It may seem paradoxical to write this in an opinion piece. But it needs saying: arguments alone have no meaningful effect on people’s beliefs. And the implicit societal acceptance that they do is getting in the way of other, more effective forms of political thinking and doing.
I’m a researcher who studies the intersection of psychology and politics, and my work has increasingly led me to believe that our culture’s understanding of how political persuasion works is wrong. In the age of Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the rise of the far right, commentators have endlessly opined on the problems of fake news, polarisation and more. But they’ve mostly been looking in the wrong places – and have focused too much on words.
Take “debates”. They’re a central part of most election campaigns around the world, seen as so influential that they’re often governed by strict rules around media coverage and balance. Yet evidence suggests that watching debates has no impact on opinions whatsoever. In 2019 researchers analysed 56 TV debates in 22 elections in the US, Canada, New Zealand and Europe from 1952 to 2016. The study tracked nearly 100,000 respondents to see whether debates helped undecided or decided voters to make up or change their minds. They found no evidence that they did. In 2012, a reporter ran another analysis about whether debates influenced election outcomes. As he put it: “The effects of debates on eventual votes are likely mild, and, in most cases, effectively nil.”
There are lots of reasons why debate (and indeed, information-giving and argumentation in general) tends to be ineffective at changing people’s political beliefs. Cognitive dissonance, a phenomenon I studied as part of my PhD research, is one. This is the often unconscious psychological discomfort we feel when faced with contradictions in our own beliefs or actions, and it has been well documented. We can see cognitive dissonance and its effects at work when people rapidly “reason” in ways that are really attempts to mitigate their discomfort with new information about strongly held beliefs. For example, before Trump was convicted of various charges in 2024, only 17% of Republican voters believed felons should be able to be president; directly after his conviction, that number rose to 58%. To reconcile two contradictory beliefs (that presidents shouldn’t do x, and that Trump should be president), an enormous number of Republican voters simply changed their mind about the former. In fact, Republican voters shifted their views on more or less all the things Trump had been convicted of: fewer felt it was immoral to have sex with a porn star, pay someone to stay silent about an affair, or falsify a business record. Nor is this effect limited to Trump voters: research suggests we all rationalise in this way, in order to hold on to the beliefs that let us keep operating as we have been. Or, ironically, to change some of our beliefs in response to new information, but often only in order to not have to sacrifice other strongly held beliefs.
But it’s not just psychological phenomena like cognitive dissonance that make debates and arguments relatively ineffective. As I lay out in my book, probably the most important reason words don’t change minds is that two other factors carry far more influence: our social relationships; and our own actions and experiences.
A sea of evidence demonstrates that our friends have the power to change our beliefs and behaviour – not by arguing with us, but simply by being around us or showing us new ways of living. Studies on social contact theory show that when people are set up in conditions to become friends and collaborate, they become less prejudiced against the identity groups their new friends belong to. This phenomenon probably explains many of the advances in gay rights over the past few decades: as people came out, their friends changed their views on homosexuality, resulting in one of the fastest ever recorded shifts in public opinion. Similarly, research shows people are most likely to engage in climate-friendly action (such as installing a heat pump), if their friends do – far more likely than if they are given cash rewards or other kinds of incentives. Our friends broaden our field of concern; they get us involved in the world, and they build the trust that human beings appear to require to open up to new ideas. Their indirect influence achieves more than arguments, especially from strangers, ever could. In other words: when it comes to persuasion, it’s not the conversation, it’s the relationship.
Our actions and experiences also have a profound effect, albeit often in counterintuitive ways. For example, research shows that in otherwise similar conditions, women turned away from having an abortion become somewhat less in favour of abortion rights, while women granted an abortion become somewhat more in favour. We might expect those denied would become more passionate about access, but apparently not – probably because, in part due to cognitive dissonance, people tend to bring their beliefs towards their actions, even if those actions are compelled. The influence of actions and experiences on belief systems is also evident when it comes to climate crisis: those who experience intense climate-related weather events are more likely to believe in climate change and in addressing it.
Compared with these influences, arguments alone have comparatively little power. Yet our institutions are still shaped as though words were enough. We’re infrastructurally, collectively trapped in the liberal belief that politics is mostly about talking, then sporadically voting. What’s needed by anyone hoping to promote progressive ideas is not arguments, but an infrastructure that fosters new relationships and experiences. This could look like anything from a waiting area for parents to mingle before school lets out, to a workplace union, to a public park. These forms of infrastructure allow people to relate and act in new ways, building friendships and trust, and encouraging the actions that ultimately allow people to change their political views.
All this suggests we also need to think differently about what it means to be a good political thinker. Thinking well about politics isn’t about “independent” thinking in the sense of thinking on your own. Instead, to think well is to choose our friends wisely, in terms of both diversity and thoughtfulness, so we can learn from and with them. To think well about politics also means to be active in the world – trying new ways of living, having a wide variety of experiences. Unfortunately, in large part due to income inequality, this is harder than it used to be. Sociological research shows that people in countries such as the US and the UK are more isolated and less mobile than ever before. The social fabric we necessarily rely on to unravel our prejudices is shrivelling. That’s part of why the far right is winning: it’s good at mobilising people’s relationships and actions in this shrivelled world, all while capitalising on people’s worsening material circumstances. To fix this, progressives need to take back wealth and power, so that everyone is supported in expanding their lives.
Not that I can persuade you just by saying it, of course. Instead, I challenge you to discover this in a more meaningful way: make a connection with someone different, perhaps someone deeply affected by a political issue. Or try a new way of living, something small to start with. See if it doesn’t change your political views, at least a little. Or perhaps it will transform your understanding of politics itself.
