## Metadata - Author: [[Andy Masley]] - Full Title:: People's Deeply Held Beliefs Are Surprisingly Surface-Level - Category:: #🗞️Articles - URL:: https://andymasley.substack.com/p/peoples-deeply-held-beliefs-are-surprisingly?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email - Read date:: [[2026-02-08]] ## Highlights >  > My favorite Onion headline. [Source](https://theonion.com/study-average-person-s-life-plan-can-only-withstand-25-1819578876/) ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgycfnq23da38hdtj4t9ex13)) [[la gente es gilipollas]] > I used to think that if someone were structuring their lives around a specific idea, and describing it as one of their most deeply held beliefs, their process for getting to it looked like this: > • I have investigated and compared this contentious belief to others and tested it against the world, and after a lot of careful diligent thought I have decided it is so uniquely powerful as an explanatory tool that I have decided to structure my life around it. > I’ve realized now that a lot of the time, they (and I) are doing something more like this: > • I have muttered this basic idea to myself repeatedly for years to make myself feel important. I first found this idea because a person with a cool jacket said it. I wanted to be more like them. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgycdjtf1p58w2xmr656bkzk)) > If you think that someone’s deeply held belief is wrong or harming them, you should go ahead and find ways to gently poke at it. Because they want to be strongly associated with it, it’s helpful to give the belief a lot of status and not attack it directly. Instead, just ask boring follow-up questions about the specifics of what they think. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgycgekpxds460zay6wvxt2v)) I still find people telling me I’m challenging their notions > The best way to deflate a harmful belief is often to make it boring and clearly uninteresting when applied to the complexities of the world, rather than trying to make it low status directly. You might be surprised at how willing they are to change their minds when the context is shifted even a little. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kgycgvvzbnvq8zdkxfje98af))