You vs. the Curse of Knowledge: How to come out on top

In our last post, we discussed why opinions are usually ineffective at persuading other people to agree with you. Your opinions are end-points of a process, conclusions you’ve come to as a result of all the experiences you’ve had and knowledge you’ve accumulated over time — sometimes over the course of many years. Building on the idea of the Curse of Knowledge, we likened this to a tune playing in your head that other people cannot hear.

What’s the solution?

Here’s one simple answer: make your tune audible. In SAVI terms, this means a switch from orienting (trying to influence the direction of conversation with opinions) to sharing concrete data (giving facts about the world or facts about you, which may include your feelings). Unlike an opinion, a fact is either true or false. Compare “Dante is a much better restaurant than Sorellina” (opinion) to “Dante received a higher Zagat rating than Sorellina” (fact), “I have never been disappointed with a meal at Dante” (personal fact), or “I didn’t feel comfortable at Sorellina, and got really irritated at waiting 45 minutes for a table after we had made a reservation” (feeling).

This is definitely a step in the right direction, and in some cases giving more data may be all you need to do to make your arguments more persuasive. However, there is one complication: even when your tune is audible, that doesn’t mean the other person is listening.

The simple give-more-data strategy can work well when your listener is open and available to hear what you’re saying. In a sense, their mind is quiet and just waiting to be filled by your tune. But when there’s already another, different song playing in the person’s head, that’s a whole other story.

Say you’re sharing your facts with someone who has very strong views on the subject you’re discussing, and those views are directly opposed to your own. At best, the person will be a little distracted, as they attempt to figure out how your information fits in with what they already know and believe. It’s like hearing two clashing sets of notes at the same time. And at worst, your message won’t get through at all. Your listener will just keep hearing their own song, with yours as a mildly irritating hum in the background.

Think about what it’s like when someone expresses an opinion you strongly disagree with, and then continues talking. Does your mind remain fully open and available to hear what comes next? If so, that’s admirable — and highly unusual. For most of us, there’s a tendency to get absorbed in our own thoughts and feelings about the subject. The tune that plays for us may include thoughts like “I’ve heard all this before,” “Yes, but there’s an obvious counterargument,” or “That’s just not true.” If the issue stirs very strong emotions in us, our inner dialogue might sound more like, “How could you believe such a thing?!” “That’s so offensive!” or “I can’t believe I’m listening to this jerk!”

Has this happened to you before? Or, maybe you’ve been on the other end — you lay out what you think is a brilliant argument and then get met by an objection that seems totally out of place or beside the point. Think back to any time you’ve wanted to ask, “Were you even listening to a word I said?” In truth, the person probably wasn’t. And can we really blame them? It’s very challenging for any of us to take in new information that doesn’t fit in easily with what we already believe.

So what’s the alternative? Before you play too much of your own tune, get the other person’s tune to quiet down.

Again, consider the types of thoughts that go through our heads when we’re listening to a point of view we disagree with. Many of these are arguments we want to interject into the conversation. We’re essentially rehearsing them so that as soon as the other person stops talking, we can put in our own ideas. When you’re the one trying to get your message across, the challenge is to minimize this phenomenon in your listener. One effective way to do that is to show that you understand their point of view. That way, there’s no need for them to keep explaining it to you (and to keep rehearsing it in their mind as you’re talking).

Now, for the bad news — the only way to demonstrate that you understand someone else’s perspective is to actually understand that person’s perspective. This takes a bit of work. (Simply saying “I know where you’re coming from” or “I see your point” doesn’t cut it.) To find out what’s going on in your listener’s head, you need to ask them about it. Use broad (open-ended) questions to learn what facts and personal experiences have shaped their own opinion. Then, paraphrase to show that you’ve heard what they said. You don’t need to repeat the exact phrasing they used, and you don’t need to capture every single idea; just reflect back enough to show that you got it. The one essential component is genuine interest. If you ask good questions but have no real interest in the answers you get, you’re likely to come across as insincere or manipulative.

This approach — starting off with questions and paraphrases — also gives you another great advantage. Not only can it help put a listener in a more open frame of mind; it can help you shape a more effective message. Knowing more about the data the other person already has, and where their primary concerns and interests lie, can only be helpful to you. Instead of emphasizing the aspects of your data that are most compelling to you, you can focus on those that are most compatible with the way your listener tends to think and the foundation of knowledge and beliefs they already have. (For instance, are they looking at the question at hand as a moral issue or a practical one? Are they more easily persuaded by personal anecdotes or by research studies? What aspects of the problem have they examined thoroughly, and which ones haven’t they considered?) To return once more to the tune metaphor, you can refine the combination of notes you play so it’s more in harmony with the tune that is already playing.

Of course, communicating in this way is no guarantee that the person you’re talking with will wind up agreeing with you. However, it is likely to help both them and you to shift from a competitive mindset to one that is much more focused on problem-solving. If you do disagree, you can at least get a better sense of how and why you have reached differing conclusions. In the process, you will each learn something from each other — and you may be surprised by the similarities and shared values you manage to discover.