If facts alone don’t do the job, what does make people change their minds?
Updated: Sep 29
🌷 “I wanted to show him the article on my phone, but he said it was definitely a lie.” (Rachel, Modi'in booth)
One of the first assumptions that go out the window when you start volunteering at a booth is the idea that “if they only knew what I know, they’d see that I’m right and agree with me.” In that sense, our experiences on the street confirm what researchers of the brain and society have already discovered: presenting countervailing facts, on its own, is not enough to change someone’s opinion, position, or perception.
So what do we do? How do we move forward?
This week, we’ll share stories that address the question: If facts alone don’t do the job, what does make people change their minds?
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Michal from the Natanya stand shared:
🌷 “An older, well-groomed woman took a flower, said she was in favor of talking, and left. A few minutes later, she came back and started a conversation.
She said, ‘Does it seem logical to you that in a country there is one authority that is elected every four years, and another authority whose members are appointed for life—and the people in that authority choose the new members?’
I said no, that it didn’t make sense, but if she was talking about Israel’s judiciary, it doesn’t choose itself. Rather, there is a committee that selects new judges.
‘And who is on the committee?’ she asked.
I answered, ‘Representatives from the government, the Knesset, the judiciary, and the legal profession.’
‘Interesting,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know that. But most of the judges are left-wing.’
‘That’s not true either,’ I said. ‘For example, there are more judges who live in the West Bank than there are people like that as a proportion of the population.’
‘That can’t be right,’ she said.
‘Let’s check,’ I suggested, and we opened the list of judges, but she said that there was no way to know.”
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This woman was not hostile toward Michal and was very happy to talk, yet she still found it difficult to believe information that contradicted what she regarded as “the truth.”
And yet, in that same conversation, with the same woman, a different approach did produce a different result:
🌷 “‘I want to tell you something you’re not going to like.’
‘Go ahead,’ I said. ‘I can take it.’
‘Kahane was right,’ she said quietly.
‘What do you think he was right about?’
‘That all the Arabs should be expelled from here. They hate us and want to kill us all.’
‘All Arabs?’ I asked. ‘Including the Arab doctor here at the HMO? And the pharmacist at the drugstore?’
‘No, they’re fine, but all the Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza.’
‘Are you sure you mean all of them? And besides, what would you do? How would you expel them?’
‘You’re probably in favor of two states,’ she said.
‘I don’t see another option,’ I replied. ‘Would you prefer one state for everyone? In other words, that Gaza become part of the State of Israel?’
‘No. Gaza should be their own state, but without an army, without an airport, and without the ability to harm us.’
‘And without Hamas rule,’ I added, and she agreed.
As for the West Bank, we agreed that we’d talk about that another time…”
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Michal’s conversation demonstrates one important way of overcoming the “facts barrier”: asking questions. When people are given the opportunity to work through a process of inquiry and reflection themselves, it greatly reduces their resistance to change, because people are much more likely to accept conclusions when they arrive at them on their own.
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Questions are an important tool, but they are not the only answer. Facts also play a significant role at the booth, but the question is: what are the conditions that make it possible to talk about them?
One very important factor is the source of the fact. In other words, when we tell the person we’re speaking with something based on our own personal experience, people will generally believe us that it is true.
Yonat, from the Beit Shemesh booth, shared a very common example:
🌷 “The man I was speaking with claimed that the protesters [against the judicial reform] were being paid, because no one would keep going out to protest for so long without being paid. I told him that I’ve been protesting every week for a year and a half, because I care so deeply. Because I worry and can’t sleep at night, because I feel that the government is leading us into an endless, unwinnable war and perhaps even toward a dictatorship. He softened considerably and said to me, ‘You really don’t need to be so worried. Good for you for caring so much about the country.’”
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Personal, face-to-face interaction has tremendous power. Even a single conversation is often enough to show the people we’re speaking with that we are sincere, and that we genuinely care about the well-being of the country. So when we share our personal experiences and feelings, they listen—and they believe us.
This direct trust that is created at the booth is a foundation that can be built upon over time. That’s why the second important factor is the length of the relationship.
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At our more established, long-running booths, people come back, again and again, in order to talk with us. And they do so because they want to hear facts and perspectives from us that to which they haven’t yet been exposed.
Yael, from the Ramat Gan booth, shared:
🌷 “At our booth, Eran is a celebrity. Everyone knows him and respects him.
A religious man came to speak with Eran, and while he was waiting for him, he also spoke with me—a conversation that lasted more than an hour. We began by sharing our sadness over the rift in Israeli society, and he declared that it was Netanyahu’s failure and that therefore Netanyahu should leave office, either after the war or when elections are held.
‘What kind of leader would you like?’ I asked.
‘A unifying leader who cares about all of us, who will form a government without the extremists.’
We agreed that the extremists on the right were [Ben Gvir's] "Otzma Yehudit". In his view, the extremist on the left is Yair Golan, because he speaks out against the settlers. When I clarified that Golan was speaking out against extremists who take the law into their own hands, he strongly condemned all the recent violent incidents, but objected to the judges and to the raid on the military base involving masked police officers.
I explained the rationale to him—that the purpose was to protect the military police officers from extremists—and he was shocked that people are so afraid of the right-wing extremists. I reflected back to him how frightening it can be when people, in the name of a religious or other ideology, see others as enemies who must be eliminated.
He connected this fear—which he considered unrealistic—to the women’s protests and the Handmaid’s Tale display. I told him how much women’s status had been harmed under this government because women had been excluded and removed from multiple positions of power. He had not been not aware of this.
We parted with him thanking me for the conversation because it had given him a new perspective that he had not been familiar with.”
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Changing our minds is not easy. People’s positions on the issues dividing Israeli society are wrapped up in a great deal of emotional and political baggage, as well as complex layers of identity and loyalty. Getting past these barriers requires care, patience, and persistence—but it's possible; it's necessary; and it's worth it.
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