Changing Minds

So that explains the intransigence of creationists and climate change deniers, maybe.

From Wired...

A group of psychologists working at HP’s Social Computing Research Group has found that humans are more likely to change their minds when fewer, rather than more, people disagree with them. 

The results showed that a small amount of social pressure to reverse an opinion was far more effective in getting people to change their minds than if the pressure was much greater. When an overwhelming number of people were shown as having made a different choice, people tended to stick with their original selections. 

The full research paper is available on HP’s website.