From “How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion” by David McRaney
Steve explained that after thousands of recorded conversations they had found that battling over differing interpretations of the evidence kept the people they met from exploring why they felt so strongly one way or the other. People could remain in the logic space doing battle with the canvasser’s facts for hours and never leave, safe and unable to tap into why those facts evoked such powerful feelings. The LAB tried arguing the facts for years, and it had long proved a waste of time.
“Doing this work has taught me that people make their decisions about issues like this, in their life and when they’re voting, at a really emotional, visceral level,” said Steve. “What I envision when I’m standing in front of a voter is that people have this intellectual, logical reasoning process. That’s one part of how they process the world and make decisions. But they have this almost entirely separate emotional reasoning process which is based on feelings and things they’ve experienced.”