Why Are We Resistant to Change?

When I became aware of the concept of resistance to change, I had no idea it would become such a big part of my life. Before the revelation, I was unaware of our programmed inclination to think and do things in a particular way. I assumed each thought or action decision was random, ad hoc, and situational. I recognized tendencies and preferences in people, but not a predictable pattern that rarely, if ever, deviated.

I knew Dad had his ways, and Mom had her ideas. I challenged their thinking, as children do, and I lost most of those challenges. I accepted their paradigms, because of their authority, but my acceptance didn’t stop my questions. I’ve used a lot of bandwidth, over the years, solving mysteries.

Speaking of being a detective, remember the board game, Clue? If you haven’t blown out as many candles as I have, it was a game based on solving a fictitious murder. Who committed the murder, Professor Plumb or Miss Scarlett? Where did the crime occur, in the conservatory or the kitchen? What was the murder weapon, a rope or a candlestick? Each of those questions generates an objective answer to a question of who, where, and what. When and how questions generate objective answers as well. Why questions, though, generate subjective answers, probe motive, and are more hidden and complex than answers to objective questions.

Observing behavior through the lens of our resistance to change, reveals the presence of forces stronger than mere random, situational, decisions. Sociologists and criminologists have identified our predictability and our loyalty to patterns. My parents certainly had their paradigms, which I couldn’t change, but as far as I know, they were free to re-shape their own patterns. They didn’t. Most don’t. Minds can change, but a changed mind is rare.

It’s nearly time for the why question.

Consider this sports analogy, related to pattern loyalty. Coaches spend a lot of time analyzing the situational tendencies of other teams and coaches, seeking to give their own teams a competitive advantage. Coaches are predictable, and they create an abundance of data for other coaches to scour and uncover tendencies for almost every game situation. All coaches know this about other coaches, and yet they can’t, or don’t, see it in themselves and protect against their predictability. They stubbornly resist changing their entrenched patterns. That’s true with coaches, parents, siblings, spouses, children, business and church leaders, and everyone else….. including me.

I think it’s time for the why question.

Why do we resist change? In an overly simplistic answer, I believe it is tied to comfort and fear. We love comfortable, and we’ll always seek the path of least resistance. Change is uncomfortable, and creates more resistance than the status quo. And we fear different; we fear instability; we fear the loss of what we perceive to be control. For leaders, the loss of stability and / or control threatens their perceived power and their perceived position of advantage over others. When it comes to comfort and fear, we want as much of one, and as little of the other, as we can orchestrate. When we achieve our personal nirvana, we want it to remain undisturbed. Thus, we resist change.

If we possess any inclination for change, it will likely occur when change relates to the physical realm; particularly if the change increases our comfort or reduces our fear. We can change behavior easier than we can change thinking. No change is easy, but the resistance to change is easier to overcome, if there is benefit to us in some way.

Since these posts are intended to focus on faith matters, I want to pivot to that context. Predictably, we become entrenched in our thinking about many spiritual topics – whether consciously or subconsciously. We are confident of the certainty of our thinking on clear and cloudy topics. We even have clear, strong convictions about cloudy topics, even if only to justify our conclusions that clarity is unnecessary on that particular topic. Once we identify our positions, maybe we should explore what drives our intensity level, and our subsequent resistance, on some topics versus others. If not, how likely is it that anyone’s mind will change?

In David McRaney’s book, How Minds Change, he indicates that mind change may occur when someone begins to think about, and quantify, the intensity of their own position. Minds rarely change as a result of other people’s persuasion. Evaluating our position against someone else’s position becomes a competition. Sound familiar? McRaney writes about the popular, and futile, tendency to assume giving people “better” information will change their thinking – referring to the Information Deficit Model, where the source for disagreement is assumed to be a lack of good, factual, information. If I can give you the facts that I have, you will see as I see. That approach has never been effective. However, if someone can quantify their own level of conviction, apply and share some critical thinking about why they feel as they do, in a dialogue, there is potentially an opportunity to raise or lower the level of intensity – an indication of mind change.

Hypothetically – this shouldn’t rock the boat too much – let’s consider the belief that the world was created in six literal twenty-four hour days. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 0 being strong disagreement and 10 being strong agreement, how strong is our conviction with that statement? Let’s assume an answer of 7 is offered by one of the dialogue participants. Why 7? What is 7 based on? Why not 10? What keeps it from being a 10? You get the idea. The number is irrelevant; having someone think through their conviction and through the quantification of intensity, is paramount.

If minds don’t change through external influence, why am I sharing this?

Though resistance to change is the norm, minds change. God changes minds. Repentance is changing a mind. We’ll take that path at another time.