Mindset Makeover: The Science of Changing Minds

Amy Brann  00:00

Have you ever wondered what really makes people change their minds, or what it can take to shift our own beliefs, whether it’s rethinking personal values, tackling entrenched views, or breaking free from unhelpful patterns, our beliefs hold so much more power over us than we might realize. Today, we are taking a deep dive into the science and psychology of belief change. We’re going to explore some of the surprising findings, like how the placebo effect demonstrates the power of expectation, or why some people might feel better taking a placebo even when they know it is a placebo, and we’re going to tackle some of the tough questions. So are certain beliefs harder to change than others can listening and empathy really make a difference in shifting perspectives, and how can we actively reshape beliefs that are holding us back? So backed by research on the impact of beliefs on everything from mental health to physical performance, and with tools like motivational interviewing and storytelling, we’re going to unlock some of what it takes to influence beliefs, both in ourselves and with others. So let’s get ready for a journey into the hidden mechanics of our minds and the insights to adopt healthier, more empowering beliefs, because changing our minds might just be the key to unlocking our potential.

 

Dr. Jessie Gulsin  01:13

Amy, tell us all what kind of questions do people ask you when it comes to this particular topic and and why is it actually important?

 

Amy Brann  01:21

So it is a hugely important and exciting topic. And some of the questions, I think, for those people that are already switched on to this being super important, are around well, how do I change beliefs? How do I change other people’s minds? That’s often a strong question. Are some of the beliefs or mind frames harder to change than others, and how can I adopt the most helpful beliefs for myself? And the reason that I think it’s such an important area, it can be fluffy, but the science when you look at placebo responses, so Nocebo and placebo, the impacts on physical health, on mental health, on sports and performance. I think there is bucket loads of really fascinating experiments and research that comes out from these different fields that show us just how impactful it can be, and we haven’t got time to unpack it all in this session, because I’ve got a lot of questions for you, but we put it all into our spark sheets, so our synaptic spark sheets that unpack some of this research in more depth, so that you can mull it over. But Jess, you work with people repeatedly for whom what they believe could be having an impact on their their physical health and their mental health. And I imagine they come to you with certain beliefs, and you might not know what those beliefs are when they show up, but what are some of the things that you’re seeing in this space of beliefs impacting us? What do you see?

 

Dr. Jessie Gulsin  03:01

Yeah, no, you’re right. Amy, sometimes it’s not clear what their underlying beliefs are, and it can take several consultations until both I’m aligned with the you know, my patient and I are aligned. So that kind of incremental, gradual exposure to one another. But there are so many, so many beliefs that I think I sometimes have found it difficult to obviously relate to those beliefs, because I’m very scientific and I’m very kind of factual and evidence based. And a lot of beliefs, you know, they’re not necessarily going to be based on anything, you know, hard, any hard evidence as such, and sometimes it’s also just what people are exposed to, which you know, unless you know somebody really well, you’re never going to know so in my job, you know, I might not know the patient very well, or I may know them very well, but you know, just to give you an example, drugs and side effects, you know, I do have people come to me and say, you know, I hear, hear what you’re saying about that particular drug. So statins, for example, which helped lower cholesterol, I hear what you’re saying. I hear all the evidence. But I had a friend, and when they took this drug, it gave them all these horrible side effects. And I, yeah, I’m not, I’m just not keen. And you can already see, you know, the fact that they’ve got this exposure to somebody else’s experience, you know, they’re already creating side effects in a way that they may not even have because, you know, they’ve had heard their friends have gone through that. So that that kind of societal influence, that influence from others, is so powerful, and it’s really important to then explore that and talk more about that,

 

Amy Brann  04:43

I completely agree. I’ve read papers specifically on statins, obviously, because we know that they save so many lives, it’s really important that we try and get them into the people who can benefit from them. But they have shown that if you have drawn attention to side effects, even from the the. Little leaflet that goes into all of the drug packs, the, I don’t know what you call it. Is it the warning card, no, the information leaflets that, yeah, that has a profound impact on whether or not people actually do manifest these side effects. And I’m guilty of it myself. I know this stuff, and yet I have said to the doctor, oh, Could I try this drug? Because it worked really well for my friend. And I know, I know it’s silly, because my friend has a whole different DNA makeup than me, and yet there is something in that. And I’ve also said to my GP at times, right? Well, I’ve tried this drug in this category. Now I’ll try this other one, but I’m aware that I might be predisposed to think that I’m going to get side effects again. So I say, like, I’m going to do everything I can to mitigate the nocebo effect. And, yeah, it it’s hard to do. Like, it is hard,

 

Dr. Jessie Gulsin  05:55

yeah, I mean, you’ve talked yourself into not, you know, having those side effects. And sometimes people also talk themselves into not succeeding. And you know, when it comes to things like smoking cessation or, you know, giving up a bad habit, they’ve already talked themselves out of it before they’ve even tried. And that’s where things like motivate motivational interviewing can be so helpful to try and overcome that ambivalence for change. I mean, in our practice, we have very helpful health coaches, and they use something called the patient activation measure, the PAM, which is a valid, validated tool, and it assesses a patient’s ability to manage their own health and well being, and it captures how likely they are to act on their beliefs at the beginning, so they rate them at the start and at the end of the coaching sessions, they then kind of re evaluate things, and it’s actually shown improvements in things like their HBA 1c which is the measure of sugar levels, and their measure their diabetic control over two, three months time. So, you know, it just shows how powerful these kinds of, I guess, internal monologs can actually be.

 

Amy Brann  07:01

They are? They reshape our neurology. And so of course, that’s going to have an impact on our physiology. And I love what you just brought up there. I found recently in some studies the difference, the documented difference between when we intend to do something versus when we expect that we will be able to do something. And often we are just asking people about their intention, and we’re missing a trick. We need to ask about what their intention is. For example, I intend to go to the gym. Okay, do you believe you will go to the gym? It’s a whole other question, isn’t it? And again, for me, the answers may be different sometimes. So there’s, there’s a lot here to unpack and small changes that we can make when talking to ourselves, but also then talking to our family members and our colleagues to if we can just ask those different questions, not, you know, coming from a place of wanting to be most helpful, and it’s

 

Dr. Jessie Gulsin  07:57

also about how we present data, isn’t it either to ourselves or to others. I mean, you know, taking a specific example of, you know, medications which are helpful for preventing things like stroke. You know, if I was to say, oh, you know, this drug has got a 30% risk of bleeding versus this has a 70% reduction in stroke risk, you know, how a patient perceives that information is going to be so different. And actually, I have to be really mindful as a doctor to not let my biases influence the patient decision. Because if I really want a patient to take a drug, you know, I will then say, oh, it’s got a 70% chance that it’s going to do good things for you. But actually, in order for a patient to make an informed decision, you know, the way that I present the data has to be very carefully thought out, so that I’m not influencing them in any way. And it’s the same when you’re talking to yourself, when you’re having these kind of motivational chats with yourself, you know, you’ve got to kind of reframe and I guess, see the data in a in a pretty objective way, so that you’re not either positively or negative, negatively influencing your behaviors.

 

Amy Brann  09:04

And I don’t know that there is an answer when it comes to this side of things, because those decisions are hard to make. And I often when I’m talking to people I perceive as experts. So in this instance, you for a health approach, I would say, what would you do if you know, with all this information, which can be hard for a lay person to assimilate and make a judgment call on, and it might be that then they’re able to reflect back? Well, I would be considering this, this and this. So obviously, everyone’s circumstances are different, and you know, side effects for one person may be more impactful than for others, possibly depending on life stage or other variables. But I often turn it back to the experts and say, What would you do in this situation? And obviously, some answer, some don’t i.

 

Dr. Jessie Gulsin  10:00

Yeah, I think you’ve got to be impartial in certain situations. But I think actually giving, from my point of view, I know that I definitely would offer opinions on on certain things like that, because, you know it, people come to you because they trust you and you’re a doctor, and you know, how would I want to be treated myself? How would I want my parents or my family to be treated? You know, I I would confer that same care to my patients, I guess in in the less of a specific situation, so kind of more in the working environment, Amy that you see in the corporate world, for example. Yeah, how could we kind of apply that to those kind of situations then?

 

Amy Brann  10:39

So yeah, let’s talk about corporates. And then I want to talk about parenting, because as both being parents, they Oh gosh, they’re they have a world of beliefs that sometimes can be helpful or unhelpful, and we are more responsible, I guess, as parents, for influencing beliefs in that setting. So in the corporate world, one of the most untapped opportunities, I would say, is people’s expectations. And as you alluded, to the influence of frames and an outside influence, peer influence. So taking something as seemingly straightforward as work life balance. So I’ve been rewriting make your brain work recently, and I’d when I spoke to a lot of different professionals, I had the expectation that I would be able to ditch that chapter. Now, I thought we would have worked out how to, you know, balance things and work in a way that felt like we could have a full home life and a full work life. But everyone I spoke to said, no, no, we need to keep work life balance chapter in it’s still a big problem. And some were even saying it’s a bigger problem since COVID than it was before. And I could go, yeah, off on a tangent, but the people’s expectations and when we compare ourselves with our peers. So for example, you know, I run a business. You work in a high pressured, full surgery where there is always going to be more people that could do with your input. That’s the nature of things. If we are comparing ourselves to someone who has a very different job and works different hours and has less pressures, then we could end up feeling like we’re hard done by and that things where we work are not fair, are not right, all of the rest of it, and that has an effect. So I think our expectations are hugely influential, and then what the organization can do is actually address some of those expectations and make sure that everything follows through. So from when you’re recruiting people, what you’re putting out there, you can’t say you get a wonderful work life balance here, and then expect people to work to 2am but it doesn’t follow through, because then their expectations are challenged, and they feel hard done by at that point, potentially, and that has a negative knock on effect. So working out what is realistic within your industry, within your company, and making sure that follows through, I think, is really influential. And then the other thing is, is upskilling people in the impact of how these mind frames impact us. And different companies will benefit in from different packaging around those frames. So whether it’s the 30% the 70% or whether it’s things like using sporting analogies, a lot of people can relate to that and think about how we change our beliefs and how that impacts even our cardiovascular output. There’s been studies on cyclists looking at what feedback they’re getting through their smart watches, or more sophisticated versions in professional athletics, but what that feedback does to their brain and does to their perception of how hard they’re working. So I think acknowledging everyone is a useful approach and also combining that with realistic expectations that are communicated so that people aren’t having those nasty surprises. Does that sound reasonable?

 

Dr. Jessie Gulsin  14:11

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I guess, off what you’ve said, then it takes a little bit of personal reflection as well. So obviously, as a business, you want to be reflecting on decisions that you’ve made, but as an individual as well, I mean, I think, well, I mean, the example I can think of is, you know, patients who are very much gym goers, very athletic and, and, you know, they’re really keen on staying fit, and yet they’re engaging in certain unhealthy behaviors such As binge drinking or smoking and and I guess it’s about then reflecting on that as well. And I do gently challenge patients about these types of things without being condescending, of course, to kind of question why their actions are contradictory to their beliefs. And holding those contradictory beliefs as you know, the cognitive dissonance is um. It can be quite a quite an obstacle for people, but unless it’s been kind of highlighted to them, and you’ve reflected on that, then you’re not going to be aware of that. So it’s about being honest with yourself, and organizations being honest as well about, you know, what kind of things they’ve noticed, which can be quite a difficult conversation at times. Can’t it 100%

 

Amy Brann  15:20

and I that’s one of the benefits of good friends, I think, is being able to increase our self awareness. We all have blind spots. We can, there can be reasons for our blind spots at different times of life. You know, sometimes I know I’ve been more sensitive and hard feedback, like, for example, do you realize you’re living two separate lives, and your identity is totally incongruent. You are sensitive enough, as my friend, to know when to introduce those kind of challenges and when not. But having good friends that will hold a light up, a mirror up and say, you know, what do you think about this, and are there any incongruencies? And you know, what identity Do you want to have? And if someone’s comfortable with it, obviously, that’s no problem. We’re not talking about challenging for our sake, but we are talking about looking at an individual and thinking, have they got everything set up in their minds, in the way that they’re living life that most benefits them? And as you say, cognitive dissonance, some of these identity conflicts, they likely are registering at some level, and then by bringing it up into conscious awareness, we’ve got more of an opportunity to do something about

 

Dr. Jessie Gulsin  16:31

1. Absolutely and your friends. Friends will always, well, good friends will always approach this in a very non judgmental way, non confrontational way. Well, actually, as you say, sometimes, depending upon your state, it may be more confrontational, but that’s also really, really important, isn’t it? I mean, you see this in rehabilitation programs and support groups for rehabilitation, how it can be so powerful sharing all these personal experiences and having these non judgmental conversations in that kind of safe space that’s really, you know, going to have such an influence on our on our beliefs and how we then move forward in certain situations. You’ll have to remind me what the term is when it comes to that, I think deep canvas. I think I remember reading, yeah,

 

Amy Brann  17:19

that’s right. So I looked into the deep canvassing and the ingredients around that were the empathetic, non judgmental space holding and when we think about changing beliefs, if there was one thing that I would recommend universally without knowing the details of the individuals involved and the specifics of the beliefs, I would say that is the thing that you want to experiment with, getting alongside someone, showing empathy, showing curiosity, being non judgmental, and Holding a space for them to explore their beliefs, because we tend to think of in order to change something, it has to be, you know, oomphy energy and lots of action. And actually this, this approach has got a very different energy to it. We are holding a space and then allowing someone to explore. But ultimately, you can’t change my beliefs. You can’t change my mind about things, but you can help me to change my own mind. And this is what this research showed. And I think it’s like from my perspective. It’s still really in its infancy, but it’s fascinating the data and the approaches that have been explored through this process. So it’s brilliant to highlight that one top tip for general approaches, and I guess that leads us quite nicely into children, and probably how you and I parent, hands up. I definitely know my daughter has some amazing beliefs and some approaches to life that are different to mine and that are better than mine. So I’m definitely learning from her, but there were also some things that she believes that I don’t think are helpful to her, and so I want to try and help her explore whether other beliefs might be more helpful. And at the moment, I don’t know whether she believes she can change her beliefs. I think I don’t know, and I don’t know the research around the ages that that young people become aware, you know, less less tightly connected to their beliefs as they were with their realities. But what do you what have you found useful from a belief change with children?

 

Dr. Jessie Gulsin  19:34

Well, my son’s obviously a little bit younger than your daughter, and I think, like you say, it’s, um, it changes depending upon their age. But I mean, I tried, you know, I tried out some affirmation cards recently, and you know, we’ve spoken up. We all know about affirmations and how that can be powerful, I guess. But with a child, I wasn’t quite sure how it would work. But actually, they were really simple cards, and every. Be Sunday morning, when we get up, we choose a card, and it’s got a lovely little cartoon on it, and it’ll say something like, You are beautiful on the inside and the outside. And then it’ll have like, a little funny picture or something with it. And then in the mornings, throughout the week, I just remind him of this particular affirmation, and when he’s done something which reflects that, I highlight it to him, and I say, see, look, and it’s is that I can see a change in his behavior. I think it’s about instilling that in their confidence in them, and I mean, maybe we’re just more aware of it as a society. Now, I don’t remember doing this kind of stuff when I was young or having these kind of thought processes, but what we want to do is just try and equip our children for life right. And we’re life’s busy, it’s hectic, and I definitely don’t always get it right, but I think just even that small thing, that small kind of activity that we do, I have seen an improvement in some of his behaviors. And it’s I’ve seen the seen the confidence kind of grow in him, which then is going to lead on to better things in other areas of his life, isn’t it? So it’s a small thing, whether or not it’s going to be sustained, I don’t know, but I try my best to keep reminding him, and I thought to myself, well, maybe I need to do the same. I mean, I don’t know about manifesting and what the evidence is behind that. But, um, yeah, I think some affirmation and positive affirmation every morning is not a bad thing for all of us. Really.

 

Amy Brann  21:29

No, I agree. So I what I love is that you haven’t just used an affirmation and then almost bounced off it, so it almost just looked in the mirror and said, You know, I’m beautiful on the inside and the out. And then left it. I think one of the really key things that you shared there was that you you use it as an anchor point to reinforce when then there is evidence in his life that you can link back to that supportive belief. Because that does sound like a really healthy, helpful and healthy belief to adopt. And yet, many people will go through life and will sort for the evidence that’s contrary to that, and we know that we can prime the brain to sort for particular things. And there was, there was a few studies quite a while back, one of which was from UCL, which was where we met, looking at something as simple as an app, but I can’t find the study now, so I don’t know whether it’s disappeared, but I found a couple of other studies that reinforced some similar approaches, but basically, even just swiping on a screen for happy faces and ignoring the sad faces was shown to change people’s attributional bias. So what they focused on, which dead exciting. I did try with my daughter when, you know, a good few years ago, she found it utterly boring. So maybe not for everyone, but what you’re doing is a more practical, lived example of that you’re helping to support what your son is sorting for. And that’s how we structure our beliefs, isn’t it, when we look for evidence that supports them. That’s what layers in. And this is where in organizations, managers can have a huge impact. Because what are they helping their people to sort for? Is it healthy for them, or is it? Are they just throwing up all the problems and directing attention to the challenges all the time that is going to structure their beliefs and what we do every day can be taking us closer to the brain that is going to be most helpful to us or further away from it. So parents, managers, friends, we’re all so influential in the shaping of ourselves and others. There are opportunities all the time to make these small tweaks. So yeah, that anchoring piece, I think, is really important. The manifesting question. I think those that sort of unpack what actually might be going on when we talk about this manifesting approach, it’s it is more about what’s going on in the brain and how we’re priming ourselves and directing our attention to then work on things, often below conscious awareness, so that things are more likely to happen. I don’t subscribe to the sort of I’m gonna manifest a Ferrari. I’m visualizing it. Oh, look, there’s the Ferrari. Shucks. I know nobody’s ever happy when I say that you know, but you know, manifesting better relationships that’s very general, I would then always encourage more specificity and also reflection on, well, what’s our role in that? I know one of the things I’m working on is more patience, more warmth, and thinking about the specifics of that, visualizing the more specifics of that writing down what it would look like when all of those things are like mental rehearsals, and we know that the brain needs to fire the neuronal pathways whether we’re imagining something or whether we’re doing something for real. So it’s almost like we’re exercising the brain in the way that we then will need it to repeat it. COVID, and there are some great studies looking at visualization which links into this around small motor movements. So for example, finger movements, doing exercises and increasing the strength of small muscle groups, I’ve not managed to slim down my thighs doing this visualization, but playing the piano, shooting basketball hoops, all of those kind of exercises that are a little bit more structurally packaged and quite specific have got good evidence behind them. So I would say it can’t hurt on those fronts.

 

Dr. Jessie Gulsin  25:40

Oh, shame, shame about the thighs and shame. Anyway, we all work on those in other ways,

 

Amy Brann  25:47

exactly, exactly visualizing myself doing the Pilates every day will have to suffice for now. Okay, so I think from our conversation I’m hearing, it is definitely possible to change beliefs. There are lots of different approaches that we want to consider when changing beliefs. Obviously, as professionals, we’ve got responsibilities to evaluate when we need to be as unbiased and influential as possible, knowing that that’s not normally possible to the degree that would be ideal at all. Because even if you were to give both your frames of 30% chance of bleeding, 70% chance in stroke reduction, which one do you say first? Because then you’ve got the bias occurring of which one you’ve and what happens to your face? Do you smile when you say the 70% reduction? Because you just can’t but help but be hopeful that that’s the one they’ll choose. We are not blank slates. Are we? We can’t be completely unbiased. I don’t know. I don’t think, but there is definitely hope and there’s also responsibility. I think we’ve kind of echoed that. We’ve all got the opportunity to positively support helpful belief development in others.

 

Dr. Jessie Gulsin  27:14

Yeah, and I think it’s about going on that journey with someone, isn’t it? I mean, I think we’ve spoken about this before, really, but the power of storytelling is just and just having those conversations, I think is, is really helpful. I mean, we do use it in the NHS. We’ve got diabetic groups who meet up to talk about newly diagnosed diabetes, and they share their experiences and they learn about diabetes. But I think storytelling and having those conversations and going on that journey with one another, whether that be with friends, with colleagues, with your children, yeah, very impactful.

 

Amy Brann  27:52

I totally agree. I think one of the most important and helpful things I’ve found as a parent is having other parents to talk to that have, maybe children at similar ages or with similar challenges, and how that influences my beliefs is that when I’m at home and dealing with difficulties, I might choose to believe that I’m not competent enough to handle this challenge Well, or I’ve in some way done something that’s created this challenge, both of which may be true, but they also may not be true, and by having that wider influence and data input, hearing from other parents, I’ve got the opportunity to see whether that’s the most helpful belief, or whether I might choose to believe, Oh, okay, lots of people are struggling with this, maybe even it’s a normal part of childhood development, and that puts a very different lens on something that could mean that I would be far more compassionate to myself and my child, and may take a different course of action. So it can be like just a small story can be incredibly impactful, can’t it absolutely and we don’t even think of it as behavior belief change, or then behavior change, we think we’re just having a

 

Dr. Jessie Gulsin  29:08

chat. Yeah, exactly. It’s so subtle. Karen, so subtle.

 

Amy Brann  29:12

I love it. Oh, well, just thanks for sharing so many of the insights from the medical world around belief change, and I think it’s great to have some of that sort of scientific awareness and validation that these are important things that we explore. And thank you. It’s a pleasure. So if you have enjoyed today’s episode, then please share it with a friend or a colleague who might find it helpful. It’s one of the best ways for us to grow and help reach more people like you that are interested in the brain. Make sure you’re following us on your preferred listening or viewing platform, so you are first to know when we release a new episode. You.