An interactive learning module to challenge your core beliefs
My Roles: Research and design, including: ideation, expert collaboration, content creation and implementation, iterating on designs
Introduction
I was awarded a grant in May 2020 to design and create a learning module called Question Your Identity for ClearerThinking.org. The module demonstrates how your mind tries to reject new ideas that threaten your sense of self, and how to think rationally in spite of those tendencies.
Background: The idea for this module came during the months leading up to the contentious and emotionally fraught 2020 presidential election. In that political climate, it was extremely rare for people who engaged in political discussions to ever change their minds, even though they hoped to change the mind of the person they were talking to. The far more likely outcome was for both people to simply get angry, and to think less of the person they had engaged with.
My goal for this module was to show how everyone, including (and especially) ourselves, act irrationally during conversations where we feel that beliefs central to our identities are being attacked, and to give the user tools to have more productive conversations.
I accomplished this goal this by showing the user how to:
Recognize which of their beliefs form part of their identity.
Learn strategies to think clearly when presented with new information that contradicts core beliefs.
Learn strategies to help them when discussing ideas that run contrary to someone else’s identity.
In these situations, we are unlikely to change our minds for a number of powerful reasons. When we understand those reasons, we can begin to understand both our own reactions and the reactions of others during uncomfortable conversations, and hopefully practice listening without feeling threatened.
Process
The user needed to have an emotional response to the module in order to better understand the role that emotion plays in how people respond to charged political conversations. For this reason, the module centers around a political belief chosen by the user as important to them. I provided several choices: abortion, gun control, or legal vaccination requirements, and then came up with a number of scenarios where those beliefs would be challenged.
After each scenario is presented, the user must choose how they would react. Immediately afterward, the module gives a likely reason that the user reacted the way they did, and suggests (or affirms, depending how the user chose), a productive way to respond in the situation. A sample question is listed below:
What I learned
This module went through several rounds of revisions, and each time I improved the feedback the user received from their responses. Giving specific and relevant feedback is important to building the foundation of ideas presented in this module. For example, in a two question sequence, the user reports how much time they would spend reading and evaluating and article they agree with, versus one they disagree with. The user receives feedback on every permutation of answers, which is important to addressing how they deal with the situation, and how they might deal with it in the future.
I learned that one of the best antidotes to irrational thinking around emotionally-charged topics is self-affirmation, which is a method for preventing the instinctive tendency to deny or distort reality when we perceive that our core beliefs are being challenged. To do, you simply think about an important aspect of your personality or identity that has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
Changing a belief central to our identity doesn’t feel good. Even if we know we’re wrong, we’re biologically programmed to protect who we think we are. When our political views are at the core of who we are, we protect those views ferociously, and sometimes, irrationally.