Duration: 3 or 6 hours

People hate to change their minds. And, often, this is very counterproductive for our businesses, our careers, and our personal lives. First, as the brain has naturally evolved to minimize effort, there are hard-wired mechanisms that keep us from reconsidering our beliefs. Second, as humans are social creatures, there are strong social mechanisms that harden our views. This module goes through several such mechanisms that force us or the other to cling to our opinions: groupthink, backfire effect, the Dunning Kruger effect, confirmation bias, etc. The immediate, espoused purpose of this module is to make us understand the psychological mechanisms that prevent the other to be flexible. The more subtle, and more important purpose is to make ourselves better people by identifying and questioning our own hardened beliefs.

Methods. Exercises, discussions, personal examples, guided self-questioning and self-scrutiny.

Outcome. Participants will be better equipped to understand why some people seem to fall in love with their opinion and how to deal with that. More importantly, participants will see how psychological blocking mechanisms work on their own minds and will learn how to unlock their flexibility and openness.

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