[qkswifla] Changing people's minds

Under what conditions do people change their opinion?

Rationally, one might expect a person's opinion stays the same only in the presence of reinforcement mechanisms: precisely defined as, if they change their opinion, they suffer punishment.  But this rational explanation seems far from fully explaining people's inflexibility and tendency to reject new information that contradicts their beliefs.

The precise definition of reinforcement was inspired by the phrase, "mass media reinforces certain beliefs" (e.g., gender stereotypes), which I believe incorrectly uses the term.  There is no punishment mechanism for having a belief opposed to that espoused by some media.

Which begs the question, exactly what is the media doing?  I suspect blaming the media is merely lazy thinking not getting to the root of why certain undesirable beliefs persist.  Free media feeds us exactly what we want to see, and is irrelevant in the discussion why we want to see or hear the "undesirable" beliefs.

If it is not the media that is causing certain beliefs to persist, then what is?  Where is the reinforcement and punishment mechanism?  It is us.  This is a "Blame Canada" scenario.