in a lot of ways, but this is also a good lesson in how human psych works in general. Using these techniques I was told that I got doubters into the church at about 9x the average rate for our first-world region. I gave all credit to the big guy.

technothrasher 5y ago
> If you look into street epistemology, it's similar to what I was doing. I don't see that what you were doing is all that close to what they do in street epistemology. Sure, you're both canvasing, and you're both attempting it instill doubt in people by asking questions, but the SE folks are trying to teach people better epistemological skills to evaluate any belief they hold or claim they come across. You were just attempting to fill the doubt void with some new claim, without teaching the people you talked to anything about how to evaluate the truth of a claim.
- themodelplumber 5y ago
  I didn't describe how I used the SE-like techniques, just the context in which they were used. Watch the recent Mormon Stories podcast with Shawn McCraney having SE used on him by Anthony Magnabosco and you'll see a good sample of A) how I talked to people a lot of the time and B) exemplary failure cases for SE based around ethics and subjective considerations. SE is in large part based around the metabolization of logic, specifically subjective-contextual logic, which I think the founder did a good job (humbly) showing has important boundaries as well. With some psychologies it will be like bringing MMA skills into an aerial dogfight. You have to decide if you want to win by holding out somehow or reassess the situation and toolset, maybe even ditching the win/lose idea if that's the way the situation started.
7952 5y ago
I went to a funeral for a Jehovah's Witnesses once. The priest came and talked to me and my 2 atheist friends afterwards. He asked if we were baptized. And then said how in his church they wait until people are older to decide for themselves. We all nodded in agreement, sounded sensible. But in hindsight he was just canvasing us. Prompt some critical thinking and plant an idea that people will lazily agree with. Total bs of course as to an atheist a baptised baby is exactly the same as an unbaptised one!
- themodelplumber 5y ago
  Sounds familiar...I was kinda that guy a lot. I also had a weird pride in being on HN, reading phys.org, participating in FOSS projects alongside scientific community members, meeting up with them and hosting them at my house...but also being so extra as to know even more than these scientists, in some incredible ways! I hoped someday they'd see the truth. (Sigh) There's this power of location and meeting context in your example too. When I was young and not yet even part of leadership, we were taught to invite people to come to our favorite spiritual locations with us. Then, while there, we would gently and firmly declare our beliefs and ask the other if they could deny that they felt the truth in it...and by that point they are, even just relationally speaking, posed with one hell of a problem. BTW organizing funerals for people you don't know very well is stressful AF.

thesz 5y ago

I see asking question as an ultimate offensive tactics. Because in Russian culture, at the very least, answering with a question is unpolite, very close to show rudeness. So with Russians, at the very least, you cannot be non-threatening if you are the one asking questions. I also had the privilege to be a team lead for some short period of time. What I found being one is that simple propaganda tactic works quite well - if you tell the same thing several times, almost literally word-for-word the same, people start to show understanding. This is almost miraculous, getting from blank stare to collaboration in three repeats of the simplest problem explanation. What all that means to me is that I cannot be non-agressive or non-authoritharian inflicting change in people's minds. That's a deduction for me, at the very least. May be someone can be non-agressive changing people's mind, but even Jesus bore that proverbial sword.

cainxinth 5y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dToNqP7mtwU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dToNqP7mtwU
stouset 5y ago
I have also found that the simple propaganda tactic of telling the same thing several times, almost literally word-for-word the same, works. People will start to show understanding. It's almost miraculous, going from blank stares to collaboration in three repetitions of the simplest problem explanation.
- techbio 5y ago
  By simply telling people the same thing several times, almost literally word-for-word, people will go from blank stares almost miraculously to collaborating with and understanding the simplest explanations. Or else.
  - philipswood 5y ago
    Ah. Now I get it! By repeating something to people a few times you can get them to start to absorb it and eventually understand it.

technothrasher 5y ago

> Instead of dictating facts, you start a dialogue and ask questions that encourage critical thinking. If you are empathic, patient, and non-threatening, they sometimes (sometimes!) start making realizations on their own that change their opinion. Check out Street Epistemology if you haven't already, as this is exactly what they're doing. They ask random people on the street if they'd like to pick a belief and discuss it. Any belief is acceptable, often it is politics or religion, but sometimes people want to talk about ghosts, or seat belt laws, or karma, or whatever. If the person is interested, they ask questions to try to get them to think about why they hold the belief, how confident they are, and if that may or may not be justified. There are a ton of videos on YouTube of these conversations and many of them are fun to watch. They really do get people to think about things, and most of the time the people leave still on friendly terms, which is a difficult thing to do when questioning people's beliefs. https://streetepistemology.com/ https://streetepistemology.com/

mrfusion 5y ago

Reasonable advice but it comes off as an arrogant comment. How are you so sure what you believe is correct?

austincheney 5y ago

The resistance to modify an opinion in the face of contrary evidence is called cognitive conservatism * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_(belief_revision) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_(belief_revision) Challenging a deeply held opinion whether with logic, examples, or facts only reinforces the prior held belief. Most typically this has nothing to do with perceptions of wrong, but rather negative social stature associated with ones beliefs called loss of face where on the other hand reinforcement results in positive social statue described as pride. The social repercussions of face and pride are dynamically and mutually reinforced within a social reference group. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept) * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride Given these dynamics the best way to change a person's opinions is to provide a connection that benefits their presence within their social reference group whether by enhancing a person's perceived status within their group or by modifying/redefining the group. This line of thinking works the same whether you are selling soda or convincing people to join an underage sex cult.

kbos87 5y ago

Agree 100%. This got me thinking about a quote that I heard recently that has stuck with me - it was something to the effect of “being right and being effective can be two very different things.” Unfortunately, a lot of the time the person who is trying to do the convincing is just as unwilling to let go of their desire to be proven right, so they aren’t willing to employ more effective but less satisfying approaches like this.

philipswood 5y ago
Similar distinction for me is the difference between being right (or being convinced that you are right to be more precise) an needing others to know that you are right. Often being willing to settle for the first can keep you out of a lot of trouble.

luisehk 5y ago

This reminds me of a scene in The Sopranos where Tony talks about homosexuality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=688XMcEchFQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=688XMcEchFQ Tony starts going off on a homophobic rant, the therapist asks the right questions, and Tony slowly realizes that he doesn't really care about a person's sexuality.

routerl 5y ago

Very weird to see this rebranding of a 2000+ year old technique. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method#Method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method#Method