Page 68 - The Power to Change Anything

Change the Way You Change Minds 57

Poindexter, Lear, and others routinely injected family planning
messages into their programming.
It was no coincidence that in 1972, with 41 percent of those
watching TV in America tuned in to his show, Lear created an
episode (“Maude’s Dilemma”) in which the star—a middle-
aged woman—announced that she was considering an abor-
tion. This was the first time this topic was inserted into a
primetime plot line, and it wasn’t included by accident. Love
it or hate it, it was part of a systematic plan of using vicarious
models to influence social change. And according to public
opinion surveys, it did just that, as have dozens of other pro-
grams that have since made use of vicarious modeling.

USE STORIES TO HELP CHANGE MINDS

The implications of this discovery should be obvious.
Entertainment education helps people change how they view
the world through the telling of vibrant and credible stories.
Told well, these vicariously created events approximate the gold
standard of change—real experiences. And we all have our
stories. That means we don’t have to be a TV producer or serial-
drama writer to exert influence. We merely need to be a good
storyteller. We can use words to persuade others to come
around to our way of thinking by telling a story rather than fir-
ing off a lecture. Stories can create touching moments that help
people view the world in new ways. We can tell stories at work,
we can share them with our children, and we can use them
whenever and wherever we choose.
But not every story helps change minds. We’ve all been cor-
nered by a coworker or relative who couldn’t spin a tale to save
his or her life. We’ve all attempted to tell a clever story only to
have it come across as a verbal attack. What is it that makes cer-
tain stories powerful tools of influence, while mere verbal per-
suasion can cause resistance or be quickly dismissed and
forgotten?