Introduction: The Importance of Mindsets More Than We Know
Our mindsets affect almost every aspect of our lives, from how we learn and relate to others to how we live — and the research behind it is staggering. Students in tenth grade with a growth mindset, or a belief that intelligence can be developed, were three times more likely than other tenth graders to get a top fifth score on a national achievement test. Similarly, when teachers took on an empathic mindset about discipline—that teachers should try to understand the perspective of a misbehaving student—teachers suspended 50% fewer students. They are not small distinctions. The fundamental change in results brought about by a change in thought.
Mindsets also influence whether we seek out and persist through challenges, whether we think people should be given chances to learn, whether we become depressed, and even whether we behave in prejudiced ways. Simply put, mindsets matter. But just knowing that mindsets matter isn’t enough. The harder question is how do you change them actually?
The Challenge: Why Intuition Often Fails
People are often wrong about changing mindsets. Many well-intentioned efforts to change mindsets fail or backfire because they ignore the psychology of persuasion. Two common errors are apparent. Persuaders sometimes treat mindsets as if they are facts to memorize rather than habits of mind to internalize. Or they forget that many mindsets are personal, emotional. Changing them takes special sensitivity to the point of view of the person whose mindset you are trying to change.
So effective mindset change is less about knowing the right information and more about knowing the right psychological principles. Here are five of the best ways, according to social psychology research.
Strategy 1: Social Modeling – Be a Positive Example of the Change You Want
If you want someone to change, to adopt a new mindset or behavior, offer positive social models for the change you want to see. For example, if you want a teacher to put more effort into developing strong relationships with students, give them the opportunity to hear from teachers who invested more in developing strong relationships and had positive experiences as a result. That will help them to imagine what change could look like for them, and why it might be attractive.
Social modeling works because people are built to learn from each other. When we see someone ‘like us’ succeed in making a transformation it makes the path seem real, doable and worth it. It changes the question from ‘Is this possible?’ to ‘Could this be possible for me?’.
Strategy 2: Social Norms – The Bandwagon Effect
To convince people to do something new, make them think that most “people like you” are already doing it — or that there is a growing trend of people doing it. For example, Schultz and colleagues reduced electricity use by providing people with information about how much electricity others in their own community use, on average, less than they do.
Social modeling offers a story of the transformational process while social norms concentrate on the number of people already enacting a desired behavior, or subscribing to the desired mindset. The crucial difference is that norms are about how much and how often change occurs, creating a social safety — even an expectation — that a new way of thinking will be adopted. Humans are social creatures and belonging is important . When a new way of thinking feels like the default , resistance naturally falls .
Strategy 3: Message Credibility – Use a Trusted Messenger
People are inclined to be persuaded by the messenger whose opinion appears credible on the issue at hand. Credibility, importantly, is not necessarily about credentials or prestige. For example, a student may consider a peer to be a more credible source of information than a teacher on what is “cool.”
This is a seriously under-recognized point. Someone in a lab coat may not be as persuasive as a fellow who has been through it. When you are trying to change someone’s mindset ask yourself, who does this person really trust? Who would they hear? No matter how compelling the content, getting the right message through the wrong messenger can fall on deaf ears altogether.
Strategy 4: Honor Autonomy — Feeling Patronized Brings Resistance, Not Persuasion
People don’t want to be told what to think, especially when it’s “for their own good.” If they feel that you’re trying to manipulate them, they’re more likely to get defensive and resist your attempts at persuasion — a phenomenon known as reactance. Don’t talk down to people or tell them they’re “thinking about it the wrong way” if you want to avoid reactance. Instead, create situations where a person will find the new mindset themselves.
This approach is perhaps the most counter-intuitive of all. The more we push, the more people pull away. The answer is to create experiences that allow insight to emerge naturally, through reflection, conversation or discovery, rather than imposing it from the outside. If people feel that they’ve arrived at a new mindset by themselves, they are much more likely to stick with it.
Strategy 5: Avoid Blame and Focus on Growth
People like to see themselves (and those they love) in a positive light, and they push back against persuasion that makes them look bad. How do you solve this problem and still create change? Find a way to forgive the person’s past behavior and increase the pressure to change future behavior. That is try to help them “save face” for past transgressions but not future ones.
This is well illustrated in the article with a great example about parents and corporal punishment. Instead of shaming parents for past behavior, the message is framed as something that was once widely accepted but now is understood differently in light of new research. This approach honors the historical context, adds new information about long-term effects and positions change as a natural, informed evolution — not an admission of wrongdoing. The strategy makes it psychologically safe to change by separating past behavior from future expectations.
Conclusion: Empathy Is the Foundation
Changing mindsets is not easy, but social psychology has a number of effective strategies. Most importantly, try to understand the mind set of the person you are trying to change. Why are they holding a counterproductive mindset right now? If you yourself had that counterproductive mindset, ask yourself what might change your mind and the answer is probably neither nagging nor sanctimony.
Each of the five strategies we have discussed—social modeling, social norms, credible messengers, autonomy preservation, and blame-free framing—has a common element. They all focus on the experience, dignity, and perspective of the person you are trying to persuade. Changing the mindset is not a lecture. It is an invitation, graciously extended, from one who really knows where the other is coming from.
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