Insights into One of the Greatest Mysteries of Human Behavior

Minds are exceedingly hard to change. Ask any advertiser who has tried to convince consumers to switch brands, any CEO who has tried to change a company's culture, or any individual who has tried to heal a rift with a friend. So many aspects of life are oriented toward changing minds-yet this phenomenon is among the least understood of familiar human experiences.

Now, eminent Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner, whose work has revolutionized our beliefs about intelligence, creativity, and leadership, offers an original framework for understanding exactly what happens during the course of changing a mind-and how to influence that process.

Drawing on decades of cognitive research and compelling case studies-from famous business and political leaders to renowned intellectuals and artists to ordinary individuals-Gardner identifies seven powerful factors that impel or thwart significant shifts from one way of thinking to a dramatically new one.

Whether we are attempting to change the mind of a nation or a corporation, our spouse's mind or our own, this book provides insights that can broaden our horizons and improve our lives.

What Does It Take to Change a Mind?

Think about the last time you tried to change someone's mind about something important: a voter's political beliefs; a customer's favorite brand; a spouse's decorating taste; a teenager's attitude toward schoolwork. Chances are you weren't successful in shifting that person's beliefs in a significant way. For an endeavor so commonly mentioned and frequently attempted, why is the phenomenon of changing minds so mysterious? How do people become set on a certain way of thinking? And what, exactly, does it take to change that perspective?

In this groundbreaking book, world-renowned Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner offers surprising insights on this fascinating puzzle-insights that could change the way we interact with others at work, at home, and in every aspect of our lives. Gardner, whose work over the last thirty years has revolutionized our thinking about intelligence, creativity, and leadership, now suggests that traditional thinking about mind change as a sudden "epiphany" is entirely wrong. Instead, Gardner shows, we change our minds gradually, in identifiable ways that can be actively and powerfully influenced.

Drawing on decades of cognitive research, Gardner identifies seven levers that aid or thwart the process of mind change, including reason, research, real-world events, and resistances. Changing Minds provides an original framework-illustrated with famous and ordinary examples of "change agents" in politics, business, science, the arts, and everyday life-that shows how individuals can align these levers to bring about significant changes in perspective and behavior. From Margaret Thatcher's reorientation of Great Britain to Sir John Browne's transformation of BP to Charles Darwin's evolutionary revolution to interactions between spouses or friends to decisions to change one's own mind, Gardner uncovers surprising similarities and instructive differences among the factors that affect mind change in a variety of settings.

Demystifying a phenomenon that permeates human behavior, Changing Minds provides insights that can broaden our horizons and improve our lives.



About the Author

Howard Gardner is the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Senior Director of Harvard Project Zero. The recipient of a MacArthur Prize Fellowship and twenty honorary degrees, he is the author of more than twenty books.