Modifying beliefs
I assert:
- Even if it’s hard to completely change somebody’s beliefs …
- … it is often easier to modify them in some way …
- … especially by weakening or strengthening those convictions.
Indeed, there are at least two major ways to change the strength of people’s ongoing beliefs, namely by influencing:
- How sure people are that their belief is accurate — i.e., the confidence they hold in it.
- How sure they are that, even if accurate, their belief should contribute much to their decision making — i.e., the importance they ascribe to it.
I think this framework has considerable explanatory power.
1. Changing somebody’s mind is particularly hard in our current hyper-partisan, truth-challenged political environment. Yet political swings are common. How can that be?
The standard answer starts with voter turnout:
- Voters’ preferences remain the same …
- … but they’ve lost confidence that their preferred candidates or parties will accomplish anything …
- … so they don’t find it important to bother to vote.
2. The strength/confidence/importance framework also fits with the current political reaction against “out-of-touch elites”, who supposedly:
- Aren’t talking about what’s important to voters.
- Inspire no confidence that they’ll deliver on any of their promises.
3. In the recent US presidential election and its aftermath, many phenomena fit the template:
- People generally believe whatever their first impression was.
- People with similar beliefs can reach opposite conclusions because they differ as to which believed “facts” are important.
For example:
- Many people correctly perceived Trump as a lout and a lunatic. But they were all over the map in their estimation of how important those negative traits are.
- Many people initially perceived Trump as a skilled businessman.
- Vast contrary evidence then emerged, but for most people that didn’t seem to undermine that initial impression of him.
- But all along, people did hold widely divergent views as to whether Trump’s business skills would help make him an effective president.
4. Fear-based messaging is widely used, in politics and technology alike. It fits both parts of our template.
- Often, the essence of fear-based messaging is to persuade targets that particular risks — Muslim terrorists, Mexican rapists, database crashes, etc. — are important enough to act against.
- Sometimes, fear-based messaging takes the form of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt), wherein you undermine your audience’s confidence that a competitive alternative can do the job.
5. The confidence knife can cut both ways. Fear-based messaging can sometimes be sabotaged by a confidence-reducing counterattack. The tobacco industry worked hard to cast doubt on scientifically proven tobacco risks; the same techniques are now used to blunt fears of global climate change.
6. Our emphasis on importance and confidence also fits well with common-sense market segmentation.
- You want to pitch to people who will find your story important.
- You want to pitch to people who will easily believe you.
7. This template can also help get past a common error.
- Some marketing theorists focus on getting your targets to adopt a particular conceptual frame.
- But that can’t be exactly right — for any given subject, people actually tend to have similar conceptual frames.
- Rather, what happens is that people vary greatly as to which parts of the frame they deem important.
8. So how can one use the strength/confidence/importance template to help one’s messaging? For starters, I spend a lot of effort on helping my clients be more credible. For if you’re not credible, how confident will the targets ever be in your story?
Further, let’s note that many messaging choices relate to a key tradeoff:
- Bold claims make your message sound more important.
- Modest claims are usually more credible.
This is particularly true when you’re trying to market enterprise technology.
A checklist for thinking through that dilemma starts:
- If you’re so modest that you don’t sound like you believe your own story, you lose on credibility and importance alike.
- You always need an answer to “Why should I care?” Ideally, your claims are sufficiently bold that the question answers itself.
- Whiffing on credibility costs you support from some influencers, or even turns them against you. Some influencers may be too important for you to let that happen.
Related links
- In a companion post, I listed three other categories of persuasion.
- I’ve previously discussed how to be compelling and credible at once.
- We’re all evidently members of the “out-of-touch elites”.
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[…] These are addressed in a companion post. […]
[…] 5. Given all the tech-specific public policy work that’s needed, I’m pulling back from some my broader political efforts. However, I stand by my overview opinions of last February, and I delivered on some of its IOUs in a two-part series on persuasion. […]
[…] That part of the framework was spelled out in an earlier post on modifying beliefs. […]
[…] As in so much else, debates about “caring” often hinge on credibility/confidence and/or importance. […]
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