George Bernard Shaw, a famous Irish playwright and critic, stated that, “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” Studies have shown that students who reconsider answers on tests can result in increased scores. However, as Adam Grant points out in his book, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know, we all possess cognitive tools and accumulated knowledge that we regularly rely upon but rarely question. This can lead to mental blind spots, cognitive bias, and thinking errors. Blind adherence to these tools and knowledge can result in poor outcomes. The cycle that Grant describes is forming an opinion, feeling right, seeking information to support that opinion, dismissing information that doesn’t support our opinion, feeling validated, and continuing this overconfidence cycle. He cites the work of political scientist Phil Tetlock on predicting and describes three mindsets that we routinely fall into once we have formed an opinion: preacher, prosecutor, or politician. You can imagine why all of these modes are suboptimal for being open to changing your mind.
When Daniel Kahneman, an Israeli psychologist and winner of the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, was asked how he reacted to finding flaws in his research, he responded that no one enjoys being wrong but that he did enjoy having been wrong, because it meant that he was now less wrong. Kahneman is also famous for his best-selling book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, in which he outlines his research on two systems of forming thoughts - System 1 for fast, automatic, unconscious thoughts and System 2 for slow, logical, calculating thoughts.
As an extreme example of insisting that you are correct despite all evidence to the contrary, Grant describes Anton syndrome, an extremely rare neurological disorder where people who have become blind adamantly state that they can still see. When hearing about something this extreme, we all assure ourselves that we are much more open to changing our minds. However this inability to take in information that is sometimes right in front of us, happens to all of us in everyday situations. A humorous example, Grant asks the question, how do you spell the name of the sugary, fruit-flavored Kellogg’s breakfast cereal with the mascot Toucan Sam on the cover? Here is the answer.
To be at the top of our game, we need to be willing to be wrong and change our minds. This of course goes against our natural instincts, using Kahneman’s model we prefer System 1 because it is faster and requires much less cognitive power, or Grant’s overconfidence cycle where dismissing contrary evidence reinforces our positive feeling of being correct. All of this requires effort and is uncomfortable but the reward is that we continually get better and get to be less wrong.