Romeo & Juliet In Kigali: How A Soap Opera Sought To Change Behavior In Rwanda

SHANKAR VEDANTAM, Hidden Brain

We like to think we change people's behavior through information, through education, through persuasion.

Now, these things often don't work, but we keep doing them because we have an unshakable faith in a core assumption about human nature. If you want to shape how people behave, you must first change the way they think. Today, we look at a very different approach, one that will take us on a journey from the outskirts of Budapest in 1944 to the hills of Rwanda a half-century later.

"Just as the Nazis portrayed Jews as subhuman, the Rwandan government, dominated by the Hutu group, dehumanized the Tutsi minority. Their weapon of choice - radio - or as some call it, hate radio." 

- Shankar Vedantam