When someone has a sharply different point of view than your own, the natural tendency is to either avoid a conversation with that person or to try to convince them they are wrong. Neither is a productive approach. Research shows that there is a better way to engage: communicating your willingness to engage with another’s views by using language that signals you are truly interested in that person’s perspective. This behavior can be both learned and improved.
A well-functioning organization, like a well-functioning society, requires employees and leaders alike to have productive conversations, even in the face of different views and opinions — in fact, especially in the face of such differences.
Today, this is easier said than done. On social media and in real life, we regularly find ourselves engaging with people whose core beliefs and values seem to clash with our own. Disagreements about whether masks slow the spread of the coronavirus, whether people should be allowed to work at home during the pandemic, or who should have won the U.S. presidential election too often degenerate into heated arguments.
Rather than engaging in potentially difficult or uncomfortable conversations, many of us try to avoid them altogether. But there may be a more effective approach: using conversational receptiveness in our language. This means parties who disagree should communicate their willingness to engage with each other’s views. It involves using language that signals a person is truly interested in another’s perspective. In our research, my colleagues and I found that this behavior can be both learned and improved.
The root causes. The reason many of us naturally try to dodge potentially contentious discussions is people often prefer to engage in conversations with those who will confirm their beliefs rather than disagree with them. This happens because we inaccurately predict how we’ll feel in such conversations. For instance, political partisans overestimate how unpleasant it will be to engage in talks with people who have opposing views, according to recent research by Charles Dorison, Julia Minson, and Todd Rogers at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
In addition, when we do engage with people whose views clash with ours, we typically try to convince them to abandon their point of view in favor of ours. Assuming that we’re right and they’re wrong, we fight for our perspective and try to “win” the argument. The problem is that the other side is likely to think exactly the same way. This approach backfires, leaving us with even more difficult conflicts to work through.
A better approach. When we appear receptive to listening to and respecting others’ opposing positions, they find our arguments to be more persuasive, our research shows. In addition, receptive language is contagious: It makes those with whom we disagree more receptive in return. People also like others more and are more interested in partnering with them when they seem receptive.
We identified the features of receptive language by asking thousands of individuals to write responses to political statements with which they disagreed. Some of the statements were: “The death penalty should be abolished in all U.S. states,” “On balance, public sector unions should be reined in,” and “The public reaction to recent confrontations between police and minority crime suspects has been overblown.” We then had thousands of others evaluate each response in terms of how engaged, receptive, and open-minded the writer seemed. Our raters were in general agreement about which writers demonstrated receptiveness and which did not. Then we developed an algorithm to identify which words and phrases make a piece of text feel more or less receptive.
This work led us to identify four strategies that can help us leverage conversational receptiveness in even the most heated disagreements and politicized conversations.
1. Acknowledge the other person’s perspective. Acknowledging the views of someone you disagree with by saying “I understand that …” or “I believe what you’re saying is…” shows that you are engaged in the conversation. Acknowledgment can also include thanking the person with whom you disagree for sharing their perspective.
Saying “thank you, because…” allows us to acknowledge that there’s something of value in someone’s perspective, even if you don’t agree with him or her, unpublished research by Stanford research scientist Xuan Zhao and her colleagues has found. The “thank you” is crucial: A growing body of research suggests that niceties can lead to better conversations and more prosocial behavior. A simple expression of gratitude can make others feel valued and trusted and thus open up lines of communication.
The “because” is just as important: It encourages people to focus on the “why” and to really listen to each other and respond appropriately. It also makes it less likely that someone will interpret your criticism as a personal insult. Acknowledgment does not mean agreeing with what the other person is saying or thinking. But it shows that we listened and understood that there is a different perspective presented.
2. Hedge your claims. In subtle and not-so-subtle ways, our society conveys the message that we should be strong and confident — that we should grab what we want and express our views in a direct, forceful way. By contrast, being tentative, faltering, or uncertain earns us the reputation of being weak and indecisive. Assertiveness and extraversion are prized, while humility is shameful. But we have this wrong. Indicating some uncertainty about our claims, or hedging, signals receptiveness. For example, saying to someone that “allowing people to make their own choices when it comes to flexible work might increase their commitment to the organization” expresses more uncertainty and sounds less dogmatic than “allowing people to make their own choices when it comes to flexible work will undoubtedly increase their commitment to the organization.” Consequently, it is likely to be better received.
3. Phrase your arguments in positive terms. It is easy, during conflict, to use negative terms — for instance, to point to arguments the other person made that we should not give weight to. Instead, use positive language. For instance, you might say, “Let’s consider the possible benefits of having fewer people working on the marketing initiative” rather than “We should not have any more people working on the marketing initiative.” The latter sounds definite and negative in tone, signaling that the speaker is not open to the possibility of further discussion or other perspectives.
4. Point to areas of agreement, even if small or obvious. When we’re in conflict, it’s easy to focus on all the ways we disagree with each other. It’s also easy to become defensive and stop listening to the other side altogether. But across multiple studies, we’ve found that even when people passionately disagree, they usually have some shared values or common beliefs that can bring them together. Those are the values and beliefs to highlight; doing so makes us feel closer to one another. For example, in a disagreement involving pandemic protocols, one person might say, “I agree that we both want this pandemic to end…” or “I agree that social distancing can be hard on children…”
By using these four strategies in our communication, we’ll be able to engage in even the most heated conversations more productively. In fact, research that my colleagues and I conducted confirms that we can learn to be receptive. In some of our studies, we trained people to be more receptive and then observed whether others viewed them as such. Specifically, we gave some participants five minutes of training in using receptive language and then had them write a response to an essay written by a person they disagreed with on a given set of issues. For instance, one issue was about campus sexual assault (“When a sexual assault accusation is made on a college campus, the alleged perpetrator should be immediately removed from campus to protect the victim’s well-being.”). Participants in a control group wrote their response using their natural conversational style.
We assigned other participants to respond to one of these pieces of writing — specifically, to an essay by someone whose views they disagreed with. Those writers who had been trained in receptiveness communication were more successful at persuading readers to shift their beliefs on important social issues, the results showed. They were also more sought-after partners for future conversations and were seen as having better judgment.
In another study, we identified Wikipedia threads containing personal attacks in the talk pages of popular articles as well as threads for the same article (with a similar length and date) that did not contain a personal attack. This data allowed us to examine the effect of receptiveness in the sometimes-contentious editorial process of correcting Wikipedia articles. We found that editors who were more receptive were less likely to incur personal attacks during editorial discussions. Communicating receptively prompted others to reciprocate by being receptive themselves.
The lesson is that even when discussing the most difficult topics, it is possible for people with polar-opposite points of view to have a constructive conversation. By using the techniques I’ve described, we can bridge our divides.