Think Again

Harish: High-quality preschools will reduce crime. Maybe, but so
would other measures in terms of crime prevention.
Debra: High-quality preschool boosts high school graduation
rates.
Harish: High-quality preschools can lead to huge improvements
in individuals’ lives. Maybe, but I’m not sure if you massively

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increase the number of people going to preschool, they’re all
gonna be the ones going to the high-quality preschools.
Uh-oh. Harish is right: there’s a risk that children from the poorest families
will end up in the worst preschools. I’m starting to rethink my position.
Harish: Even when you subsidize preschools, it doesn’t mean that
all individuals go. . . . The question is, who do you help? And the
people you don’t help are those individuals who are the poorest.
You give unfair and exaggerated gains to those individuals who
are in the middle class.
Point taken. Since preschool won’t be free, the underprivileged still might
not be able to afford it. Now I’m torn about where I stand.
You’ve seen arguments from both sides. Before I tell you who won,
consider your own position: what was your opinion of preschool subsidies
going into the debate, and how many times did you end up rethinking that
opinion?
If you’re like me, you reconsidered your views multiple times.
Changing your mind doesn’t make you a flip-flopper or a hypocrite. It
means you were open to learning.
Looking back, I’m disappointed in myself for forming an opinion
before the debate even started. Sure, I’d read some research on early child
development, but I was clueless about the economics of subsidies and the
alternative ways those funds could be invested. Note to self: on my next trip
to the top of Mount Stupid, remember to take a selfie.
In the audience poll after the debate, the number of undecided people
was the same, but the balance of opinion shifted away from Debra’s
position, toward Harish’s. Support for preschool subsidies dropped from 79
to 62 percent, and opposition more than doubled from 13 to 30 percent.
Debra not only had more data, better evidence, and more evocative imagery
—she had the audience on her side going into the debate. Yet Harish
convinced a number of us to rethink our positions. How did he do it, and
what can we learn from him about the art of debate?
This section of the book is about convincing other people to rethink
their opinions. When we’re trying to persuade people, we frequently take an

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adversarial approach. Instead of opening their minds, we effectively shut
them down or rile them up. They play defense by putting up a shield, play
offense by preaching their perspectives and prosecuting ours, or play
politics by telling us what we want to hear without changing what they
actually think. I want to explore a more collaborative approach—one in
which we show more humility and curiosity, and invite others to think more
like scientists.