Just noting a point of confusion—if changing minds is a social endeavor having to do with personal connection, why is it necessary to get people to engage System 2/Central Route thinking? Isn’t the main thing to get them involved in a social group where the desired beliefs are normal and let System 1/Peripheral Route thinking continue to do its work?
If I understand correctly I think it’s more that system 1/peripheral route thinking can get someone to affectively endorse an idea without forming a deeper understanding of it, whereas system 2/central route thinking can produce deeper understanding, but many (most?) people need to feel sufficiently psychologically and socially safe/among friends to engage in that kind of thinking.
I think you are absolutely correct that getting someone involved in a social group where everyone already has those ideas would be better at changing minds. But that’s way harder than getting someone to have a ten-minute conversation. In fact, it’s so hard that I don’t think it’s ever been studied experimentally. Hopefully I’m wrong and there are limited studies; but I’ve looked for them and not found them (~5 years ago).
I’d frame it this way: what you’re doing in that interview is supplying the motivation to do System 2 thinking. The Socratic method is about asking people the same questions they’d ask themselves if they cared enough about that topic, and had the reasoning skills to reach the truth.
Just noting a point of confusion—if changing minds is a social endeavor having to do with personal connection, why is it necessary to get people to engage System 2/Central Route thinking? Isn’t the main thing to get them involved in a social group where the desired beliefs are normal and let System 1/Peripheral Route thinking continue to do its work?
If I understand correctly I think it’s more that system 1/peripheral route thinking can get someone to affectively endorse an idea without forming a deeper understanding of it, whereas system 2/central route thinking can produce deeper understanding, but many (most?) people need to feel sufficiently psychologically and socially safe/among friends to engage in that kind of thinking.
I think you are absolutely correct that getting someone involved in a social group where everyone already has those ideas would be better at changing minds. But that’s way harder than getting someone to have a ten-minute conversation. In fact, it’s so hard that I don’t think it’s ever been studied experimentally. Hopefully I’m wrong and there are limited studies; but I’ve looked for them and not found them (~5 years ago).
I’d frame it this way: what you’re doing in that interview is supplying the motivation to do System 2 thinking. The Socratic method is about asking people the same questions they’d ask themselves if they cared enough about that topic, and had the reasoning skills to reach the truth.