Wherever you look at the moment, we seem divided – Brexiteer or Remainer, pro-President Trump or against. And no matter how much we argue, none of us appear to change our minds. Whether at the dinner table or on social media, it can seem as though our opinions are more fixed than ever.

But new research suggests that, in fact, we can let go of our opinions – and that opposition can even turn into acceptance.

For decades, research on confirmation bias has shown that we are more likely to look out for, notice and remember anything that confirms opinions we already hold. If you like drinking wine, you’re more likely to remember the occasional studies which find a benefit from alcohol than the research on its risks.

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Our brains are also faster at processing opinions we agree with. For a while, we have known that if you give people a list of factually incorrect sentences, they take longer to find grammatical errors than if the statements are true. So if the statement is “soft soap are edible”, they’ll take more time to spot the mistake in the grammar because the meaning is also inaccurate.

The same happens with opinions. Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem recently gave people statements like “I believe the internet makes people more sociable” or “I believe the internet makes people more isolated”. Once again, participants had to judge whether the sentence was grammatically correct. They took longer to decide if they disagreed with the opinion. Without us even being aware of it, our opinions can override our automatic responses.