Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know

This chapter begins with the story of Daryl Davis, a Black musician. In 1983, after a show in Maryland, he was approached by an astonished, impressed white man who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Rather than reacting with anger or leaving the conversation, Davis asked the man “How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?” (122). After their conversation, the man brought his friends to Davis’s next gig. They eventually became friends, and the man left the KKK. Over time, Davis met with many other high-ranking members of the KKK and convinced many of them to leave the organization, as well.

Grant wants to understand “how to break overconfidence cycles that are steeped in stereotypes and prejudice” (122). His own interest developed after attending a Boston Red Sox baseball game one summer, where he was baffled by the crowd’s impromptu “Yankees suck!” chant given that the Red Sox weren’t even playing the New York Yankees. Grant wondered, at that point, if Red Sox fans hated the Yankees more than they liked the Red Sox.

Grant notes that rivalries can run very deep. In order to find out what would get fans to rethink their beliefs about rivals, he ran a series of experiments with Yankees and Red Sox fans. First, he asked them to list three negative things about their rivals, for which both groups mostly listed the same things about each other. He then tried to get them to realize they share a common identity. This wasn’t effective. Next, he had Red Sox fans read a sympathetic story about a Yankees fan involving childhood memories of baseball. Although the Red Sox fans were able to sympathize with the individual, they were still unwilling to change their ideas about Yankees fans.

Finally, they ran an experiment with both groups in which half the participants were asked to reflect on the arbitrariness of their beliefs about the other group. In this experiment, the participants who had taken the time to reflect on the arbitrary nature of the rivalry were more likely to consider how they felt about the other group as a whole. “Knowing what it felt like to be disliked for ridiculous reasons,” Grant writes, “helped them see that this conflict had real implications” (135).

Grant notes that reflecting on arbitrariness typically isn’t sufficient on its own. Instead, research shows that people often need to engage in counterfactual thinking to overcome their stereotypes. Doing so invites them “to explore the origins of their own beliefs” (136). Psychologists have found that our beliefs are often “cultural truisms: widely shared, but rarely questioned” (138). As a result, along with counterfactual thinking, sometimes the most effective way for people to move past their stereotypes is to get them to talk to members of the other group.

Grant returns to Daryl Davis and his conversations with KKK leaders in order to show that for many, some combination of counterfactual thinking, recognition of arbitrariness, and simply speaking with a Black man helped them to overcome their prejudices. Grant is careful to note, though, that in general, “it is those with greater power who need to do more of the rethinking,” even if there are some marginalized people, like Davis, who are willing to put in the time and effort (139).

Grant begins this chapter with the story of Marie-Hélène Étienne-Rousseau of Quebec. Étienne-Rousseau’s community was largely opposed to vaccinations: “Her friends and neighbors took it for granted that vaccines were dangerous and passed around horror stories about their side effects” (143). Due to a rise in anti-vaccine sentiment, diseases such as measles are on the rise for the first time in half a century. Governments around the world, Grant notes, have tried to prosecute and preach to solve the problem, but these efforts have backfired; rather than being swayed, people tend to dig further in.

In 2018, Étienne-Rousseau’s fourth child, Tobie, was born several months premature; he was held in the hospital for five months, and in that time, Quebec experienced its second measles outbreak in a decade. Doctors and nurses had tried to get Étienne-Rousseau to vaccinate her other children, but she always refused, feeling attacked. This time, knowing that Tobie was especially vulnerable, they called in a doctor with a particular knack for convincing hesitant parents to vaccinate their children.

In the 1980s, clinical psychologist Bill Miller published research arguing that people with substance-abuse problems were not aware of their problems but resisted help because they felt prosecuted. Miller argued for an emphasis on listening to patients. A few years later, he and Stephen Rollnick developed a new approach called motivational interviewing, which focuses on helping clients find their own motivation to change rather than trying to force them to change.

It was this approach that the “vaccine whisperer,” Arnaud Gagneur, took with Étienne-Rousseau. Rather than overwhelming her with evidence about the efficacy of vaccines, he spent more than an hour asking her open-ended questions and listening to her concerns. Before he left, he told her that he trusted her and respected her decision. In the end, Étienne-Rousseau had Tobie vaccinated, had her older children vaccinated, and asked Gagneur if he would speak to other members of her community to convince them to vaccinate their children, as well.

According to Grant, the literature on motivational interviewing is robust and highly successful, and applicable not just to big issues but also everyday problems. “When people ignore advice,” he explains, “it isn’t always because they disagree with it. Sometimes they’re resisting the sense of pressure and the feeling that someone else is controlling their decision” (150). Motivational interviewing eliminates that pressure, instead guiding the interviewee to their own conclusions.

Grant notes that it isn’t enough to simply talk through the change. A key step for successful interviews is to summarize the reasons for change, consider how to best execute those changes, and plan next steps.

In order for motivational interviewing to work, the two parties must have some common ground or aligned goals. If the two parties’ goals are not aligned, however, Grant suggests focusing instead on influential listening. As an example, Grant tells the story of Betty Bigombe, who met with the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony in the early 1990s. While traveling, instead of trying to prosecute or preach to Ugandan villagers, she spent hours simply sitting and listening to them and their concerns. Eventually, they came to call her “Megu” (literally, “mother”), a term of endearment for elders . She was able to meet with high-ranking members of Kony’s army. Listening, Grant writes, is “a display of respect and an expression of care” (159).