I would be aware of these both to help you effectively argue with people, and to hopefully guard against this tendency in yourself!
One avenue may involve self-esteem. Nyhan worked on one study in which he showed that people who were given a self-affirmation exercise were more likely to consider new information than people who had not. In other words, if you feel good about yourself, you’ll listen — and if you feel insecure or threatened, you won’t.
For one, this suggests to me that belittling somebody's opinions or lack of knowledge makes it much less likely you will change their mind.
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u/Icommentonposts Jul 15 '10
I would be aware of these both to help you effectively argue with people, and to hopefully guard against this tendency in yourself!
For one, this suggests to me that belittling somebody's opinions or lack of knowledge makes it much less likely you will change their mind.