MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
This year's campaign season was filled with divisive, sometimes downright hostile language. And now a lot of folks may be gearing up for holiday conversations with loved ones who disagree with them. Well, this week, as part of a series we're calling Seeking Common Ground, we're exploring different ways people can think and talk about their differences. Right now, we are joined by NPR's Rachel Carlson. Rachel's been looking into what goes on in our brains and our bodies when we disagree. Hey, there.
RACHEL CARLSON, BYLINE: Hey, Mary Louise.
KELLY: What'd you find out?
CARLSON: So I talked to a neuroscientist who studied this and some psychologists who were able to tell me a little bit more about what's going on in our bodies and our emotions when these conversations happen. And I got some tips from them on how to manage all of those feelings.
KELLY: Start with our bodies. What is going on when we're having a tense conversation with somebody we vehemently disagree with?
CARLSON: OK, so our pupils dilate, our hearts race, our palms might even get a little clammy. And our amygdala - that's the threat detector towards the base of our brains - starts to fire.
RUDY MENDOZA-DENTON: And that, of course, just breeds - guess what? - mistrust.
KEN BARISH: And then we get angry. So we have this mixture of anxiety and anger. And over time, that becomes resentment and contempt. And contempt is a very destructive interpersonal process.
CARLSON: That first person was Rudy Mendoza-Denton. He's a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. He co-teaches a class at the school's Greater Good Science Center on bridging differences. And the second person was psychologist Ken Barish. He has a book called "Bridging Our Political Divide" that'll be out soon. And he says this resentment can make it even harder for us to see eye to eye with the person right in front of us. And the changes go even further than this.
KELLY: OK. Well, what else beyond what we just heard - hearts racing, palms clammy - what else?
CARLSON: Yeah. So I talked to a neuroscientist at the Yale School of Medicine, Joy Hirsch. A few years ago, she led an experiment where she paired up strangers who had a wide range of beliefs, and she monitored their brains while they talked through topics that they either agreed with each other or disagreed on. So two of those topics were marijuana and same-sex marriage.
KELLY: And what'd they find?
CARLSON: Joy told me that, when two people agreed, their brain activity looked pretty similar - so certain areas lit up in similar ways. And her working hypothesis for what this means is...
JOY HIRSCH: That the sharing of information involves higher levels of communication, that people are learning, so that there's a consensus of what is being shared and what's going on.
CARLSON: Versus when participants disagreed with each other. And in those cases, people's brain activity wasn't so synced up. It was kind of like a cacophony instead of a harmonious duet. And as they disagreed, Joy says it seemed like each brain was engaging a lot more cognitive and emotional resources. So she thinks that could mean that disagreeing is just more taxing for us than agreeing.
KELLY: Huh. Well, and I know you got so fascinated by this that you have spent the last couple of months digging in on how science might be able to help us move back into the agreement territory - mind-meld territory. Tell me about that journey you were on.
CARLSON: Yeah, that is how I ended up talking to two people who've been regularly disagreeing with each other for almost half a century - Jeanne Safer and Richard Brookhiser.
JEANNE SAFER: I'm married to this man who I think - can you say we don't agree on anything? Would that be clear, too?
RICHARD BROOKHISER: Oh, pretty much.
CARLSON: Jeanne is a psychoanalyst and liberal. Richard is a conservative Republican who works for the National Review.
SAFER: And he's adorable, so - and he's, like, 92 feet tall.
BROOKHISER: Wow.
CARLSON: They met in a singing group.
BROOKHISER: So that was good 'cause we shared an interest that was not political.
SAFER: It's very important, actually, because it was something that meant a great deal to both of us.
CARLSON: Richard and Jeanne sang together for about six hours every week and, knowing full well they likely wouldn't ever agree on much politically, they got married.
BROOKHISER: One thing you did very early on - you stuck up for me. We were at some cocktail party...
SAFER: Oh, yeah.
BROOKHISER: ...And one of your colleagues - I mean, not someone you knew very at all well - said, oh, so what's it like being married to a Nazi?
SAFER: So I said, seriously, never say that about my husband. That's not right, and I don't want to hear it from you.
BROOKHISER: She cut him a new one.
SAFER: (Laughter) I thought it was appalling. You know, if you'd been a Nazi, sure, maybe you could say that, but this was totally out of line.
CARLSON: To this day, they talk about a lot of issues, but not without setting certain boundaries.
BROOKHISER: Abortion. That was the issue that we both had strong opinions on that were opposite. And so we won't.
SAFER: We didn't.
BROOKHISER: We won't. Then you also figure out ways that you can talk about other stuff.
CARLSON: Clinical psychologist Allison Briscoe-Smith says this kind of mutual respect is critical to engaging with difference. She co-teaches the Bridging Differences course with Rudy, and she says that, without this respect, a conversation isn't possible, and you may decide you want to disengage.
ALLISON BRISCOE-SMITH: I am not inviting people to have a conversation with people that are violent towards you or dehumanizing. You know, we can all kind of discern, and Bridging Differences actually doesn't require or ask us to do that.
CARLSON: But if you do find yourself in a disagreement and you want to try having a conversation, science has a few tools for making it more productive. First, focus on your breathing.
BRISCOE-SMITH: Can you slow this down just a little bit so you can kind of come back into yourself, your body? Can you take a breath and then align with the intention?
CARLSON: Slowing down, breathing, can help combat our body's automatic response to conflict, help us think more clearly and move to step two - refocusing our goals for the conversation. When we approach conversations as debates, Ken says...
BARISH: ...People trade opinions. I express my opinion, you express yours, and people just get angrier.
CARLSON: Research shows this tactic - spouting facts at another person - won't do very much to change their minds, which could be the reason Jeanne and Richard abandoned that strategy a long time ago.
BROOKHISER: One of your rules is never, like, take the article that will convince the other person and stick it in their face.
SAFER: (Laughter) A bad idea. A very bad idea.
BROOKHISER: And she - the name you came up with for that was...
SAFER: Article thrusting.
BROOKHISER: ...Article thrusting. Don't do it.
CARLSON: This is hard, but having a conversation to learn instead of to win can help open our minds to new perspectives. Here's Ken's tip.
BARISH: Don't debate opinions. Discuss concerns.
CARLSON: Which brings us to step three - empathy. Humanize the person you're talking to by asking more about them, not just their opinion on a single topic. And, as Ken says, try to practice intellectual charity and humility by looking at the strongest parts of someone's opinion, instead of the weakest, and understanding where your own arguments could use some help. I saw Richard and Jeanne do this firsthand. They give each other a lot of grace in their conversations. They take each other's points seriously.
SAFER: It really opens your mind to think that somebody that you disagree with takes care of you, helps you, is there for you. It was really a revelation to me, actually, how much that means.
BROOKHISER: Well, and not just me. I mean...
SAFER: No, not just you.
BROOKHISER: ...You met colleagues of mine that you like.
SAFER: Sure.
BROOKHISER: And I met your mentor, who was a communist, but he was a good boss. He treated you very well.
SAFER: He was a wonderful boss.
BROOKHISER: Wonderful, but...
SAFER: But we also were able to join each other's worlds.
BROOKHISER: Mmm-hmm. Yes.
CARLSON: So Mary Louise, Richard and Jeanne joined each other's worlds, not without some conflict, and their experience offers some evidence that all of those years of research can work outside of a lab.
KELLY: Oh, my God, Rachel - so much good advice there. I love the slow down your breathing and singing - and maybe no article thrusting (laughter).
CARLSON: No article thrusting.
KELLY: I will remember that one. Thanks so much.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CARLSON: Thank you.
KELLY: That's NPR's Rachel Carlson reporting for NPR's science podcast, Short Wave. And tomorrow, you can hear the story of two Baptist ministers - one Black, one white - trying to bridge the racial divide.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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