Why It’s So Difficult to Change People’s Minds

AT THE END OF TODAY, four million blogs will have been posted, 80 million Instagram photos uploaded, and 600 million Tweets released into cyberspace. That’s more than 7,000 tweets per second. Why do we spend so many precious moments every day sharing information?

There are probably many reasons, but it appears that the opportunity to impart our knowledge to others is internally rewarding. A study conducted at Harvard showed that when people have an opportunity to share their pearls of wisdom with others, the reward centre in the brain is very strongly activated. Put simply, we feel a burst of pleasure when we share our thoughts, and that drives us to communicate. It’s a nifty feature of our brains because it ensures that ideas are not buried with the person who first had them; and as a society, we can benefit from having access to the minds of many. But for that to happen, sharing is not enough. We need to cause a reaction in others. What determines whether you affect the way people behave and think — or