Mark Twain once quipped, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” The problem is that we rarely question our own beliefs. Once a false assumption takes hold, it becomes a default lens we use to interpret the world—and dislodging it becomes incredibly difficult.
One very basic assumption that lies at the heart of many change efforts is that information is power—the notion that if you arm people with the right knowledge, they will act on it. That’s why so many change programs are rooted in education and training, because they assume that the right information will change people’s behavior.
There’s even a name for this assumption: the information deficit model. Decades of research show that it doesn’t hold up. The truth is that we rarely change our behavior after being exposed to new facts. When confronted with evidence that contradicts our beliefs, we’re more likely to question the evidence than to update our views. Our brains prefer stability to change.
The Information Deficit Model
The core assumption of the information deficit model is that when people lack basic knowledge, exposing them to new evidence will change their opinions. But that assumes that their minds are blank slates, which is rarely true for most subjects and contexts. We all have preconceived notions of how the world works and will tend to cling to our views.
Subscribe to the Modern CEO newsletter.Refreshed leadership advice from CEO Stephanie Mehta
For example, people who believe in a flat earth don’t simply lack knowledge of a round earth, but have a model of the universe in which the earth is flat. In order to change those beliefs, they would not only need to accept new evidence, but also to discard old beliefs that they have relied on to navigate the world.
To do that they face a number of barriers they will need to overcome, including the synaptic pathways built up in their brains that are devoted to their existing model, the social pressure of people in their community who hold similar views, and the switching costs involved in changing their behavior based on their new knowledge.
That’s why people not only tend to resist new knowledge, but also why they can be actively hostile to it. It doesn’t feel like gaining insight—it feels like losing part of their identity, their community, and the mental models that help them make sense of the world.