Read the full blog on Psychology Today here
You can be genuinely open to learning…and still resist a new idea the moment you hear it.
“I already know this.”
“That won’t work here.”
“I’ve tried that before.”
Why do smart, motivated people learn something valuable and then carry on exactly as before?
In my latest Psychology Today article, I explore this with education behaviour specialist and senior L&D leader Kathryn Swandale Assoc. CIPD, FLPI, whose insights into how our brains respond to learning helped shape the piece.
We look at why learning can feel threatening, why challenging someone’s existing identity can trigger resistance, and why insight alone rarely changes behaviour.
Perhaps we need to focus less on the learning itself and more on what happens around it.