The LRB Podcast On Politics: Why you can’t change someone’s mind
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Mar 25, 2026 
Sarah Stein-Lubrano, author and researcher on political disagreement and cognitive science, explains why argument rarely changes minds. She questions the ‘marketplace of ideas’, shows how social ties, laws and actions shift beliefs, and explores how technology and social infrastructure shape political change. Short-term debate is limited; durable change comes from relationships, institutions and sustained collective action.
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Affordances Make Social Media More Persuasive Than Radio
- Technological affordances change what actions people take, and actions then reshape beliefs; social media's interactive affordances deepen psychological investment.
- Liking, commenting, and repeating content makes users more invested than one-way radio broadcasts ever did.
Gateway Actions Either Recruit Or Radicalize
- Small political actions often act as gateways into deeper engagement rather than one-off gestures.
- Stein Lubrano warns the same mechanism can be exploited by organizers like Steve Bannon who assign escalating tasks to radicalize supporters.
Create Goal Oriented Equal Status Contact
- Design spaces that meet social contact theory conditions: equal status, salient differences, and shared goals to reduce prejudice.
- Online platforms fail many conditions; meaningful belief change needs in-person, goal-oriented contact.
