How to be open minded

Intro

Being “open minded” has been an ambition of mine, but in spite of my best efforts, others didn’t always see me as open minded. The following is a description of a conceptual framework on the meaning of open mindedness I found helpful to understand this apparent conflict.

Splitting open mindedness into 2 concepts

I think of “open mindedness” as encompassing two separate concepts:

1. Open mindedness as a personal mental habit for avoiding mental blindspots.
2. A communication pattern that leads other people to feel that you are being “open mindedness”.

First I will, discuss the personal mental habit, and second I will discuss the communication pattern.

Open mindedness as a mental habit

The mental habit I call “open mindedness”, is the mental habit of diligently assigning levels of certainty to your beliefs based upon the available evidence. When this practice is applied diligently, it should result in all (or nearly all) of your beliefs being given a probability (even if small) of being wrong. Admitting that your beliefs could be wrong is what I would call being “open minded”.

The practical benefit of this mental habit is that it helps one improve the accuracy of ones world view, and when appropriate helps one to change their mind. I also find that it automatically prompts me to consider mitigation strategies for when things go against my expectations. The drawback is that it requires a lot of work and adds delays to decision making.

Words are just labels we assign to concepts, so we can label any mental habit as “open mindedness”. So labeling this mental habit as open mindedness is admittedly arbitrary. Key characteristics I associate with open mindedness, are the ability to change one’s mind, and the ability to avoid mental blindspots. Assessing evidence to assign a probability to your beliefs is the best way I know to achieve those goals, so I am calling a mental practice designed to achieve the goals of “open mindedness” as “open mindedness”. (Similarily you might call any physical activity designed to achieve the goals of exercise as exercise.)

Open mindedness as a communication pattern

If we asked people what signaled open mindedness to them, I expect we would get responses loosely in the following three categories:

1. The person is willing to entertain outlandish beliefs.
2. When I talk to this person, I feel heard and understood.
3. When this person disagrees with me I feel that they do it for “reasonable” reasons.

I think of (1) as considerably different from (2) and (3). The first is about whether you are an entertaining conversationalist. The second and third are about conflict resolution abilities. For myself, I focus on (2) and (3), because achieving a reputation for being “open minded” in terms of conflict resolution is more important . In fact, I would agree that open mindedness as a communication pattern is equivalent to good conflict resolution because when there is a conflict, getting labeled as “closed minded” by the opposing side is almost inevitable. Therefore the best way to avoid getting labeled as closed minded is to have good conflict resolution skills.

On the plus side, this means that the standard body of knowledge on conflict resolution applies. On the negative side, conflict resolution is a difficult skill to master.

Summary

To become open minded:

1. In your private life, consider the evidence you have for your beliefs and use that to assign degrees of certainty to your beliefs.
2. In your public life, master conflict resolution.

The mental habit of open mindedness is what I focus is on. Conflict avoidance is just something I devote attention as the need arises.