July 24, 2025
Meghan O’Toole
Davis Rowe ’25 presents research at 2025 SPP meeting at Cornell University
What makes people change their minds? That’s the question Davis Rowe ’25 set out to explore—and the one that took him to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York this summer to present at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology (SPP).
Rowe, a philosophy and history major, presented a project that explores how the philosophical concept of rationalization might influence belief revision, or how people change their minds, at the prestigious national conference.
“We were studying to see if the 'principle of charity' would make people more willing to change their mind on stuff,” Rowe explained.
Rowe studied in Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Neuroscience Paul Henne's Reasons and Decisions (RAD) Lab at Lake Forest College.
“The project aims to apply philosophical insights to foster more open-minded and charitable discourse in an increasingly divided world,” Henne said of the research.
In his own words: Alum reflects on research, conference experience
The following is an excerpt from Davis Rowe ’25 about his project and what he learned along the way.
“The 'principle of charity is something you learn about in the logic class. It basically means that when interpreting someone’s argument you should assume the person is rational and come up with the strongest possible interpretation of their argument.
“We found that this totally didn’t make people more willing to change their minds. I think it’s still interesting enough because maybe it shows just how ridiculously difficult it is to make people budge on their positions.
“It is possible, people do change their minds, but it’s rare. But if we can figure out what’s is it that makes people change their minds in those rare cases, then we can cultivate that sort of environment. So, I think there probably will be studies that show ways to change people’s minds, we just found the methods we used didn’t work.”
Rowe (right) met with fellow alum Wiktoria Pedryc '24 (left) at the conference
Rowe began his involvement with the RAD Lab as a Research Assistant during the summer of 2024 and has continued to contribute to the lab’s work throughout the academic year.
“[Rowe's] participation in the SPP conference marks a significant milestone in his academic journey and highlights the growing impact of undergraduate research in philosophy and cognitive science,” Henne said.
Rowe coauthored the poster “Does The Principle of Rationalization Encourage People To Change Their Mind?” with Jinhua Adair '26 and Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Neuroscience Paul Henne of Lake Forest College alongside Lindsay Huth, Matthew Stanley, and Felipe De Brigard of Duke University.
The RAD Lab's research on rationalization is part of a broader initiative funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation under the grant titled Charitable Reasoning: How the Tools of Philosophy Can Help Increase Belief, led by Henne. The grant runs from 2024 to 2026 and provides $217,283 in support of the research.
The conference experience helped Rowe refine his presentation skills and cement his aspiration to pursue a graduate degree in philosophy.
“I was sort of using this as a test to see if I would like the academic environment, and I realized I do,” Rowe shared. “I like being around a bunch of dorks talk about their research, and I beyond the 'skills,' I just learned about a lot of stuff going on in the psych/philosophy world right now that I found really interesting.”