I will posit this as my opinion - it is easier to change opinions than it is to change beliefs. The line drawing between opinions and beliefs is probably fuzzy, however. I would also suggest that your own personality will affect whether seeing facts contrary to your own opinion will cause you to change that opinion. I think this opinion of mine gets some support in a recent paper (abstract published at Close Minded Cognition).

That paper determined that people scoring high in the desire for order, structure and preservation of social norms tend to be less successful at correcting erroneous beliefs when confronted by new information. For those people, a close-minded cognitive style negatively influences belief updating. (click on the title to see more)

There is a difference between politician: “one engaged in party
politics, especially as a trade; one who promotes the interests of a
political party, one concerned with public affairs for the sake of
profit or of a clique.” and statesman: “enlightened, disinterested,
and high-minded service to the state or the people of the state”.

We usually have too many politicians and not enough statesmen.

For my daughter when she was in junior high school. If you insisted on
a rule and justified it because the authority figure said so, you
guaranteed a fight. If you gave reasonable reasons for the rule, there
wouldn’t be any problem. I’ve seen reports that up to 30% of any human
population consists of authoritarians. Those in power want mindless
obedience. Even those not in positions of power want to be
thoughtlessly led and will insist on mindless obedience to authority
and punishment otherwise.

There is a place for warriors. There is a place for story
tellers. Sometimes both groups forget there is a need for the other.

Sometimes you wonder if the human race will ever stop the fighting.

Sometimes you wonder if the human race will ever stop the fighting.