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How to have impossible conversations - Peter Boghossian / James Lindsay…

- - - - Be discourteous or uncivil.
      - Display anger.
      - Raise your voice and talk over someone.
      - Intentionally be disrespectful.
      - Ridicule and blame someone.
      - Laugh at someone.
      - Attack a position before understanding it.
      - Display an unwillingness to hear your conversation partner’s arguments.
      - Adopt the least charitable interpretation of someone’s words.
      - Accuse someone of being stupid if they ask a question or say they don’t understand.
      - Punish people for making mistakes or asking for help, information, or feedback.64
      - Lash out at someone for speculating.
      - Attack a person who holds a belief rather than the belief. (“Only a moron could believe that.”)
      - View people as being “ignorant, incompetent, negative, or disruptive.
      - Be dishonest with yourself about what you believe.
      - Pretend to know something you don’t know.
      - Fail to say “I don’t know” if you don’t know.
      - Focus on the belief instead of how the belief is known. (That is, focus on conclusions and not epistemologies. For example, “The death penalty isn’t murder, those people deserved it,” as opposed to, “What are the reasons one would think the death penalty is justified?”)
      - Suggest that a person can’t really know something because of the color of their skin or other immutable attribute.
      - Don’t change your mind when presented with new and compelling evidence.
      - Obfuscate (especially when someone asks you a direct question).
      - Deliver messages.
      - Fail to acknowledge vulnerability.66
      - Insist that the extremists on your side are acting rationally.
      - Correct someone’s grammar (it’s annoying).
      - Call someone out for a moral transgression in a way that interrupts, distracts from, or takes away from the flow or content of their message.
      - Interrupt.
      - Finish others’ sentences for them.
      - Bully someone into having a conversation.
      - Let yourself be bullied into having a conversation.
      - Look at your phone while having a discussion.67
      - Name-drop.68
      - Be negative and complain.69
      - Brag.70
      - Refuse to disengage until there is a burned bridge.
  - - - Absent solid evidence about how to have effective conversations across social media platforms, we strongly suggest discussing charged issues only if absolutely necessary (and we can’t imagine what conditions would make it absolutely necessary) and only once solid evidence emerges for how to do so productively.
      - Conversations on social media may have certain benefits (you may feel better when you vent) and offer certain advantages (like not having to react in real time28), but they otherwise put an already difficult discussion into “hard mode.”
      - One fact about having divisive conversations or sharing provocative material on social media seems evident, however: it damages relationships and contributes to our toxic social media environment.
      - As a species, we evolved to converse face-to-face. When looking at someone, it’s usually easy to read tone, body language, and facial expressions.29 Text-based communication removes these vital cues.
      - Second, many social media conversations happen in a digital public space. These venues present towering barriers and complexities. A good conversation can rapidly be spoiled by the addition of a provocative or belligerent third party—or twenty of them. More significantly, when people have a public conversation they put their pride on the line; consequently, we tend to cling even more tightly to our views in a public forum than in private
      - First, when people post something on social media, unless explicitly stated, they probably do not want their belief to be corrected. Usually their purpose is to have their view confirmed.
      - Best Practices for Engaging Conversation on Social Media
        
        Remember: when a post is “deleted” it still remains on servers (this is true for Facebook, Snapchat, and even your text messages).
        Before you post, remember that whatever you send will be saved for a long, long time.
        
        Never post (or answer emails, or even enter online conversations) when you’re angry.
        If someone’s reply to you makes you “see red,” that’s a sure sign you should not reply to it until you’ve calmed down completely.
        
        You do not owe a response to anyone on social media because they’ve engaged you.
        If you feel you must respond to a heated social media comment, then reach out to the person privately.36 Most social media platforms allow private messaging. Alternatively, you can simply email or call the person and respectfully ask if they’d like to discuss their post. (Notice how this is formed as a question, not a command.)
        
        Never argue on Twitter.
        The 280-character architecture of the platform is not conducive to nuance, and the platform is particularly susceptible to problems like dog-piling, in which many people gang up, often rudely, on someone perceived as guilty of an offense.
        
        Avoid religion, politics, and most philosophy on your personal Facebook page.
        The unique social structure of the Facebook environment is not conducive to religious, political, and most philosophical arguments.37 It’s also prudent to minimize your engagement with religious and political posts on Facebook (as it is unfortunately structured to display your engagement publicly to your friends, which is similar to you posting the material yourself).
        
        If you absolutely, positively cannot control yourself, set up an anonymous Twitter account and rage at the ether.
        
        Don’t tag anyone (which is usually abusive), just start discharging your anger, in all caps if necessary.
  - - - It almost always helps a political and moral conversation to find areas of moral agreement. There’s one easy point of agreement available in almost every conversation: point out how extremists on your side go too far.
      - your partner across a divide is likely to unfairly attach beliefs about extremists “on your side” to you
      - Extremism fosters tribalism, polarization, unwarranted skepticism, distrust, defensiveness, and (frustratingly) unfair caricatures of the other side’s views.24 Worse, extremism on one side drives people to reciprocate with extremism on an opposing side (think of neo-Nazis and antifa). You can turn this disadvantage to your advantage, however, by explicitly disavowing your side’s extremists.
    - - Identify how “your side” goes too far.
        
        If you try to figure it out and can’t, there’s a good chance you’re part of the problem and should moderate your views. The easiest way to find out what your side is doing wrong is to ask someone on the other side, listen, temporarily set aside your ego and social identity, and believe them.
      - Do not bring up extremists on “their side.”
        
        This is for them to do, or not. Don’t make your conversation transactional by assuming that because you made some step toward acknowledging extremists on your side that you’re owed reciprocity.
      - Never defend indefensible behavior.
        
        Placing yourself on the political Left in a civil society is not sufficient license to defend riots, violence, or injuring police officers. Being on the political Right is not sufficient to justify defending racist displays or determinedly obstructionist politics that jeopardize national interests such as threatening default on our national debt. Take a stand against troublemakers on your side. Clearly state that extremists do not represent you, your views, or your values, and then, if appropriate, explain why. When the choice is before you, always stand with something bigger than “your side” by standing for civil society, productive dialogue, and compromise over extremism.
      - Identify extremists as “fanatics,” “zealots,” and “radicals.”
        
        Your partner is likely to agree. This also acts as a bridge toward realizing the proverb “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”
      - Treat their side charitably.
        
        Your partner is likely to agree. This also acts as a bridge toward realizing the proverb “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”
      - Check yourself for extremism and keep it out of your conversations.
        
        Try to be cognizant of ways you’ve adopted extremist or essentializing views (like “Conservatives are fascists” or “Liberals are smug busybodies”) and work to uproot those beliefs in yourself. Find other ways to express your concerns more realistically and fairly.
  - - - People don’t want to be blamed when bad things happen, especially when it isn’t all their fault. Rather than openly discussing an issue, then, the blamed usually attempt to redirect the conversation, often by denying the accusation, diminishing its importance, or hurling back blame in retaliation
      - The Harvard Negotiation Project noted that there is an effective alternative to introducing blame into conversations. Instead of blame, invite people to collaboratively look for contributions.44 That is, work together with people to get a more comprehensive picture of what happened so you can move forward toward solutions that address all aspects of the problem. Contributions are made by everyone, and most problems have more than one contributor. Blame, however, is one-sided
      - Blame is something laid upon someone. For example, “You did this!” It’s past tense and judgmental. Identifying contributions is a joint, interactive approach to understanding a broader picture of how a state of affairs came to be; the idea of contribution is about understanding and forward thinking. When we understand the constellation of factors that contributed to our circumstance, we’re ideally situated to solve those problems going forward
    - - Use the word contribution.
        Say, “What factors contributed to [X]?” and “What’s your opinion about what contributed to that?” (Notice these are calibrated questions.)
      - Avoid saying, “X caused Y,” for example, “Right-wing media caused Republicans to vote for Trump.”
        “X caused Y” statements are both very difficult to prove and a subtle form of attributing blame. Especially in complicated systems like politics and social dynamics, many factors may have contributed, and are causative, but are not the cause.
      - Don’t say “both sides do it” when bad behavior is pointed out about your side.
        Stating “both sides do it” is a way to switch from contribution back to blame. It’s defensive. If you’re a conservative and a liberal says, “Conservatives tend to ignore facts to push an agenda,” don’t reply, “Well, yeah, both sides do it.” Instead, acknowledge but don’t deflect when your side has been criticized. Say, “Yeah, that’s true. Conservatives sometimes do that.” Leave it at that.
      - If you reach a point where you just cannot avoid introducing blame into the conversation, whether to blame the person with whom you’re speaking or the political group with which they identify, ask your partner, “Because I feel strongly tempted to blame the Democrats for this problem, can you please help explain the logic the Democratic side uses to justify their actions?”
        If you have the courage to take it a step further, invite them to share their views on how they feel your side contributed. If you can see your side’s contributions for what they are, it can help dissolve the urge to blame someone else
  - - - When your questions are open-ended, meaning questions that allow your partner to talk at length about her thoughts in her own words (not give single-word answers like “yes” and “no”), they invite conversations. Hostage negotiator Chris Voss terms certain open-ended questions “calibrated questions.
        
        A calibrated question usually starts with how or what. How and what questions don’t lend themselves to yes-and-no responses as do questions beginning with can, is, are, does, and do.20 For example, ask, “How does this seem to you?” as opposed to “Does this look good?” When in doubt, start with how or what.
    - - Once you’ve selected a topic, narrow it down and clearly state it in question format.
        
        Say, “Just so that I’m clear, the question here is [X], yeah?” Listen to your partner’s response and modify the question accordingly. If the question needs to be reformed, then restate the new formation, saying, “Okay, I think I got it now. So the question is [X], yes?” This is an example where a closed question is useful, but only after it has been set up.
        
        If they still don’t agree with your formulation of the question, say, “What do you think the question should be?” or “How would you phrase the question?” Notice that these are both calibrated questions.
      - If the conversation goes astray, bring it back to the original question.
        
        Say, “We were discussing X, let’s get back to that if it’s okay,” or “We started discussing X, but somewhere along the way we became sidetracked. Can we get back to X?”
        
        Alternatively, if you don’t want to revisit your initial question, don’t. If your conversation strays to more interesting territory, and you’d like to pursue that, then try to articulate another question as you begin a new discussion.
      - Be authentic.
        
        The best questions show you’re sincerely interested in exploring answers as opposed to asking a question to achieve some goal.21 People respect—and crave—authenticity and distrust gimmicks. If you are genuinely interested in your discussion question it will show.22
      - Do not disguise statements as questions and avoid leading questions that carry an agenda.
        
        For example, “How do you think the Republicans came to be indifferent to the plight of poor people?” The question is considered “leading,” even though it’s superficially calibrated, because it assumes the other person’s in agreement that the Republicans are callous about the poor. This is an inauthentic means of communicating that either pretends you aren’t arguing when you are or pretends you don’t have an agenda. This is likely to backfire if the person with whom you’re speaking doesn’t share your assumptions.
      - Ask calibrated “How…?” and “What…?” questions.
        
        Calibrated questions are open-ended and give the conversation an opportunity to develop in the directions you hope they’ll go. In general, avoid closed questions (like yes-or-no questions) unless you want to clarify, stop obfuscation, or seek confirmation that you have correctly understood your partner’s thoughts.
  - - - Culture (it’s true because “everyone” believes it).
        
        Definition (it’s true or good or bad because of the way it’s defined; for example, eating too much broccoli is bad by definition because too much of anything is bad).
        
        Religion (it’s true because it’s taught in his place of worship and/or in his holy book).
        
        Reason (it’s true because it can be reasoned to).
        
        Evidence (it’s true because there’s sufficient evidence to warrant belief).
        
        Personal experience and feelings (he feels it’s true in his heart).
    - - Make a brief, positive statement before probing someone’s epistemology.
        
        Say, “That’s an interesting perspective. What leads you to conclude that?” Or, “Okay, cool. I think I understand, but I’m not sure. How does that work?” (Notice how these are calibrated, inviting questions, “What leads…” and “How does…,” as opposed to commands, “Explain that to me,” and noncalibrated questions, “Can you tell me…”.) These very brief, initial positive statements, which act as a type of micro rapport building, may help your conversation partner feel more comfortable and thus be more likely to share her thoughts.
      - Ask “outsider questions.”
        
        Outsider questions help people view their beliefs as someone unfamiliar with those beliefs would view them.55 For example, Muslims view Pentecostal beliefs about speaking in tongues as bizarre; Pentecostals view the common Muslim belief about Mohammad flying to heaven on a winged horse (Buraq) as bizarre; Scientologists view both beliefs as bizarre; and Pentecostals and Muslims view the Scientologist belief that we have memories going back trillions of years as equally outlandish.56 Outsider questions can help people view their beliefs from the perspective of an outsider.57 Say, “Would every reasonable person draw the same conclusion?”58 If the person says yes, follow up with, “I’m a sincere, reasonable person and I’m having trouble drawing the same conclusion. How do I get there?” or “How come there are so many divergent opinions? I mean, why is it that when two people look at the same evidence they come away with different conclusions? How does one figure out whose belief is true and whose is false?”
        Here are more examples of outsider questions: “Many people who live in [place] believe [contradictory belief]. How would they think about this belief?” (Notice this is not personalized by saying “your belief.” The words you and your evoke a defensive posture.) “Many Catholics who live in Mexico City believe that the path to Heaven lies in staying in good standing with the church. How would they think about salvation by faith alone?” Similarly, “If someone who believed that had been born in another region of the world, and raised there since birth, what would they likely believe?” These questions may help people examine their views from a different angle. They’re also subtle ways that invite people to reflect on their epistemology.
      - Start your conversation in wonder.
        
        Ask yourself, “How did my conversation partner arrive at this conclusion? What was their reasoning process? Why does someone believe that? What are someone’s reasons for thinking that’s a good idea? What would an external observer who has no opinion of the subject think? Is the person’s belief supported by her reasons?” If you’re genuinely wondering “How could someone come to believe that?” you’re more likely to adopt a learning posture and less likely to become frustrated
      - If someone’s reasoning makes no sense, there’s a good chance they reason that way to justify a (moral) belief that cannot otherwise be justified.
        
        Ask, “Do you use that reasoning process for anything else, or just X?” or “Can you please give me an example of some other issue where you use that same reasoning process?”
        
        Alternatively, use examples in the form of questions and ask whether that reasoning makes sense when applied to other issues
        
        The key is to get your partner to focus on reasoning.
      - Try to derive other conclusions from their reasoning process.
        
        EG - The enemy puts antiaircraft guns in civilian living areas.
        Blowing up the guns will cause civilian deaths.
        Therefore, we shouldn’t blow up the guns.
        
        VS - The enemy puts antiaircraft guns in civilian living areas. Blowing up the guns will cause civilian deaths.
        Therefore, it’s even more urgent that we take out the guns to prevent the combatants from expanding and doing this to more civilians when the problem becomes too big to ignore later.
  - - - Though many arguments seem to be about matters of substance, they’re often just disagreements about the meanings of words
        
        One clue you’re caught in such a situation is that you want to appeal to a dictionary. (Appealing to a dictionary to adjudicate the meaning of words isn’t very helpful because people use words in different ways and because meanings vary across contexts. For examples, think about faith, woman, and, as we’ve just seen, diversity.)
      - Disagreements about definitions can easily derail moral conversations because words can signify profoundly different things to different people. (As Peter explained in A Manual for Creating Atheists, religious people and atheists have disagreements about the meaning of the word faith.12 It’s thus important to clarify the meaning of that word in particular before a conversation continues.)
        
        If you can’t agree upon the meaning of a word that’s central to the conversation (truth, woman, welfare), then you can either move on to another issue or discontinue the conversation
    - - Define words up front.
        Say, “What do you mean by [X]?” or “How is [X] defined?”
      - Try to understand the context in which a word is being used.
        Ask, “Do you use that word in the same way in other contexts too? What would be an example of that?” For example, “I’m trying to figure out how the word [X] is being used here. Is there an example of the word [X] being used in another context that has the same meaning?”
      - Go with their definitions.
        If you’ve asked your partner for a definition, and they provide it, accept their definition and move forward. If you cannot accept their definition of a term that’s crucial to the conversation, then move on to another issue or end the conversation.
      - Be attentive to a word’s moral implication.
        If a word has moral significance, your partner may have convinced themselves of the truth of their belief because they think that holding that belief makes them a better person.16 That is, they’ve likely worked backward from believing the belief makes them a better person to then finding evidence for the belief. (Their moral mind is overriding their rational mind.) For example, moral reasoning often follows this pattern: Jon believes good people believe X. Jon believes he’s a good person, so Jon believes he should believe X. Jon then looks for evidence to support X and tends to believe X as a result, while believing he believes X based on the evidence he has found
  - - - bring the conversation back to epistemology, that is, attempt to understand how they know what they think they know. If you can learn the process they used to lead them to their beliefs, then you’ll be better positioned in future discussions and you’ll have honed your skills as an epistemological detective
      - You may even tap into their own Unread Library Effect or get them to begin to doubt the epistemology behind their beliefs.
    - - Learn your conversation partner’s epistemology.
        
        Ask a question designed to reveal how they know what they think they know. Say, “How do you know that?” or “How’d you arrive at that conclusion?”
      - Be explicit.
        
        Say, “I want to learn” and “What more can you tell me [about X] so I can learn where you’re coming from?” (This only works if you’re sincere. If not, it will come across as condescending.)
      - If civility is your primary goal, or if productive conversation is impossible, make learning your go-to.
        
        If you just want to get through a family reunion, learning is your emergency exit that allows you to make almost any conversation civil. Adopt a frame of mind in which you are engaging in a study of someone with radically different beliefs than yours and try to learn all you can about how they form their beliefs.
  - - - Unread Library Effect.
        
        our tendency to believe we’re more knowledgeable than we are because we believe in other people’s expertise. Think about this like borrowing books from the great library of human knowledge and then never reading the books. We think we possess the information in the books because we have access to them, but we don’t have the knowledge because we’ve never read the books, much less studied them in depth
        
        Having someone explain in as much detail as possible the thing they feel strongly about without correcting or intervening will move people from a strong belief to a moderate belief if it reveals that they know a lot less about a subject than they think they do
        
        That is, helping people understand they’re relying upon borrowed knowledge leads them to introduce doubt for themselves and thus has a moderating effect on people’s beliefs.
        
        Taking advantage of this phenomenon, then, confers at least two significant benefits in an intervention.
        
        First, it allows your conversational partner to do most of the talking, which affords you the opportunity to listen and prevents them from feeling as though you’re trying to change their mind. Second, they lead themselves into doubt rather than feeling pressured by someone else.
        
        Modeling ignorance is an effective way to help expose the Unread Library Effect because, as the name implies, the Unread Library Effect relies upon information about which your conversation partner is ignorant—even though she doesn’t realize it.
        
        In essence, you want her to recognize the limits of her knowledge. Specifically, then, you should model behavior highlighting the limits of your own knowledge
        
        This has 3 merits:
        
        It creates an opportunity for you to overcome the Unread Library Effect, that is, thinking you know more about an issue than you do.
        
        It contributes to a climate of making it okay to say “I don’t know,” and thus gives tacit permission to your partner to admit that she doesn’t know.
        
        It’s a subtle but effective strategy for exposing the gap between your conversation partner’s perceived knowledge and her actual knowledge.
        
        It’s worth repeating that this strategy not only helps moderate strong views, it models openness, willingness to admit ignorance, and readiness to revise beliefs. Modeling intellectually honest ignorance is a virtue that seasoned conversation partners possess—and it is fairly easy to achieve.
    - - Say “I don’t know” when you don’t know.
        Not knowing something isn’t a badge of shame, it’s a public display of honesty, humility, and sincerity. Commend people when they say, “I don’t know.”
      - If you ask someone a direct question and they obfuscate or refuse to answer, ask them to ask you the same question. (See the example of stoning women for adultery at the beginning of this section.)
        Give them a succinct answer (that is, model what you’re seeking) and then immediately ask them the identical question.
      - Model the behavioral traits that are key to effective, successful conversations: listening, honesty (especially admitting ignorance), sincerity, curiosity, openness, fairness, charity (not assuming bad intentions), focusing on justifications for belief, humility, humor, give-and-take, and willingness to change your mind.
      - From admitting you don’t know enough to hold a firm position on a topic, ask for explanations, in as much detail as possible, about your partner’s beliefs.
        Remember, Sloman and Fernbach’s research showed that attempting to explain complicated topics often reveals the Unread Library Effect and has the result of toning down views.8 The more details you can ask your partner to provide (for example, “What branch of law enforcement conducts mass deportations?” “What departments’ budgets does this come out of and how much does it cost?” “What are the laws currently regulating the deportation of immigrants?” “What are the best arguments against those laws?” “Where are deportees held?” “What might go wrong?”), the stronger the effect.
      - Expose your own Unread Library Effect.
        Pick political topics that are important to you and try to explain how they work in as much detail as possible. Be specific about impacts and implementation. For additional practice, try it with everyday objects like your coffee maker or scientific processes, like how the semiconductors in electronics work. These make good examples to practice with, unlike complicated political positions, because they’re easily checked online.
      - Model clarity; avoid jargon.
        Strive for clarity. And unless you’re a quantum physicist, avoid using the word quantum.
      - Do not model bad behavior.
        Don’t interrupt people or treat them rudely. If you want to be treated with kindness and civility, be kind and civil. Most poignantly, if you want your views to be treated charitably, treat your partner’s views charitably.
- - - - If you’re unclear about what someone means, place the burden of understanding upon yourself.
        
        At a pause point in the discussion, say, “I’m not sure I understand. Can you explain that?” Avoid saying, “That was unclear,” or “That doesn’t make sense,” and especially, “You were unclear.”
      - The moment you sense fear, frustration, anger, outrage, or disgust from your conversation partner, pay attention to the specific words she uses.
        
        Fear, frustration, and the others, are feelings. One of the best ways to sort out feelings, especially in strained conversations, is to listen and acknowledge them as soon as possible.
        
        Repeat specific feeling words, for example, “I hear that. I understand your
        frustration.”28 Acknowledgment through use of the same words can potentially direct the conversation away from conflict.29 If nothing else, this demonstrates that you were listening.
      - If you find yourself distracted by something in your immediate environment, either turn your back toward the distraction or explicitly identify what’s distracting to you.
      - If you start to fade or find yourself distracted when someone is talking to you, look them directly in the eyes and state, “I’m sorry. Can you please repeat that?”
        
        If you find yourself persistently distracted to the extent that it interferes with your listening, then it is likely time to end the conversation.
      - 4: Pause - Pauses are crucial moments when people reflect. Do not rush to fill them. Pauses may build trust and rapport while offering you a chance to understand your partner’s reasoning.
        
        In Western cultures, people tend to be uncomfortable with even a moment of conversational silence (these are sometimes termed “lacunas”). Rather than a problem that needs to be solved, pauses should be viewed as opportunities; a moment of unbroken silence offers a “reflection event” for participants.
      - If you and your partner accidentally speak at the same time, and your partner continues while you remain silent and listen, when you resume the conversation do not do so with the words that caused the interruption.
      - Unless your partner is searching for a word and you know it, do not finish their sentences
        
        Listen. Do not jump in to speak before having heard and processed what they’re saying. Listen.
        If at any point the conversation becomes tense, listen more, talk less, and don’t rush to fill silence with words. Wait. It is difficult to have an adversarial relationship with someone who’s an excellent listener.
      - Do not pull out your phone when you are having a conversation.
        
        This is true even if you would like to search for more information on the topic.
      - Look directly at someone and turn your body toward them
        
        Nod to acknowledge when you understand. This cannot be an act. Listen authentically. Fully engage
      - Say, “I hear you,” to acknowledge you’re listening.
        
        Mean it. “I hear you” is simple yet effective.
      - “Go—” “No, you go.”
        
        If you start to speak at the same time as someone else, don’t continue speaking. Instead, say, “Go ahead.” If they say, “No, you go,” respond, “That’s okay, you go,” and then let them speak.
  - - - Distinguish between delivering a message and authentic conversation.
        
        Delivering a message feels like teaching, whereas a conversation has give-and-take that rewards with learning. If you find yourself thinking, “If they only understood this point, they’d change their mind,” you’re delivering a message.
        
        Ask yourself, “Was I invited to share this, or am I just telling them?” If it’s the latter, you’re probably coming across as a messenger.
      - Approach every conversation with an awareness that your partner understands problems in a way that you don’t currently comprehend.
        
        You’ll be less likely to deliver messages if you’re more focused on figuring out how someone knows what they know than if you presume to understand the reasoning behind someone’s conclusions.
      - Don’t meet their message delivery with your message delivery.
        
        That’s not a conversation, but an invitation to debate. It’s a message delivery service and a recipe for frustration and deepening someone’s commitment to their beliefs. Remember: nobody likes to be lectured; in tense conversations, people care more about their message than about those it seems to contradict.
      - When you realize your partner is being a messenger, do not shoot the messenger.
        
        If you shoot the messenger in your partner, you will destroy rapport and may derail the conversation. “Shooting messengers” should only be a self-inflicted act: take aim at your own messenger.
        
        If your partner enters messenger mode, begin a listening and learning mode centering on asking questions. Questions can be an effective way to nudge the conversation back on track. They are also integral to intervention techniques described in later chapters.
      - Deliver your message only upon your partner’s explicit request.
        
        Be succinct. Then return to a collaborative mind-set that’s centered upon listening and learning. Thank them for listening and ask if they have a reply. Say, “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to say that. I appreciate it. Any thoughts you’d like to add?”
  - - - Rapport is a kind of friendliness. When you’ve built rapport with your conversation partner you experience a closeness where you both feel comfortable, get along, mutually empathize, and work toward building trust
      - It is the most important element in having simple, friendly chats that avoid divisive issues and bring people together, and the same magic of friendliness it produces is indispensable for goal-directed conversations
      - If viewing conversations as partnerships does most of the work toward having great conversations, establishing and maintaining a friendly atmosphere improves the situation even further
      - The more individuals diverge in their stances, the more important it is to build and maintain rapport.18 Moreover, “As this connection grows, the [person with whom you’re speaking] is less likely to be defensive and more open to suggestion
      - To build rapport, ask sincere questions (that is, questions for which you’d like to find answers, as opposed to asking questions as a tactic). For strangers, movies, music, how they know mutual friends, and the like, are good topics for starting to build rapport. If you’re already familiar with someone, then spend a little time catching up: how are their kids, parents, new house, and so forth? As a general rule, depending on the context, rapport building at the beginning of a conversation takes only a few minutes
    - - Build rapport immediately.
        
        Do not start the conversation with a substantive issue, especially if it is controversial.
      - If you do not know someone, here are a few obvious initial questions to begin the rapport-building process:
        
        Hi. My name is X. How are you?
        
        Nice to meet you, I’m X. What’s your name?
        
        This is my first time here. How did you find out about this place?
        
        Immediately after those initial ice-breaking questions, you can ask rapport-building questions that explore people’s motivations and interests:
        
        What got you interested in that?
        
        How do you spend most of your free time? What are you passionate about? (Don’t ask “What do you do?” as this rarely reveals someone’s passions.22)
        
        What do you like to be called?23
        
        Where’d you learn about that
      - Find common ground.
        
        There are countless things you and your conversation partner have in common
        Be mindful of these commonalities if your conversation becomes heated.
        
        One automatic commonality all but psychopaths have in common is an impulse for the good: you both want the best for yourselves, your friends, and your community. While you might diverge on what those outcomes would look like, living better lives is a foundational commonality.
      - Do not parallel talk
        
        Parallel talk is taking something someone says and using that to reference yourself or your experiences. For example, if someone tells you they just got back from Cuba, don’t starting talking about the time you went to Cuba. Ask them about their experience in Cuba. Don’t make their stories about your life. Parallel talk damages rapport.
      - Invest in the relationship, independent of your political views.
        
        Friendships engender trust and openness, which act like bridges across divides. Remember the adage, “No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”
      - Engage in substantive conversation only if you’re willing to make time.
        
        Do not rush and do not “hit and run.” If you can’t substantively engage someone’s ideas, leave it for a time when you can. It impairs rapport to force or speed through conversations.26 If your time is limited, use the moments you have to build rapport or catch up.
      - Be ready to talk about something else.
        
        You know that uncle who ruins your family get-togethers because he just can’t leave his religion or politics alone? Don’t be that person. If the conversation gets sticky, be ready to change the subject to something less serious. If the conversation has moved on from a contentious issue, don’t be the one to bring it back up. Forcing issues destroys rapport.
      - Avoid call-outs, except for severe infractions.
        
        Calling out someone means telling them, usually immediately, and in a harsh way that aims at inducing shame, that they have crossed a moral boundary. This is often followed with moral instruction, for example, “You should do this…” or “You shouldn’t do that…” Calling someone out, especially midstream in their thought, damages rapport.
        
        Find a more delicate and better-timed way to bring up your concerns. Chances are, your partner is doing the best she can to express her thoughts. Rather than calling out her offenses, try to make sense of what she is saying and appreciate her authenticity, however rough around the edges.
        
        Of course, if someone is deliberately
        rude or abusive, you should stand up for yourself, say something, and set clear boundaries—or end the conversation.
      - Be courteous
        
        Say “please” and “thank you.” Also, say “I appreciate that” after someone offers a counterargument or disagrees with something you’ve said.
  - - - The intentions and motivations you assume in your conversation partner are likely worse than their actual intentions and motivations.
    - - How to apply this
        
        If your partner assumes you have bad intentions, do not waste time trying to convince her otherwise.
        Instead, switch the conversation from your intentions to your reasoning. Say, “I absolutely do not want to be wrong for one more instant than I have to be. If something is wrong with my reasoning, please let me know.
        
        If you start to assume your partner has bad intentions, switch to a frame of curiosity.
        Consider that they may know something you do not know. Explicitly ask about the issue. Say, “I’m having a hard time understanding where you’re coming from. I assume you must know some things about this that I don’t. Could you tell me more about where you’re coming from on that so I can understand better?”
        
        Admit frustration.
        Say, “I’m feeling frustrated. I want to understand where you’re coming from. I’m also unclear about your intention. Could you tell me, what is your intention?” This is an open-ended question that leaves room for interpretation. If they respond, “What do you mean, what’s my intention?” reply, “What are your hopes for this conversation? What would you like to get out of it?”
        Often people you find frustrating are just trying to help; equally often, they’re doing so from the messenger stance. That’s why they frustrate you.
        
        “Do not feed the trolls.”
        In Internet-speak, trolls are people who have bad intentions and act maliciously. Trolls are toxic to conversations.45 Let them waste their time. Stop playing their game. Block or mute their accounts.
        You’re under no obligation to engage someone whose goal is to irritate you. Never be bullied into having a conversation. Have a conversation because you want to, not because you are being harassed for not speaking to someone. Consent applies to all participants.
  - - - Give your partner room to decline the conversational invitation, not answer your questions, or end the conversation at any time. -
        Do not pressure someone to converse if they’re uncomfortable participating.
      - Ask yourself, not your partner, “How could someone believe that?”; and ask it in earnest, with curiosity instead of incredulity. - As you try to figure out the answer, the likelihood increases that your conversation will stay on track and not turn nasty.
      - Make your goals of collaboration and understanding explicit. - Say, “I really want to understand what led you to those conclusions. I hope we can figure this out together.”
    - - The way to change minds, influence people, build relationships, and maintain friendships is through kindness, compassion, empathy, treating individuals with dignity and respect, and exercising these considerations in psychologically safe environments
      - It comes naturally to all of us to respond favorably to someone who listens, shows kindness, treats us well, and appears respectful. A sure way to entrench people in their existing beliefs, cause disunity, and sow distrust is through adversarial relationships and threatening environments
      - It is easy to dislike someone who is mean-spirited, treats you poorly, doesn’t listen, or disrespects you. You can doubtless recall examples from your own life.
      - Fortunately, it’s fairly easy to create trusting, safe communicative environments and avoid conflict
        
        View yourself as a conversation partner. That is, treat others as if you’re working together to have a fruitful conversation—because you are. Seeing your conversations as partnerships is the single biggest step you can take to ensuring conversations stay civil and to building relationships instead of damaging them. Adopting this stance is also surprisingly easy.
    - - Question: How do you switch from viewing people as opponents, moral degenerates, or even enemies to valued partners and collaborators?
        Answer: Shift your goal from winning to understanding.
      - Make understanding your conversation partner’s reasoning your (initial) goal
      - Abandon adversarial thinking (conflict, strife, arguing, debating, ridicule, and the idea of winning), and adopt collaborative thinking (cooperation, partnership, listening, and learning).
      - Shift from, “This person is my opponent who needs to understand what I’m saying,” to “This person is my partner in a conversation and I can learn from him—including learning exactly why he believes what he believes.”
      - One key to realizing you can have seemingly impossible conversations is recognizing that discussions are natural learning environments for both people. Treating an individual as a partner in civil dialogue does not mean accepting their conclusions or buying into their reasoning. (The mark of an educated mind, it has been said, is to understand a statement without having to accept it)
      - There’s a catch, of course. You can’t control someone else’s behavior. You can only control your own. So, you have to be the one who initially attempts to understand your conversation partner’s reasoning—even if they’re unwilling to reciprocate. You’ll also have to take an active role in establishing and maintaining the partnership dynamic and be ready to walk away if that becomes impossible. We’ll say more on this in the chapters that follow.
  - - - Know when to walk away, even when the conversation is going well
        
        Putting pressure on your partner to continue a discussion beyond their comfort level shuts down listening, encourages defensiveness, and turns the conversation into a frustrated rehearsal of why one of you is correct and the other dense. Consequently, your conversation partner may double down on his views and the rapport between you will erode, possibly hurting your friendship
        
        There may come a point when you’ve exhausted your options. Perhaps you have nothing left to say, you feel like you’ve been going around and around, or you’re at an impasse. A common mistake is to attempt to “fix” or reset conversations and then continue. Don’t. Instead, part amicably.
        
        People need time to consider
        
        Finally, try to end on a positive note. Sometimes even a simple “Thanks for chatting with me” is sufficient.
    - - End the conversation if your primary emotion is frustration
        If the discussion escalated to anger, you may need to walk away sooner than expected.51
      - Breathe.
        Literally. Breathe. When you initially feel yourself becoming frustrated, back off, slow down, don’t feel pressured to fill pauses with speech—and breathe.52 Take a deep breath.53 If you do not calm down, then end the conversation and walk away.
      - If someone wants to end the conversation, politely thank them for speaking with you
        Don’t engage someone past their comfort threshold..
      - If you think you have caused your partner to doubt one of her beliefs, that is a good time to stop the conversation.
        Allow her to explore her doubt, and to wonder about it on her own terms. If she continues to express curiosity, state that this is a good opportunity for both of you to think about these issues. You can then part ways or change the subject, depending upon the context.
        Attempting to fill your partner’s doubt and wonder with your beliefs is sometimes genuinely educational, but it can also be a form of evangelism. Don’t evangelize. It is an unethical abuse of the vulnerability that accompanies doubt to use it in an attempt to sway your partner (except in exceptional circumstances of genuine expertise or if someone holds a fantastically implausible, antiscientific belief).
      - Thank your partner when you end the conversation.
        The more you do not want to thank someone for the conversation, the more important it is to thank them. (There are exceptions to this. For example, if someone was smearing or harassing you.) Reticence to thank your conversation partner suggests an emotional attachment to the topic or that you have some personal issue with them that’s likely bled through into the discussion. Thanking someone for their time is a basic courtesy. Thanking someone will also help conversations end on an upbeat, friendly note.
  - - - Reaching mutual understanding (parties seek to understand each other’s position, but not necessarily to reach agreement).
      - Learning from each other (figuring out how other people arrived at their conclusions).
      - Intervening (attempting to change someone’s beliefs or their methods of forming beliefs).
      - Finding truth (collaboratively figuring out what’s true or correcting mistaken beliefs).
      - Impressing (parties seek to impress a conversational partner or someone who might be watching).
      - Yielding to coercion (feeling forced to speak with someone).
    - - Ask yourself, “Why am I having this discussion? What are my goals? What do I want to get out of this?” Your answer might be any of the instances above, or you might just want to keep your conversation light, friendly, and agreeable.
      - You can have more than one goal, have no particular goal, or change your goals mid-conversation. These are all fine, but you must be clear to yourself about your goals when beginning a discussion.
        
        Start by asking yourself whether you’re more interested in finding the truth or helping someone reconsider what they believe. Maybe it’s both, or maybe you’re leaning more heavily toward one than the other. Once you know your goals, use the conversational techniques that best help you achieve them
- - - - **#1—KEEP RAPOPORT’S RULES
        Re-express, list points of agreement, mention what you learned, only then rebut**
        
        The Russian-born American game theorist Anatol Rapoport had a list of rules for offering disagreement or criticism in conversations.
        
        Dennett neatly summarizes Rapoport’s Rules in his book Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking. If your goal is to engage someone successfully, take these steps in this order:
        
        Attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.”
        
        List any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
        
        Mention anything you have learned from your target.
        
        And only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism
        
        Adhering to Rapoport’s Rules can be difficult, especially in a heated discussion, but it will significantly advance the civility and effectiveness of your conversations.
        
        First, if you hold yourself to Rule 1, your conversation partner will know you’ve made a sincere attempt to understand their position.
        
        Second, by keeping to Rule 2, you’ll demonstrate shared commonalities. This is especially important if you’re across political, religious, or moral aisles, because it helps maintain common ground and a collaborative framework. Rule 2 also makes points of agreement explicit, so that if the conversation gets stuck or heated you can return to them as a way of advancing the conversation through rapport building.
        
        Third, Rule 3 models and helps foster an attitude of mutual learning and respect. If you’ve gleaned anything from your partner, pointing it out might encourage them to do the same. In the educational and corrections literature this is termed “pro-social modeling.”6 Pro-social modeling means demonstrating the behavior you want others to emulate; in the case of Rapoport’s Rules, you’re trying to model mutual respect and openness. Even if there’s no reciprocity, Rule 3 will help maintain a semblance of collaboration while showing your partner you value their input.
        
        Rapoport’s Rules are an amalgam of various skills, strategies, and themes presented in Chapters 1 through 3 (Modeling, Listen, Shoot the Messenger, Learn, etc.). When used in conjunction with other approaches, they help make conversations effective, engaging, and productive. The rules are also a safeguard against carelessness and thoughtlessness, because they force you to understand a position before criticizing, challenging, or refuting. They are, ultimately, a prophylactic against incivility.
      - 2—AVOID FACTS
        Do not bring facts into a conversation
        
        introducing facts into a conversation is likely to backfire unless done at the correct moment and with great care
        
        Bad Facts, Bad!
        
        The most difficult thing to accept for people who work hard at forming their beliefs on the basis of evidence is that not everyone forms their beliefs in that way
        
        Many people believe what and how they do precisely because they do not formulate their beliefs on the basis of evidence—not because they’re lacking evidence
        
        Few people form their beliefs on the basis of rigorous consideration of reasoned arguments. Complicating matters, most people believe they do have evidence supporting their beliefs (Ken Ham makes a career out of tricking himself into believing this) because they consider only those points that support what they already believe.
        
        Virtually everyone formulates most of their beliefs first and then subsequently looks for supporting evidence and convincing arguments that back them up
        
        Offering evidence—facts—almost never facilitates belief revision for any belief with moral, social, or identity-level salience
        
        Consequently, presenting someone with facts will almost never do what almost everyone thinks it will do, change minds.
        
        First, Do No Harm
        
        One reason you shouldn’t introduce facts or evidence is to avoid giving your conversation partner a reason to defend her positions. This is especially true if she’ll look foolish and “lose” by doing so
        
        If your goal is to help your partner change her mind, which it probably is if you’re willing to enter debate mode and introduce facts, evidence, and careful arguments, then your attempt to talk her out of certain beliefs is more likely to talk her into them. Introducing facts gives her a reason to defend her beliefs against those facts. She’ll then seek out arguments to dismiss your facts and selectively choose facts of her own to bolster her position.
        
        Introducing facts with the intention of changing someone’s mind, except under the extraordinarily rare circumstance when there’s no moral, social, or identity concern (discussed further in Chapter 7), gives your conversation partner a reason to become more entrenched in her beliefs. It also helps her develop and rehearse defenses against challenges to those beliefs, which can lead to believing her erroneous beliefs are based on solid evidence and sound reasoning
        
        So, What Should You Do?
        
        Ask questions that expose problems and contradictions. For example, if Sam believes the soul weighs seven pounds, ask, “Do you think four-pound babies have seven-pound souls?
        
        Focus on epistemology. Once you have a thorough understanding of why someone believes what they do, you can offer targeted questions that sever the link between their conclusion (the soul weighs seven pounds) and how they claim to know their conclusion (“A German scientist weighed bodies when people died and found they lost seven pounds”)
        
        Combine these two approaches with disconfirming questions (see Seek Disconfirmation, page 104). That is, ask what evidence would cause them to change their mind both about the soul’s weight and the reliability of how they know it has weight. Say, “What if that experiment couldn’t be replicated, would you change your mind?”
        
        There is one time, and one time only, to bring up facts in your conversation: when your partner explicitly makes the request. Even then, double-check. Avoid offering facts unless you’re certain of their accuracy and invite your partner to check them independently.
        
        If facts do enter the conversation, model intellectual humility by expressing your reservations. Say, “I could be wrong about this, but it’s my understanding that X” (Chapter 3, Modeling). People may ask for facts not out of curiosity but to initiate debate or to attempt to expose your ignorance (to win the debate they’re attempting to start). This trap can be partially avoided by stating, “I could be wrong about this,” or “To the best of my knowledge.”
        
        How to Navigate Facts in Your Conversations
        
        Do not introduce facts into your conversations.
        Do not turn conversations into debates by giving your conversation partner a reason to defend her beliefs. This is especially true if your goal is to instill doubt.
        
        If you cannot control yourself and feel compelled to introduce facts into the conversation, ask disconfirming questions about facts. When introducing facts, it is nearly always better to do so via questions than with statements because questions invite answers while statements may encourage arguments.
        Ask, “What facts or evidence would change your mind?” You’ll then know what facts you should introduce, but more importantly, you’ll understand how someone is conceptualizing the issue. You might ask someone who believes the soul enters the body at the moment of conception (a belief from which arguments about abortion and stem cell research arise) what evidence would change that belief. If she responds, “Some proof that the soul doesn’t enter the body at the moment of conception,” you might ask about the facts defining identical twins, who under religious traditions ostensibly have two souls but who are, at the moment of conception, just one ovum fertilized by one sperm.17 You could follow up your statement about identical twins by asking if the evidence you provided changed her belief.
        If you can provide the facts she seeks, do so with caution. If you cannot, say, “I don’t have that information. I can get back to you after I look into it.”
        
        If invited to introduce facts, double-check and make sure that’s what your conversation partner wants.
        If so, then before doing so say, “I may be wrong about this. It’s my understanding that…” This models humility and shows that your belief can be disconfirmed.
      - 4—YES, AND…
        Eliminate the word but from your spoken vocabulary
        
        Good Riddance, “But”
        
        Eliminate the word “but” from your spoken vocabulary. Switch to “and.” When stringing together ideas, do so with the word “and” whenever possible
        
        By adding “Yes, and…” you can acknowledge that your conversation partner’s opinion and your opinion can be simultaneously valid, even when there’s an apparent conflict.
        
        The word but is likely to evoke a defensive posture, especially when you and your partner are at odds. But places a conversational bump in the discussion by hindering the flow of ideas. But also negates superficial acknowledgment. Replying with, “Yeah, but…” isn’t an authentic way to acknowledge your partner. It’s more a way to challenge what your partner just said, and you’ve primed them to reject whatever you have to say afterward
        
        If you completely disagree and do not want to begin with “yes,” then use the word “interesting” and follow with “and.”
        
        Getting to And
        
        Remove “but” from your conversational vocabulary.
        
        Say, “Yes, and…” instead of “Yes, but…” or “No, but…”. If you disagree with someone’s statement, say, “Interesting, and…” Or “I hear you, and…”
        Adopting this habit is surprisingly difficult. Practice.
        
        If your view and your partner’s view can both be true, say so.
        
        String together multiple “ands” in the same or consecutive sentences.48 Say, “If I’m hearing you right, you’re saying X and I’m saying Y. And when I see things from your perspective, I see why X is true, and when I see them from my perspective, I see why Y is true.” For example, “I see why eliminating the capital gains tax might be bad in terms of deficits and I also can see why it might be good in terms of increasing employment.”
      - 3—SEEK DISCONFIRMATION
        How could that belief be incorrect?
        
        disconfirmation, noun
        The process or result of disconfirming a hypothesis, etc.; an instance of this
        
        disconfirm, verb
        To show that (a statement, hypothesis, etc.) is not or may not be true; to disprove, invalidate.
        
        Under What Conditions Could the Belief Be False?
        
        The single most effective technique to instill doubt and help people change their minds is to ask, “Under what conditions could [insert belief] be wrong?”19 This is called disconfirmation.
        
        If, hypothetically or in principle, a belief is disconfirmable, that means it can be dis-confirmed; in other words, there are conditions under which it could be false. If a belief is not disconfirmable, then there are no conditions under which it could be false. It is thus an absolute, immutable truth
        
        For example, the statement “There is intelligent life on other planets” is disconfirmable because, to paraphrase Carl Sagan, we could be the first. Someone has to be the first
        
        It is generally accepted that truths of logic and mathematics are not disconfirmable. For example, there are no conditions under which 7 + 5 does not equal 12. Similarly, certain statements are true by definition. For example, “A bachelor is an unmarried man” is not disconfirmable because “bachelor” is defined as “an unmarried man.” There are no conditions under which a bachelor is not an unmarried man, just as there are no conditions under which 7 + 5 does not equal 12.
        
        If your conversation partner recognizes conditions under which his belief could be false, that belief is disconfirmable.23 When he thinks there are no conditions under which his belief could be false, his belief is not disconfirmable and he regards that belief as an absolute, immutable truth. People who hold beliefs that cannot (in their minds) be disconfirmed, such as “Cloning humans is morally wrong,” “Abortion is morally justifiable,” and “Homosexuals should not be allowed to adopt children,” think they believe timeless, unconditional truths.
        
        We often try to change someone’s mind by endeavoring to teach something (usually by presenting evidence) or attempting to persuade someone to adopt an alternative belief. That is, we deliver a message (Chapter 2, Shoot the Messenger). This is a mistake. If your goal is to help your partner revise her beliefs, the easiest and fastest way to do this is by asking disconfirming questions
        
        Aliens Hijacked the Beer Truck
        
        How do you know that?” is a powerful question for helping people think, but it’s not the best question. The best question is, “How could that belief be wrong?
        
        How do you know that?” doesn’t “work” the way people want it to.
        Remember, people are prone to seek out confirming evidence for their beliefs while being blind to contradictory evidence, so they’re usually able to articulate (the selective) evidence they use to support their beliefs. This epistemological blind spot often has to be intervened upon directly to induce doubt.
        
        Both by asking, “How do you know that?” and by offering counterexamples, any reasons they provide will be used to further convince themselves their existing belief is true. You have, in a very real sense, further entrenched them in their beliefs. In such a case, you’ve conducted a reverse intervention. Instead of sowing doubt, you’ve increased their confidence that their beliefs are true.
        
        Thus, there are three general categories of disconfirmable belief:
        
        Not disconfirmable.
        
        Disconfirmable, but only under wildly implausible conditions.
        
        Disconfirmable
        
        1. Beliefs Are Not Disconfirmable: “I Can’t Be Wrong!”
        
        If someone states their belief is not disconfirmable, they’re claiming to be absolutely positive about an aspect of reality where the belief operates. Specifically, they’re claiming to know that it’s impossible for certain states of affairs to exist.
        
        Here’s how you should deal with a conversation partner who professes a non-disconfirmable belief: in the form of a question, present a possible state of affairs or a reason—but not evidence—for how the belief could be in error.
        
        Here’s how you should not deal with it: by bringing up counterevidence (remember the section immediately above this, “Avoid Facts”).
        
        If repeated disconfirming questions fail , you might want to reconsider your conversational goals. It might be that they hold the belief with unshakable confidence and it really is not disconfirmable (to them). There may be little point to having a discussion about the conditions under which a belief could be false if someone explicitly and emphatically tells you there are absolutely no conditions under which that belief could be false, and they discount any possible conditions that you raise.28 The way to figure out whether the belief really is disconfirmable is simply to present possible disconfirmability questions/conditions and to gauge their reactions.
        
        Typically, conversations like this can only get somewhere by shifting away from epistemology, that is, how someone knows what they think they know, to identity and morality questions (covered in more detail in Chapters 7) such as, “What personal qualities would lead someone to endorse this view? What about someone who disagrees?” (identity),
        
        This shift is significant because the majority of beliefs that are not disconfirmable are held because they relate to an individual’s sense of what it means to be a good person
        
        “belief in belief.”29 The underlying belief (that they should believe X because good people believe X, and thus that abandoning X would make them a worse person) is actually preventing them from seeing and acknowledging reasonable disconfirmation criteria.
        
        In other words, changing someone’s mind is sometimes not an intellectual or epistemological issue but a moral one.
        
        2. Disconfirmable but Under Wildly Implausible Conditions: “The Bones of Christ!”
        
        When asking disconfirming questions, you’ll sometimes encounter people who will say something so wildly implausible as to cause you to become perplexed
        
        Before proceeding with the conversation it’s a good time to evaluate the discussion and your goals. Your partner may also be mentally unstable, in which case it might be better to walk away. When in doubt, exit.
        
        When wildly implausible disconfirmation conditions are offered, the person’s belief may appear disconfirmable, but it is actually not. That’s because it’s not really operating on the level of facts and evidence; rather, it’s morally motivated
        
        The issue you must now address is not the belief or even how the person arrived at the belief; it’s the belief that they should (or should not) hold that particular belief. It’s their “belief in belief.”
        
        In most cases, people offering wildly implausible disconfirmation conditions know their belief is not objectively disconfirmable, but they’re offering the response to make themselves appear—either to themselves, you, or onlookers—fair, reasonable, and open-minded. It is difficult and frustrating to engage people who provide wildly implausible disconfirmation responses.
        
        This is because they often know (on some level) that the confidence they have in their beliefs is not warranted on the basis of the evidence, but they feel the moral need to continue to hold the belief. Not only are they insincere in this regard, but to maintain a cherished belief they need to find some way to compensate for the difference between their confidence and the (objective) lack of evidence.
        
        So how do you use disconfirming questions to engage someone whose beliefs are disconfirmable but only under wildly implausible conditions?
        
        One way is by asking why her disconfirmation conditions are exactly what they are. Ask her to explain, in as much depth as possible, why different criteria could not possibly work.
        
        If none of these avenues leads anywhere, switch gears and ask directly about morals, values, or identity concerns lurking beneath the surface
        
        When you ask questions about the relationship of deeper issues and disconfirmation, or when you switch to different beliefs (from Christianity to Hinduism in the example above), you’re less likely to evoke a defense posture and more likely to encounter a nonrehearsed response.
        
        Moreover, your interlocutor might even know kind, loving, decent people who don’t share the same belief. This line of questioning makes it possible for disconfirming questions to become effective by helping people reflect more deeply upon the conditions that anchor beliefs that are disconfirmable under wildly implausible conditions.
        
        3. Beliefs Are Disconfirmable: “Here’s What It Would Take…”
        
        If someone’s beliefs are disconfirmable, and they can provide reasonable conditions under which they’d change their mind, then all that’s left is to figure out if those conditions hold or how likely they are to hold. Before you begin, however, clarify exactly what it would take for someone to change their mind.
        
        Once you and your partner agree about exactly what it would take to change her mind, direct the conversation toward how you could figure out if the source or the information is valid (Chapter 4, Outsourcing).
        
        When a belief can be disconfirmed, it’s vital not to adopt the messenger role.
        Do not deliver facts or, even more importantly, your gospel.
        
        Doing so jeopardizes the disconfirmation process because your conversation partner loses the ability to reflect on her beliefs and convince herself of what’s true—which is far more effective at helping people revise their beliefs than you telling her what’s true.
        
        If the circumstances are such that your partner has opened up and become more vulnerable, do not abuse that vulnerability to deliver your message. In doing so, you’re not truly attempting to impart doubt and help them become more humble about their beliefs so much as attempting to have someone adopt your beliefs. This approach, common in religious evangelizing and high-pressure sales, is ethically vulgar.
        
        Adding Disconfirming Questions to Your Conversations - pg.115
      - 5—DEALING WITH ANGER
        Know thyself
        
        Anger calls forth anger.
        
        That is, anger often occurs in accelerating cycles both within an individual and between people. These cycles tend to ensure that conversations involving at least one angry partner escalate. In the wake of lost tempers are not just ruined conversations but also damaged relationships, burned bridges, terminated friendships, and even physical danger.
        
        Some conversations—and some people—will frustrate you, anger you, or even fill you with rage. If a discussion is upsetting to the point that you cannot act like an adult, walk away. When in doubt, exit.
        
        Stepping away from or overcoming anger requires recognizing anger in yourself and your conversation partners—and the earlier you recognize it the better
        
        Anger often arises from either frustration or offense. In the case of frustration, we become angry with interference standing between us and what we intend. Maybe you want to change your partner’s mind or get her to hear and understand your point (or merely to care about it), yet it isn’t happening. A moral tripwire is pulled, and before you understand what’s going on tempers flare. When we believe interference or offenses are deliberate, these impacts are stronger.52 (Note that this should be a reminder to assume, charitably, that your partner has good intentions.)
        
        Four Facts About Anger
        
        Anger seeks its own justification.56 Think of anger as being a strong cognitive bias that pushes you to confirm your anger is justified. Anger leads you to misinterpret information that might cause you to feel anything other than angry. This effect is particularly poisonous because it leads you to assume your partner has bad intentions or is immoral.57 “You’re just saying that to make me upset!” is an example of such an assumption.
        
        All emotions, including anger, carry with them what is known as a refractory period. During a refractory period, your nervous system and temporary emotional biases severely impact your information processing. There’s nothing you can do except wait it out.58 The more intense the emotion, the longer this effect may last, ranging anywhere from a few seconds to minutes or hours.
        
        Anger blinds you and derails conversations.54 You’ve heard of “blind rage,” but even modest anger makes you the victim of your own nervous system. Emotions, especially anger, limit what knowledge, beliefs, and information you can access and process.55 Consequently, it’s difficult to remain civil when you’re angry.
        
        By understanding how anger works and committing yourself to avoiding it, you can minimize its impacts on your conversations and in your life.
        
        Don’t Do This
        
        Don’t meet anger with anger. If your partner starts to become angry, do not reciprocate. Do not lose your temper. This is even more important if you’re attacked personally—do not attack back. If someone insults you, do not insult them in return. Doing so only escalates the situation
        
        Don’t blame (remember Chapter 3, Don’t Blame, Do Discuss Contributions). Particularly in a tense conversation, do not lay judgment on or blame your partner. Do not say, “I am just trying to have a civil conversation with you, and you’re getting angry.” This blames your partner for taking the conversation off track and is the opposite of building a Golden Bridge.
        
        Don’t make negative assumptions about your partner’s intentions or motivations, or the source of her anger. You don’t know what is making her angry unless she explicitly tells you (and, as many married people will affirm, even then you may not know it). She may be angry at you, at something you said, at the topic in general, at herself or her own reactions, or something entirely separate from you or your conversation
        
        Most importantly, don’t remain in a conversation if you feel unsafe. Walk away. If necessary, make up a pretext and walk far away.
        
        Do This During Your Conversation
        
        Do monitor yourself and your partner for signs of anger. Recognize frustration, offense, or anger, and act before it grows. You don’t have many choices when it comes to mastering your anger. You can either de-escalate or walk away.62 You may need literally only a few minutes to overcome the refractory period, calm down, and be able to engage the topic in a more productive and civil way. Or not.
        Ways to calm down include changing the subject, reframing the conversation, assuming charitable intentions and focusing on them (some people report repeating to themselves, “He’s trying to help. He’s trying to help. He’s trying to help…” to be a kind of emotional salve), becoming interested about why your partner is acting this way (i.e., Focus on Epistemology), or combining these suggestions by becoming curious about why the conversation is making you angry and what you can do to help it de-escalate.
        
        Do acknowledge and apologize for your share of anger that comes up. Say, “I’m sorry.” An apology can be disarming, especially to aggressive or assertive people. Once someone is angry, both their aggression and assertiveness are going to be greater than usual, so don’t underestimate the power of a quick apology for any share of the contribution you can own.66 Start your next statement explicitly with “I’m sorry,” and say again as you ease the conversation away from anger and hostility
        
        Do listen. When your conversation partner is getting angry, the single best thing you can do in most circumstances is to stop whatever else you’re doing and listen. It’s very difficult to remain angry with someone who is patiently and earnestly listening, and if you break the cycle of frustrating dialogue early by switching to listening and learning, you can halt a great deal of your partner’s mounting anger before it starts. It’s also useful to acknowledge your partner’s perspective, which can help reduce their frustration. Seize upon any point of agreement and focus upon that, rather than disagreement, at least until tempers cool. Remember, hearing someone out, even acknowledging their perspective, is not the same as agreeing.
        
        Do pause. When you sense yourself or your partner becoming angry, pause and say nothing. Let the silence work for a few moments (and even a few seconds will feel very long and very tense). The goal of pausing in the heat of the moment, as Ury notes, is “to disconnect the automatic link between emotion and action.”63 The trick, in the words of Ury and FBI hostage negotiator Voss: “Slow it down
        
        Do walk away if necessary
        
        Do This Before Your Conversation
        
        Do learn to recognize mounting anger so you can deal with it as soon as possible
        
        Do remember and respect the emotional refractory period. Combine an awareness of your sensations of anger with an understanding of emotional refractory periods
        
        Do identify your anger triggers ahead of time.
        
        Best Practices for Dealing with Anger
        
        Bite your tongue.79
        
        Do not counterattack.80 As much as you want to lash out, do not. Lashing out provokes and escalates and your goal should be to de-escalate.
        No matter what someone says—insults you, calls you names, swears at you—do not reciprocate. If someone calls you stupid, calling them stupid in return only worsens the situation. Do not counterattack.
        
        Never respond to emails or comments on social media while angry, offended, or outraged.
        Wait. Cool down.82 (You’re also not under any obligation to respond to social media posts. The amount of your attention you owe anyone who insulted you on social media is zero.)
        
        Listen. Listen. Listen.83
        
        If conversations become tense, listen. When you’re finished listening, listen more. Then ask clarifying questions. Then listen. Only then respond
        
        Do not deny a tense situation.
        
        In some contexts, you may need to acknowledge tension and negative feelings like stress or anxiety.85 Denying frustration does not make it go away.
        
        Avoid the word anger.
        
        Saying someone is angry when they’re upset can sound accusatory.86 Instead, consider acknowledging the conversation as frustrating and naming it frustration.
        
        Slow down.
        
        When you slow the entire process down, you’re simultaneously calming it down
        
        Immediately after a tense moment make an empathy statement.88
        
        This is an opportunity to form a deeper connection. Say: “It’s hard,” “That must be absolutely infuriating,” “I hear you,” and “That really frustrates me, too.
        
        Make safety a priority.
        
        Do not endure angry rants. Walk away
      - Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
        —Ambrose Bierce
  - - - Altercasting is a persuasion technique introduced in 1963 by sociologists Eugene Weinstein and Paul Deutschberger
        The basic method is to cast someone in a relevant role and let them generate solution as to how someone in that role would react
      - Assigning a Role
        
        Altercasting is a powerful yet controversial technique that can be used to influence behavioral changes.19 The person is cast into an alternate role from which it is easier for them to be influenced
        
        The method is to assign someone a (socially) relevant role—as with helping her to visualize herself as a moral person, a careful thinker, or a civil communicator—and then to encourage self-generation of solutions or behaviors within that role
        
        The technique uses a self-internalized, manufactured pressure to conform with a role, and it may lead the individual to persuade herself to act or think in certain ways.
        
        The ethics of Altercasting can be murky for the obvious reason that it’s potentially manipulative. Further, individuals can also be cast in a negative light and thus be induced to live up (or perhaps down) to negative casting
        
        These ethical concerns can be sidestepped by limiting Altercasting to two conversational techniques:
        
        1. Take their favorite solution off the table.
        
        Acknowledge your partner’s view.
        
        Cast your partner as a smart, creative problem solver in a particular, relevant role.
        
        Construct the scenario so as to remove her preferred solution.
        
        Have her brainstorm alternative solutions.
        
        2. Altercast conversational virtues like civility, fairness, and open-mindedness.
        
        You can also altercast conversational virtues. For example, you can altercast civility: cast your partner into the role of someone who values and is good at having civil conversations. Altercasting can be used “cold,” especially on strangers, to inject the basic RNA of civil conversations directly into someone, almost like spreading a better-conversations virus to inoculate against incivility.
        
        Establish rapport.
        
        Altercast your partner as someone who knows how to have productive, civil dialogue.
        Say, “You strike me as the kind of person who’s civil. Someone who’s good at having conversations.” (This could be someone who is fair or open-minded as well, for other examples of conversational virtues.)
        
        Engage her in conversation.
        
        How to Create the Conversational Partner You Want to Have
        
        Acknowledge, then altercast.Say, “I hear you about [X].” Then altercast your partner into a knowledgeable, creative role regarding the question you’re discussing, but one in which his preferred solution is not on the table. Have your partner brainstorm alternative solutions.
        
        Altercast your partner into the role of better conversationalist.Say, “You’re good at having civil conversations.” Or, simply, “You’re good at keeping your cool.”
        
        If someone rejects the alternative role you cast for them, abandon the technique and move to other techniques in this book.
        
        Recognize that someone is altercasting on you if they attempt to cast you into a role. You can then go with it, refuse, acknowledge what’s happening, or altercast back on them.
    - - How Your Conversations Can Benefit from Hostage Negotiation Techniques
        
        Emotional labeling
        
        When you emotionally label someone’s feeling, you give it a name. This is similar to helping someone vent, as described above, but more emphasis is placed on you labeling someone’s feeling as opposed to coming up with a description together.
        
        Allow the person to save face.
        
        That is, build a Golden Bridge.
        This is more something to be aware of as opposed to a specific technique. People are less likely to change their minds, particularly in front of those they view as important, if they think they’ll lose face. Consequently, you should consider ways to allow your conversation partner to save face gracefully. This may include stating how difficult it was for you to change your mind about the issue or saying, “This is just such a difficult and complicated problem it’s just so easy to not get it exactly correct.”
        
        Mirroring.24
        
        When mirroring, you repeat the last few words of what someone said. For example, if someone exclaims, “I am just so sick and tired of these people pushing everyone around and trying to get their way,” you say, “Get their way?”
        
        McMains and Mullins provide the following example: “A trapped armed robber in a bank might say, ‘I have to get out of here with the money. It’s for my kid. It’s not for me.’ A good mirroring response would be ‘For your kid?’ To which the robber might say, ‘Yeah, He’s got a fever and an infection and we don’t have money for the pills he’s supposed to take. He needs the money for the pills.’”
        
        On the same page they continue by giving an example of a poor mirroring response: “You expect me to believe that it’s not for you?”25 You can generally avoid such mistakes by repeating only the last two to three words, phrasing them as questions, and then letting the person talk while you listen. The goal of this application is to keep the person talking and volunteering more information that may become useful later in the conversation.
        
        Note: While mirroring signals that you’re paying attention, do not overuse it. We prefer to mirror no more than four or five times in a seven-minute conversation
        
        Deal with small issues first
        
        Try to create a “climate of success” by dealing with and resolving small issues first, then, “break down the big problems into a number of smaller problems that are each easier to handle.
        
        Use “minimal encouragers.”23
        
        Examples of minimal encouragers are, “Yeah,” “I see,” and “Okay.” Minimal encouragers are an effortless way to let your conversation partner know you’re listening. We recommend minimal encouragers during particularly tense moments.
        
        “Use specific examples or case histories rather than statistical information.”32
        
        The former “remains more vivid in the mind and has a greater influence on behavior than isolated ‘facts.’”33 (Remember Chapter 5, Avoid Facts.)
    - - Talk It Through
        
        Sometimes, friends need to vent. You can encourage a friend to get everything off his mind while you listen, focus on understanding, build Golden Bridges, let him be wrong, not take issue with his statements, not interrupt, and continue to listen.
        
        Why? Sometimes people just need someone to listen while they rant. When he’s finished speaking, use what are termed
        “conversation deepeners” (go deeper into an idea) and “conversation extenders” (keep the conversation moving forward). Say, “Tell me more,” as an invitation to go deeper and extend the discussion.11 And continue to listen.
        
        Venting is best used with friends who cannot substantively engage in discussion because their feelings are too intense or their emotions obstructively leak into the conversation
        
        You’ll usually have a feel for when venting can be helpful a few minutes after you’ve settled into a discussion question. Some cues are when friends make repeatedly harsh judgments, mischaracterizations, and accusations; assign blame; deliver overly assertive attempts at problem solving; or show visible discomfort or irritation.13 These behaviors can signal feelings that need to be brought into the open
        
        Begin by using the following calibrated question: “How has this situation made you feel?
        
        Then pause and listen. Do not argue, contradict, rebut, or challenge. Just listen. When allowing someone to vent, it’s impossible to listen too much. Once she’s said everything she feels like saying, use a conversation deepener/extender, saying, “I want to hear more.” If she explicitly says, “That’s all,” then respond, “Are you sure?” and listen. Only then should you ask questions—and those questions should focus on a deeper understanding of her concerns.
        
        If you’ve used conversation deepeners and conversation extenders and you’re positive your friend has nothing more to say, immediately transition to the first three of Rapoport’s Rules. Clearly re-express what she said and ask if that’s correct (Rule 1). Then listen. If your restatement is accurate, then list points of agreement (or sympathy) (Rule 2). Finally, mention what you’ve learned (Rule 3). Do not use Rule 4, rebuttal or criticism
      - How to Help Someone Vent
        
        Allowing your friend to vent should deepen your friendship. If you’re not comfortable listening to someone vent and dealing with anger, then do not attempt this technique.
        
        1a. To begin, say, “Tell me more” and “How’s that make you feel?”
        Then listen. Listen. Listen.
        
        1b. Acknowledge your friend’s feelings by repeating specific emotional words back to her.
        If she uses the words “frustrated” or “outrageous,” you should use them. Say, “Yeah, that’s incredibly frustrating,” “Yeah, that is outrageous!” Make the conversation a space where she feels safe by being a sympathetic listener.
        
        1c. Each time she finishes talking, pause for a few seconds before saying anything.
        Do not rush to fill conversational pauses. Let the silence, which may be uncomfortable, do much of the work
        
        1d. When your friend is finished venting, listen more
        
        1e. Use conversation deepeners and conversation extenders. Say, “Tell me more” and “How does that work?”
        
        When your friend has finished venting, leave it.
        
        Do not attempt to force a conversation that led your partner to become distressed. If it’s important, come back to it after you’ve both had a chance to think things over.
        
        Gently encourage your friend to describe, not just express, her feelings.
        
        Help your friend express the same ideas in a less defensive way by describing her feelings as carefully as possible, while adding nuance.16 Encourage her to differentiate between mad, angry, and frustrated or to unpack the contents of a word like upset. Let her identify the words for her feelings and avoid naming them when she is venting.
        
        Conclude your interaction with a sincere offer to help.
        
        Say, “How can I help now or in the future? What can I do?”17 Once you know what you can do to help, if possible, help. Follow up and let her know what you’ve done.
    - - Unmasking Disingenuous Statements
        
        When you encounter an impossible belief, use the following chronological Unmasking Formula:
        
        Apply Rapoport’s first rule: “Attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, ‘Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.
        
        Try to understand the limits of their belief in practice. Ask if the belief holds in other (more extreme) contexts
        
        After this has been accomplished, ask, “Is there any circumstance that might lead you to act inconsistently with the belief?” and have them generate examples.
        
        4b. If they say “Yes,” then state, “What would that circumstance be?” and “Can you give me examples of other things you believe but don’t act upon? What makes this special?”
        
        4a. If they say “No,” then gently continue with examples similar to number 3. “Would you fly on a plane with a straight white male pilot? What if you knew for a fact the aircraft was developed or built by straight white men?”
        If the person says they would not fly on the plane with a straight white male pilot, ask about how that belief can be maintained in practice and request details. (This might expose the Unread Library Effect.) Ask, “How do you figure out the pilot’s race when you book tickets?”
        
        Explicitly confirm that you’ve understood their belief correctly (implicitly giving them an opportunity to back down).
        
        2b. Optional: In this preliminary stage, consider asking questions that ascertain how long the belief was held and attempt to figure out its origin. “Have you always held this belief or is it relatively new?” or “How did you come to this conclusion? Do a lot of other people believe this too?” This may be helpful in figuring out the nature of communal support, if any, for the belief. Once this is clear, you can understand the social support systems that help prop up the belief, which may give you a better idea of targeted questions you can ask.
        
        2a. Optional: If you possess a characteristic that they have targeted, begin by politely requesting permission to ask questions so that you may learn. If you’re a straight white male, say, “I am not trying to convince you of anything. I’m curious and would like to ask some questions to learn more.”
        
        By this stage you’ve either demonstrated it’s impossible to sincerely hold and act upon the belief or not.
        
        5a. If it’s impossible to act upon, follow up by asking how one can tell when to act upon the belief and when to make an exception. (Now you’re back to talking about epistemology.) Ask, “Okay, so if I’m hearing you right, sometimes it makes sense to listen to a straight white doctor, but other times you believe there are good reasons not to trust their opinion at all. How can we determine which time is which?”
        
        5b. If you’ve not demonstrated that the belief is impossible, then they’re either lying or delusional, or you were mistaken and they actually do live in accordance with their belief.
    - - Synthesis is keeping Rapoport’s Rules plus seeking disconfirmation. Synthesizing means modifying your beliefs by using your partner’s beliefs and disconfirmation statements. The goal is to clarify and strengthen your position and get closer to having true beliefs, not to produce agreement.
        
        Synthesis involves collaboratively arriving at a better understanding of the topic and developing a more refined, nuanced view.
      - Achieving Synthesis in Five “Easy” Steps
        
        Employ those counterarguments to generate specific ways to disconfirm your belief (Chapter 5, Seek Disconfirmation). That is, make intentional use of your partner’s difference of opinion, focus on your position’s weaknesses, and explore ways to falsify your ideas.
        
        The third step, employing counterarguments to disconfirm your belief, is engaged collaboratively. Invite your partner to help you formulate clear ways in which your belief could be wrong. Ideally, these should be specific examples, and it should be clear why it’s the case that if these conditions are met your belief is in error.
        
        Use the instances of (possible) disconfirmation to refine your original position. Modify your stance by incorporating counterarguments.
        
        The fourth step—using disconfirmation to refine your original position—takes what you learned in the previous step and uses that to refine your original stance.
        
        Invite and listen to counterarguments.
        
        To get the most out of Synthesis, you’ll want your partner to expose at least one clear flaw in your reasoning and the ways in which your moral biases may have led you to commit that error. Say, “If I understand, this view is incorrect because of [X]. Are my conservative/liberal/etc. lenses unduly influencing me to make this mistake?” Remember Rapoport’s number one rule: don’t proceed past the second step until you can re-express exactly your partner’s criticism of your idea and, ideally, ways in which she believes partisan bias may be misleading you. Make sure she confirms that you fully understood her criticisms before proceeding.
        
        Repeat. Begin with your new, refined position and run through another iteration.
        
        Use your newly refined position and begin the process again. Of course, depending on the criticisms levied the first time, and upon the degree of belief refinement, your conversation partner might not immediately be able to provide more useful feedback. It might work best to set the conversation aside after an iteration or offer to go through the same process with one of her beliefs.
        
        Present an idea. This can be done by invitation or by advancing your idea. (For the remainder of the steps, we’ll assume you advanced an idea.)
        
        The first step, advancing an idea, is the easiest: state an idea you’d like to refine, or invite your partner to do the same. You’ll get the most out of this process by advancing an idea you suspect is strongly influenced by your identity, morals, faith, or partisanship (for example, if you’re a staunch liberal or conservative and your beliefs tend to cluster around party positions).
        
        Choosing a moral belief makes the conversation more difficult but also
        provides the most benefit because moral beliefs almost always entail epistemological blind spots that a Synthesis can help reveal
      - How to Converse Like Philosophers
        
        Being successful requires approaching ideas like Socrates: weigh disconfirmation conditions on their merits and don’t be wedded to being right.
        
        Present an idea.
        
        Invite and listen to counterarguments.
        Ask your partner in the conversation to help you understand what she thinks you’re missing. Say, “What am I missing? Is my reasoning flawed or am I missing a piece of information?” Remind yourself that you are not your beliefs.10
        
        Formulate disconfirmation conditions.
        
        Use the instances of (possible) disconfirmation to refine your original position.
        Modify your stance by incorporating counterarguments. Explicitly restate your new position.
        
        Repeat.
        Begin with your refined position and run through another iteration. If the conversation has run its course or you need time to think, thank your partner and end the process.
    - - If you think someone is attempting to intervene in your cognitive process/beliefs with the express purpose of instilling doubt, you have three options:
      - 1. Go with it. - RECOMMENDED
        
        If someone tries to intervene in your cognitions, one option is to let them. Just go with it. By going with it and allowing their intervention to proceed, you’re almost guaranteed to learn something.
        
        Ideally, you’ll learn that your confidence in a belief was less justified than you thought, and you’ll then (hopefully) hold the belief less tenaciously. You might even change your mind and hone your skill of imparting the gift of doubt.
        
        The person who’s conducting the intervention might have techniques you should incorporate into your own repertoire, and you can learn what mistakes she is making and avoid them, or even develop an understanding of how you feel when you examine your beliefs
        
        If you go with it, you’ll learn something regardless of the outcome.
      - 2. Refuse to play.
        
        Here’s a secret: interventions only work if your partner engages you. It doesn’t really matter what they say. They just need to say something
        
        If someone doesn’t respond to you, then there’s no intervention because there’s no way to sow
        doubt—there’s nothing to intervene in because there’s nothing to work with.
        
        If someone tries to perform an epistemological or belief intervention on you, you can guarantee it will fail by simply not participating. The best way to do this is to avoid saying anything. The next best way is to provide only closed-ended responses to their questions, like “Yeah” or “Not really.”
      - 3. Use counter-interventions.
        
        Counter-intervention strategies can be used when someone is attempting to perform an intervention on you. Apply these when remaining silent and walking away aren’t options, and you’ve decided not to go with it.
        
        These counter-intervention techniques can also be used if you find yourself in high-pressure interrogations where you feel you have no avenue for escape. Deflecting and countering, then, may be your sole option. Every one of these techniques can be effective. And every one is dishonest. For that reason, we don’t encourage their use.
        
        When you’re asked how confident you are in a belief, either offer a much lower number or the polar opposite number. If you’re asked, “How confident are you that the federal minimum wage should be increased?” and you’re 9 on a 1 to 10 scale in confidence, either respond, “I think I’m a 6” or simply state, “2.”
        
        i. In the former case, this will make the intervention more difficult (if they even see a need to proceed, as 6 is already doubtful). It will also give them access to fewer techniques.
        ii. In the latter case, there’s no intervention because you don’t believe what you profess to believe.
        
        Offer the illusion of success. Early into the intervention, claim you’ve changed your mind. This is best done after an extended pause followed by an exclamation of wonder, like, “… wow, yeah. Wow.”
        
        State that you have doubts about your doubt.38 That is, lead them to conduct an intervention on your doubt about your doubt and not on your belief. Borrowing from our previous example, if you’re 9 confident (on the 1 to 10 confidence scale) that the federal minimum wage should be increased, your interlocutor will want to instill doubt and decrease your confidence to any lower number.
        
        Instead, either ask her to help you see what you’re missing so that you can get to 10, which is a kind of reverse altercasting, or state, “I have doubts about the federal minimum wage being raised, but I’m not sure that they are justified. Do you think my uncertainty about my doubt is justified?” If you’re asked why you want to get to 10, state, “I’d like to fully explore the benefits of X [a higher federal minimum wage].
        
        If your belief is strongly held, state the actual confidence in your belief (on the belief scale) and add that you’d rather not hold that belief. Say, “I firmly believe the federal minimum wage should be raised, and I wish I didn’t think that.” (A stronger version of this is to say, “I firmly believe X, but I also think it is morally wrong to believe X.”) This taps into the opposite of Daniel Dennett’s belief in belief (noted in Chapters 3 and 5). Instead of people holding a belief because they think they should hold that belief, you claim to hold a belief and wish you could stop believing.
        
        This negates many techniques in Chapters 6 and 7 that center upon morality, while putting the interventionist in uncharted territory. Of course, the interventionist may try to intervene upon your beliefs even more diligently to help you achieve your wish, but she will have to do so with far fewer tools at her disposal.
        
        If someone is peppering you with rapid-fire questions (this is almost always a sign that they’re a novice), say “Ah” or “Um” and count backward in your head from five. For example, “Why didn’t you tell me before, huh?” You should reply, “Um…,” and think “Five Mississippi, four Mississippi, three Mississippi, two Mississippi, one Mississippi.” This will effectively nullify the technique.39
        
        Use questions to execute a direct intervention reversal. After they ask you a question such as, “How confident are you in your belief?” that reveals they’re attempting an intervention, rather than answering, ask them a question about their question. Say, “If you don’t mind, why are you asking me this question?”
        
        After they reply something to the effect of, “I’m trying to listen and learn” (Chapters 2 and 3), ask directly, “Are you trying to intervene upon my beliefs to change them?”
        
        Begin to ask them what their goals are, even, “On a scale from 1 to 10, how confident are you that my beliefs should be the ones to change? How do you know that your beliefs shouldn’t be the ones to change?” The goal will be to reverse the intervention by making the discussion shift to questions about beliefs they hold that led them to attempt an intervention with you.
        
        There are numerous other techniques for derailing or reversing interventions that are unorthodox, easy to see through depending on your proficiency, even more ethically suspect than those discussed so far, and not recommended
        
        Intentionally damage rapport.
        
        Invent your own epistemology (claim your cat guides you to the truth).
        
        Change the meanings of everyday words and alternate between different meanings (this is called equivocation and is frequently done in discussions of religion with the word faith).
        
        Offer wildly implausible disconfirmation conditions and claim that because they can’t be satisfied you’re even more confident you possess the truth (“If I were provided with the criminal history of every refugee, I’d change my mind, but since you’ve not been able to do that I’m even more confident in my immigration stance” or “If I were shown the bones of Christ, I’d change my mind as to the divinity of Jesus”).
        
        Profess a type of relativism by claiming that statements are just true for you (e.g., “It’s just true for me that everyone should own a gun”).40
        
        Claim to change your beliefs several times over the course of the conversation.
        
        Feign radical domain-specific ignorance (in other words, claim to not even know the rudiments of what you’re discussing).
      - Just Go with It!
        
        After all that’s been said, in most situations you have everything to gain and little to lose if you simply go with it. If you’re fortunate enough to have someone attempt a belief-based intervention with you, it could be a remarkable opportunity to learn something about yourself and the methods used to help people become more humble about what they think they know. So, just go with it!
  - - - 1—HOW TO CONVERSE WITH AN IDEOLOGUE
        Switch to moral epistemology
        
        We define an ideologue as “one who is unwilling or unable to revise their (moral) beliefs.” Trying to have a conversation with an ideologue almost never results in an actual conversation. It’s someone speaking at you, usually by delivering messages
        
        Here’s the secret to success: understand how an ideologue’s sense of morality relates to their personal identity. To do this, think of every conversation as being three conversations at once: about “What happened?” (facts); about feelings (emotions); and about identity (how each person sees themselves)
        
        If you’re engaged in a moral conversation, your discussion is always—whether overtly or covertly—about identity issues
        
        When you’re talking to an ideologue (or anyone else), it might appear that the conversation is about facts and ideas, but you’re inevitably having a discussion about morality, and that, in turn, is inevitably a discussion about what it means to be a good or bad person. Decoding this connection is vital.
        
        Morality and identity issues operate invisibly at the level of emotion rather than reason.4 Literally.5 Challenging these beliefs triggers the same brain responses as putting someone in physical danger.6 Consequently, great care must be taken when engaging someone’s morality and identity. If you want to have more effective conversations or interventions with people who are unwilling or unable to revise their beliefs, then you’ll need to learn how to accomplish the following:
        
        Engage someone’s moral epistemology.
        
        Become proficient at speaking other moral languages.
        
        1—HOW TO CONVERSE WITH AN IDEOLOGUE
        A person who zealously advocates an ideology.
        
        Values, Values, Values
        
        At the core of nearly all impossible conversations lies at least one person’s inability to provide (realistic) disconfirmation criteria for beliefs or denial that any such criteria exist.
        
        This failure is usually accompanied by other features, such as redirection to their issues, everything being approached through their moral lenses, and all disagreement being interpreted to mean either there’s something you’re not understanding or that you’re suffering from a moral failure.
        
        You might, therefore, observe the following traits and behaviors: extreme sensitivity, hyper-defensiveness, overt righteousness, unwillingness to hear an opposing point of view, disproportionate levels of anger, sharp and unfair accusations, and demeaning or vilifying epithets
        
        There are many others, all of which involve some degree of hostility, self-righteousness, or entrenchment.9 One telling sign of entrenchment is responding to substantive disagreement with weaponized moral language, for example, responding to “I’m not sure that conclusion follows” with something implying you are a morally bad person (such as, “You just don’t care about dead children!”)
        
        When this happens, conversation—a discussion involving genuine give-and-take—seems impossible. It’s close to impossible because the person with whom you’re attempting to have a conversation is evangelizing, not conversing. Talking to a person with unshakable belief commitments is like playing chess with someone whose only piece is a hammer.10 It’s frustrating, infuriating, and possibly even physically endangering.
        
        Almost all such discussions appear to play out on the level of facts (or possibly name-calling or screaming).12 That is, conversations with ideologues seem, on the surface, to be about issues, ideas, and evidence. But underneath they’re about moral issues ultimately rooted in the ideologue’s sense of identity, including their self-perception as a moral person and their sense of belonging to a community.
        
        If you have the right tools and sufficient patience, it is possible to have a conversation with such individuals, even if it’s about an unhinged belief. Here’s how: focus on moral epistemology. That is, change the subject from their beliefs to how they know their beliefs are true and how their beliefs contribute to their sense of personal identity
        
        Speaking with an Ideologue: A Template
        
        After someone has failed to provide disconfirmation criteria, if you wish to continue the conversation, we suggest the following template:
        
        Change the subject to underlying values
        
        Say, “These beliefs seem really important to you. What are you basing them on?” If they’re more educated, say, “What value informs these beliefs?” or “How did you derive those beliefs?”
        
        If someone holds a belief tenaciously, it doesn’t just “float out there” untethered to values. Contentious conversations hinge on beliefs that are almost always informed by particular values.
        
        One of the best ways to figure out what values inform a particular belief is simply to ask, “That position is based on what value?” The answer might not be immediately forthcoming, however, and you’ll likely need to ask more questions
        
        Questions to ask
        
        2 more items...
        
        By shifting the conversation to values that inform beliefs, you deny people access to their well-rehearsed defenses
        
        Ideologues of all stripes have well-versed responses to defend their beliefs, but few and poor responses to defend the process that they use to arrive at their beliefs.
        
        Invite a deeper conversation about those underlying values (this begins the shift from beliefs to moral epistemology)
        
        Say, “I find that [what they articulated in the second stage, above] interesting. Let’s explore those values.”
        
        Your goal now is to help your conversation partner clearly articulate exactly what their values are, where they come from, how they know they’re true, and how this relates to their sense of identity.
        
        At this point, ask the following questions:
        
        9 more items...
        
        People assume their values are obvious, so you’ll need to take your time in this stage.
        Your goal is to invite your conversation partner to explain their moral epistemology by targeted identity-type questions. Each question can act as a micro-razor that has the potential to fray the tether between their belief and their reason for holding that belief, even if it takes time and later reflection to sever the connection
        
        Acknowledge their intention and affirm their identity as a good, moral person—especially if you find their beliefs repugnant
        
        Say, “It’s clear to me that being a good person is important to you.” This is important because ideologues tend to see themselves in one of two ways: virtuous moral pillars or desperate sinners seeking perfection/redemption.
        
        In both cases, affirming either that they’re a good person or that they have good intentions is crucial because it lowers their defensive posture and in some cases opens the door to moderating extreme beliefs.17 It’s also a vital preparatory step for the rest of the intervention.
        
        This is particularly important because it’s part of a larger process to help your conversation partner question what being a “good person” means
        
        You’re just verbally recognizing that he values morality and that he’s acting upon what he believes makes him good
        
        Induce doubt in their moral epistemology by helping them question the way they derive their moral beliefs.
        
        Epistemology is the study of knowledge (remember Chapter 3, Focus on Epistemology). It deals with questions of how one knows what one claims to know. Moral epistemology is just epistemology applied to moral questions. That is, how does one know or come to know moral truths?
        
        You can also think about it like this: moral questions concern how we should act and what we should believe. Moral epistemology is the process we use to get answers to those questions.
        
        Very few of us have given careful consideration to how we arrived at the answer to the question, “What should I value?”
        
        few people have deeply considered the meanings and implications of morally relevant terms, like justice, fairness, loyalty, or truth. Our “guts” (more accurately, our moral intuitions), society, family, religion, culture, and so on, all offer the illusion that we’ve grasped timeless moral truths, how to uphold them, how to spot transgressors, and how to punish violators.
        
        Our belief-lives are trapped by feelings, culture, psychology, greater or lesser access to information, circumstances (including economic and social class), genetics, and the Zeitgeist.
        
        Rarely have we deeply pondered and scrutinized whether or not the process we use to come to moral knowledge can be relied upon to yield truth. But we think we have.
        
        We use our instincts to figure out whether someone has done a good or bad thing and whether this or that person is good or bad. Even though we have intense feelings about our moral conclusions, we’re often only vaguely aware of the process that led us there.
        
        Almost everyone has a brittle moral epistemology—this fragility is your main entry point in a belief intervention. It’s the chink in our belief apparatus. It’s where we’re most vulnerable and it’s the entryway into facilitating doubt and helping someone decrease the confidence in their beliefs. It’s also the gateway to humility.
        
        Allow the tether between the belief and the moral epistemology to sever on its own. (This will be accomplished after the conversation.)
        
        In the end, you can let the conversation rest or conclude by revisiting the belief scale and asking how certain they are their belief is true. To help your conversation partner change her mind about a moral belief, make it your goal to sow doubts in the pathways that enable her to conclude she holds correct values. Think of these doubts as micro-razors (as described above) or as tiny cognitive wedges between their beliefs and the process they used to derive them.
        
        Caution
        
        4 more items...
        
        Summing Up: How to Converse with an Ideologue
        
        It is possible to have productive conversations with (some) ideologues, zealots, extremists, and other morally entrenched individuals, but the process is difficult and requires patience, and there are no guarantees.26 Success in producing doubt hinges upon affirming their sense of goodness, switching the conversation to values and identity, and then asking questions about their moral epistemology
        
        Identify that you’re dealing with an ideologue.
        
        A good indicator is if they report 10 on a 1 to 10 belief scale, and they either state their beliefs have no disconfirmation criteria or offer wildly unrealistic criteria
        
        Remember: The more extreme the confidence in a moral belief (especially 8 to 10 on the belief scale), the more difficult it is to give it a legitimate, rigorous justification. Even people who hold relatively moderate confidence levels in their moral beliefs (6 to 7 on the belief scale) are likely to have flimsy justifications that won’t hold up to modest scrutiny.
        
        Acknowledge their intention/motivation while affirming their identity as a good, moral person.
        
        Approaching conversation with an ideologue requires you to secure their self-worth before undermining overconfidence in their moral epistemology. Any technique that can reach an ideologue will, almost by definition, first have to secure their self-worth
        
        Change the subject to underlying values.
        
        Invite a deeper conversation about the underlying values and do what you can to establish a shared sense of values (see Chapter 3: Acknowledge Extremists, or appeal to the near-universal human values acknowledged above in step 2).
        
        Induce doubt in their moral epistemology.
        
        Ask targeted questions while integrating techniques from earlier chapters. These questions challenge the link between your conversation partner’s belief and her sense of identity. The goal is often to lead them to see that there are other ways to enact their underlying values.
        
        If your partner doesn’t vaccinate her children, ask, “What qualities make someone a good mother?” This question shifts the conversation to more general moral terms and helps you avoid her likely well-rehearsed, fact-based message delivery service. After you’ve had this discussion, you can then bring the conversation to the role vaccination might play in discharging her sense of good parenting. This is an ideal segue to discuss moral epistemology—without ever using the word epistemology, of course. Also, remember to avoid facts
        
        5a. If required: Shift to superordinate identities (discussed in Chapter 4).
        When a conversation centers on race, gender, or any other divisive marker in identity politics, people can become defensive and tempers can flare. If you find the conversation getting heated or stuck, shift the focus to superordinate identity markers instead. Rather than dividing, these unify people. Superordinate identity markers go “up” and include commonalities among people, not down to identity features of certain groups (black skin, particular sex organs, etc.).
        
        Crudely, “You’re white (or Muslim) and I’m black (or Christian), but so what, because we’re both Americans and both human beings.” Notice how this statement moves the conversation toward common ground at the identity level. In question form, say: “Well, aren’t we still both Americans? Aren’t we both human?” Notice immediately that this was the tone and tenor of the majority of the African American Civil Rights movement, which we still celebrate decades after its campaigns for racial equality.
        
        Sever the tether between the conclusion and the moral epistemology, that is, how they arrived at the conclusions they base upon their values.
        
        Be patient throughout.
        
        Build Golden Bridges.
        
        Walk away if you feel unsafe
        
        Finally, you may need to figure out if you’re the ideologue.
        
        A good first step to consider whether you are thinking and behaving like an ideologue is to think of your cherished beliefs, ask yourself disconfirmation questions, and then write down the answers.
        
        Show them to a friend who is not in your moral universe. Ask her if any of your answers seem wildly implausible. If she says “Yes,” then that’s an opportunity to reflect more deeply on your beliefs.
        
        If you can’t generate disconfirmation responses, then be honest with yourself about whether the confidence you have in your beliefs is justified. Remember, the more you want to hold the belief, the more difficult it will be to revise. If you tend to think of everyone who disagrees with you as being morally deficient, or you find yourself describing them almost wholly in morally denigrating terms, chances are that you are the ideologue and need to conduct a series of interventions on yourself.
      - 2—MORAL REFRAMING
        Learn to speak moral dialects
        
        The gap between your moral intuitions and your partner’s can be partially filled by morally reframing conversations. This means recasting an idea or a claim in moral terms that are less likely to evoke a defensive posture and more likely to resonate with your conversation partner.
        
        Understanding Moral Intuitions
        
        Think of moral intuitions as tendencies to lean toward certain (core) values—sanctity of life, freedom, safety, purity—rather than others.
        
        Our moral intuitions are formed before we try to figure out what’s the right thing to do, what’s not, and how we know our intuitions are justified (that is, moral epistemology).
        
        As Douglas Stone and his colleagues note, “Reframing means taking the essence of what the other person says and ‘translat[ing] it’ into concepts that are more helpful.”34 Even before your conversation becomes stuck, you can reframe the issues in terms that resonate with the moral intuitions of the person across the divide.
        
        Moral Foundations
        
        There are 6 moral foundat
        
        Care versus harm.
        
        Fairness versus cheating.
        
        Loyalty versus betrayal.
        
        Authority versus subversion.
        
        Sanctity versus degradation.
        
        Liberty versus oppression
        
        Haidt describes these moral foundations as being equivalents to the different components of our sense of taste (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, savory), indicating that they’re felt as closely and quickly as physical sensations, but applicable to our social universe.36 Think of them as sensitivity to our underlying values.
        
        Nearly all political conversations are rooted in foundational values. This creates tremendous difficulty when your foundational values do not match those of your conversation partner. The ways you each frame issues, what you feel matters most, and even the language used will always be influenced by your respective foundational values.
        
        Conservatives tend to respond to all six moral foundations, with a particular propensity toward loyalty, authority, and sanctity and less of a leaning toward care. Liberals are most concerned with care and fairness, and then liberty, with the other three foundations almost absent (or presenting in remarkably different ways).37 Libertarians are most concerned with a particular aspect of liberty, while they find the other five foundations less important
        
        The result is that you and your partner are likely to talk past one another even when you agree, and common ground can be difficult to find. This makes conversations across moral divides difficult because the mismatch in values contributes to misunderstandings on moral and political issues. Worse, these disagreements are often felt emotionally, before you can think clearly, and they can be frustrating for both parties
        
        Although it is difficult, one of the only ways to get around this problem is to make every effort to understand and speak on your conversation partner’s terms—including her moral terms.
        
        If you cannot connect across that moral divide, then there’s little chance you’ll understand each other. The way to foster understanding is to tap into the relevant moral foundation and reframe the conversation morally. Doing so opens up new channels for effective communication
        
        Reframing
        
        Moral reframing can be significantly improved by learning to speak other “moral dialects.” You and your conversation partner may both speak English, but if he is an Orthodox Jew and you’re a liberal hippie, you’ll usually be speaking different moral dialects
        
        Our language is rich in symbolism, and our moral intuitions are triggered by interaction with morally charged ideas. Thus, when you say a morally resonant word like loyalty or security, your conversation partner may hear something completely different from your intended meaning. A devout Muslim may hear the word spiritual with distinct moral resonances that others, say a hippie or an atheist, might not.
        
        You can bridge seemingly impossible moral divides by learning to understand, appreciate, and speak other moral lingoes.
        
        Like learning any new language, learning to speak conservativese or liberalese, or learning to understand and appreciate the rich symbolism in others’ faith traditions, takes time, practice, and immersive interaction with native speakers
        
        If possible, stay on the same identity page by speaking your partner’s moral language. This applies to the obvious (if you’re talking with a Catholic, call the communion wafer “the Host” and not “a cracker”) and the subtle (if you’re a liberal talking with a conservative, bring the conversation back to being American or patriotic). Conservatives’ arguments can go a long way toward influencing liberals by reminding them of a commitment to minimizing harm and making things fair for as many people as possible.
        
        How to Reframe a Conversation Morally
        
        Use moral keywords
        
        If you’re talking to a conservative, invoke “leadership,” “freedom,” “family,” “responsibility,” and so on.47 If you’re talking to a liberal, appeal to “the disadvantaged,” “the poor,” “victims,” “harm,” and the like. If you bring up themes resonant with both sides, like “liberty,” “decency,” “morals,” “equality,” or “fairness,” tailor your use according to how each side uses these words. That is, figure out how they’re using the word “equality” and use it similarly.
        
        Ask, “Can you think of a sentence in which the word X [e.g., “equity”] could be substituted for the word Y [e.g., “equality”] and the meaning of the sentence would not change?”
        
        If they say “No,” respond, “Then why did you use X as opposed to Y?”
        If they say “Yes,” ask them to tell you the sentence and try to figure out if it really is a perfect synonym.
        
        The words people use trap them in a particular frame of mind. Asking the above question is a sort of disconfirmation question where the purpose is to help your conversation partner cast doubt on their word choice, and thus the moral infrastructure upon which they travel.
        
        Interpret incommensurable moral disagreements as opportunities to learn a different moral language.
        
        If they have no disconfirmation criteria and they’re 10 on the belief scale, then focus on how they’re using certain words and on the tapestry of how those words come together to form their moral worldview. Remember, they’re offering you a free lesson in how to speak a different moral language.
        
        Conclusion
        
        seemingly impossible conversations typically have one thing in common: they’re about moral beliefs rooted in one’s sense of identity, but they play out on the level of facts (or assertions, name-calling, grandstanding, threats, etc.).
        
        That is, the discussion appears to be about issues (Muslim immigration), ideas (defending Western values, however these are understood,49 from Muslim immigrants), and facts (numbers of immigrants from Islamic countries), but instead it’s really about the type of person the entrenched individual perceives herself to be (I am a good person and good people believe this).
        
        The most difficult conversations, then, masquerade as discussions about something other than morality, but they are actually about what qualities, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors individuals believe make them good people or bad people and why it is important to hold the right views among those.
        
        Moral conversations are extremely difficult to navigate because moral beliefs are closely tied to issues of personal identity and community: that is, how one views oneself; what type of person one thinks one is; and how the participants in the conversation fit in with others in groups composed of members whose esteem they value. The added burdens of people thinking it’s a virtue not to change their minds, while belonging to communities that reinforce their beliefs, make shifting their ideas in this area nearly impossible. (Colloquially, an unwillingness or inability to change one’s mind is called “incorrigibility,” philosophically it’s termed “epistemic closure” or “doxastic closure,” and in other domains like religion and pop morality it’s known as “conviction.”50)
        
        People often think moral issues are clear, with obvious answers, until their moral epistemology is challenged by targeted questions. At that point, the dizzying complexity can become overwhelming. When faced with this, individuals who are otherwise reasonable and well-meaning may shut off, hunker down, or claim offense.
        
        So, take it slow. Failure to appreciate this complexity contributes to widespread, unwarranted moral certainty, which prevents a culture from emerging in which we’re capable of understanding different moral epistemologies. Most of these problems can be bypassed by using the techniques, strategies, and approaches described in this chapter.
- - - - Good relationships will keep you healthy and happy, healthier and happier than anything—including being right.1 They are also consistently rated as the most important element of a good life by those approaching death
      - Healthy relationships are founded upon far more than being correct—or even upon agreement. Meaningful relationships hinge mostly around factors like dependability, kindness, honesty, virtue, empathy, good conversation, mutual caring and goodwill, authenticity, common interests, and valuing the relationship.
      - How should you handle the “problem” of not being in complete agreement? Simple: let people be wrong.6 Especially if you’re friends
      - Often, correcting people’s beliefs doesn’t go well.8 Many disagreements are waged against the foundation of the relationship and can diminish the quality of friendships or ruin more superficial relationships. The decision to criticize, as opposed to engage, someone’s beliefs—especially moral beliefs—must be made recognizing the possible costs, especially when the disagreement arises over morally rooted concerns
    - - 1a. Say, “I hear you,” and let your friend speak without interruption.12
        When a contentious issue arises, especially if it’s a personal criticism, allow your friend to voice their concerns without condemnation, correction, rebuttal, defensiveness, or refutation. Offering a listening ear will likely relieve tension, give your friend an opportunity to share feelings, and engender trust
      - 1b. If you don’t understand, put the lack of understanding on yourself.
        Say, “I don’t understand,” as opposed to telling your friend she shouldn’t feel a particular way, that her belief is mistaken, or that “You’re not making sense.” You don’t have to agree with someone to acknowledge her views.
      - If a friend has a belief that is a deal-breaker, then that’s the belief about which you should strive to have a conversation.
        
        Approach them privately and sincerely, and tell them you find the belief upsetting and would like to talk. It may be that the belief causes an irreconcilable divide in your relationship and ends the friendship. If it does, then it’s better to have discussed it and parted ways than to harbor anger or resentment.15 If you choose to challenge your friend’s belief, make sure you’re motivated out of a genuine concern for their well-being and not a desire to be right. Most importantly, be kind.
      - Remember the marriage counseling adage, “You can be right or you can be married.”
        
        Healthy, meaningful relationships are often unnecessarily ruined over a stubborn need to feel vindicated, be right, correct someone’s behavior, or win an argument. Let friends be wrong.
  - - - Give your partner the same out you’d want.
        
        How would you want to get out of feeling stupid, incompetent, put on the spot, or having to admit being on the wrong side of an issue? If you’ve thought of specific words you’d want to hear, consider saying them if you think they would resonate.22 Sometimes even a simple “Cool” is all the Golden Bridge you need.
      - 2a. Do not put a toll on a Golden Bridge.
        Don’t offer people a way to change their minds, but then penalize them when they walk across (when, that is, they do change their minds). Don’t say, “It’s about time!” or “I told you so!” or make a statement accusing them of being slow on the uptake. Just let them graciously pass across the bridge.
      - 2b. Do not shame people.
        Don’t say things like, “You should have known that,” “It’s about time,” or “I can’t believe you didn’t think of that.” In particular, do not treat someone poorly because they used to think something you now find objectionable. Think of shaming someone as being like a live hand grenade. As the Harvard Negotiation Project notes, “There is no such thing as a diplomatic hand grenade.”24 Hand grenades damage or blow up bridges; they don’t build them
      - Build a Golden Bridge when you feel under attack
        If someone attacks you personally, recast the attack as being about the issue. Listen, but do not counterattack. Instead, translate it.
        EG. - If someone says, “I can’t believe you could be so ignorant and not understand how guns kill so many children,” reply, “The way my position on gun control is stated might lead someone to believe I don’t care about children. I hear the concerns about children’s welfare and safety. I really do. In fact, I share them. I want to get to a solution that keeps children safe as much as anyone. How could we solve that problem
      - Build a Golden Bridge to escape anger.
        
        If the conversation is heated, give yourselves an opportunity to cool down. Say, “These issues are really frustrating, I know. They get to me too.” (Depending on the circumstance, you could also add, “This issue is played out. Let’s talk about something else.”) These are types of Golden Bridges that act as escape hatches and allow opportunities for people to mull over new information at their own pace, perhaps privately.
      - Build Golden Bridges by explicitly agreeing.
        
        If your conversation partner says, “I want everyone to pay their fair share of taxes and be held to the same laws as everybody else,” stating, “I agree. We have more in common than we thought” is a type of Golden Bridge. It switches the conversation to a collaborative frame, which is helpful when seeking solutions to problems
      - Build Golden Bridges to alleviate pressure to get everything right or to know everything relevant to an issue.
        
        Say, “No one is expected to know/understand everything; that’s why we have experts we can appeal to.” (This is a type of Modeling, Chapter 3, and can open up Outsourcing, below.) This Golden Bridge is particularly useful when your partner thinks she may be mistaken.
      - Reference your own ignorance and reasons for doubt.
        Say, “I used to believe [X], [Y], and [Z]. It turns out those beliefs were wrong. When I learned [A], [B], and [C], I changed my mind. Personally, that was enough to sway me.” This may offer your partner an opportunity to “save face” because it lets them know there was a piece of information you didn’t have but that you now have,and if they have it their belief may change.28 In other words, the problem is not that they’re stupid or evil, but that they’re lacking a complete picture of the problem. Remember Socrates’ adage from Chapter 2: people don’t knowingly desire bad things.
  - - - Avoid using “you.” The word you often makes the conversation about people and can put your conversation partner on the defensive.35 Say “that belief” or “that statement” as opposed to “your belief” or “your statement.”
    - - Use collaborative language.
        
        We is a wonderful and effective collaborative word. As sociologists Weinstein and Deutschberger (1963) write, “‘We’ tends to be one of the most seductive of English words. Its appearance almost automatically heralds a relationship structured in terms of mutuality and interdependence” (p. 459). You can also often replace you with we, as in, “How do we know that?” and “Why don’t we think about it more?”
        Us is another effective, collaborative word that can be used to great effect. “Let’s [short for “let us”] figure out how to settle this impartially” and “How can we test that?”36 When in doubt, stick with we and us.37
        If that’s too difficult or awkward, then shift to neutral language, the third person, and one. For example, “How could one figure that out?” See #2, below.
      - Use neutral language.
        
        Avoid you and your, as in “you believe” and “your belief.” Switch to neutral language like that and one’s. For example, “that belief” and “one’s belief.”
      - Speak about ideas and beliefs, not the people who hold them.
        
        Be especially careful with labeling people based on some (or just one) of their beliefs. “Bill believes health care should be free for everyone and paid for by taxes” is much more accurate, fair, and specific than “Bill is a socialist.” “Maria disagrees” is likewise better than “Maria doesn’t care if people die because they cannot afford health care.”
      - Switch from “I disagree” to “I’m skeptical.”
        
        Disagreeing may trigger an adversarial response, whereas “I’m skeptical” signals that you’re open to be persuaded but you’re not quite there yet.
  - - - Ask, “On a scale from 1 to 10, how confident are you that X [the belief] is true?” Beyond knowing how confident someone is that a belief is true, asking someone to assign a numerical value to their confidence does two things:
        
        It tracks the effectiveness of your intervention.
        
        It helps put issues into perspective.
      - Track Your Effectiveness
        
        As soon as you’ve settled on a discussion question (see Chapter 3, Ask Questions), ask, “On a scale from 1 to 10, how confident are you that X [the belief] is true?” (If they don’t like that scale, suggest 1 to 100. If they refuse to assign a value to their confidence in a belief, then abandon this technique.)
        
        Immediately after the conversation, repeat the question and compare the pre- and post-numbers
      - Introduce Perspective
        
        Here’s an example found on the other end of the political spectrum. If you’re told “Our government is tyrannical!” ask, “How tyrannical? If Mao’s regime in China was a 9 out of 10 in governmental tyranny, where’s the United States right now?” Sure, the US government engages in some behaviors that appear—or in some cases are—tyrannical, but a binary “It is” or “It isn’t” is not sufficiently nuanced.
    - - Ask, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you that X is true?” at the beginning and end of the conversation.
        Compare these numbers to judge your effectiveness.
        If your partner says she’s 9 or 10 confident a belief is true, you’ll need the techniques found in Chapters 6 and 7. Moral beliefs in which people place unusually high degrees of confidence are often related to identity concerns. When someone self-reports a 9 or 10 confidence in a belief, it is even more important to figure out the epistemology that led them to their conclusion (Chapter 3, Focus on Epistemology).48 Conversely, in rare instances when someone reports a 2 or 3, they have little to no confidence that a claim is true. In these instances, you can explore why their confidence is so low.
      - If you find yourself arguing with someone in a “Yes, it is!”/“No, it’s not!” pattern, for example, “The United States is racist”/“No, it’s not!” put it on a comparative scale.
        
        Say, “How racist is the United States now as compared to the 1950s?” Scales add precision that can pin down, clarify, offer perspective, and get conversations back on track.
      - Bring in scales that compare the importance of issues during sticking points.
        
        Asking someone whether or not they think racism is an important issue may elicit angry reactions and spark incredulity. However, asking, “On a scale from 1 to 10, how important is racism as compared to climate change? What number would racism be and what number would climate change be?” clarifies how intensely a belief is held and whether any disagreement is worth spending time on.
      - Use scales to help your partner reverse their thinking.
        
        Here’s another way to phrase the scales question: “On a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being no confidence and 10 being absolute confidence, how confident are you that belief is true?” Let’s suppose they say “I’m at an 8.” Rather than asking them, “Why not 6?” or even “What would it take to move you to 6?” immediately follow up by asking about a higher number. Say, “Just out of curiosity, why didn’t you say 9?” Doing so will help them reveal their doubts.
      - Here’s how to use an even more advanced version of Introduce Scales: If they’re above a 6 on a 1 to 10 scale, ask, “I’m 3 on that 1 to 10 scale that X is true. I’m not sure how I’d get to where you are, at a 9. I want to see what I’m missing. Would you help walk me through it?”51
        Used in this way, scales are an opportunity to have someone guide you step-by-step through their epistemology. This is effective because they’re explaining the epistemological gap without you having to think on your feet and generate questions. That is, they are clarifying what you’re missing, which may decrease their confidence and may even reveal their own ignorance in the process.52
        Better still, if their confidence in a belief is justified by the epistemological process that brought them to it, then you learned something and you can adjust or increase your confidence accordingly. Note: This technique combines Focus on Epistemology and the use of calibrated questions with Introduce Scales.
      - Keep a log of your conversations.
        
        Note what lowers confidence levels and what does not. Refine. Discard. Repeat.
  - - - eg: If you’re trying to hash out a political topic, like gun control, reframe the conversation to underlying interests of safety, security, or rights and how best to balance those interests. You’ve thus reframed it from a politicized issue to a safety issue.
      - Finally, reframing is not “spinning.” It’s an attempt to recast a question or sticking point in a different light. Reframing is also a way to view an issue from a perspective that facilitates more open dialogue and less negativity
    - - Reframe the conversation around commonalities.
        For example, in a debate over gun rights, it is probable that both you and your partner are ultimately concerned with the balances between safety and freedom. Reframe the question to the best ways a balance can be achieved—or what the underlying motivations are for best achieving that balance. Say, “Ultimately, we’re both interested in safety and freedom for people, but don’t see eye-to-eye on how to achieve those goals. Can we talk more directly about the ways we can achieve a balance?” Once commonalities and points of agreement are secure, you can return to your original question. This reframes the conversation from a debate about safety and liberty to a more collaborative discussion about how those two positives can be balanced despite their natural tension.
      - Reframe the question to be less contentious.42
        
        Say, “I hear you. I wonder if we can get around our disagreement by looking at it another way. Maybe we’re both just concerned about making sure we give the best opportunities to citizens. What do you think?” Reframing is particularly useful if people become frustrated.43 In brief: translate what you’re saying into terms that are more helpful, seek commonalities and underlying interests, and appeal to superordinate identities.
      - Figure out what you need to say for them to respond, “That’s right.”44
        
        Reframe accordingly. Unlike a simple “Yes,” which could mean different things in different contexts, “That’s right” signals understanding of a position or embracing of an idea. Note that “That’s right” is different from “You’re right.” When your partner says, “You’re right,” it “sticks” to you as opposed to their owning the conclusion.45 Often the path to securing “That’s right” is through reframing an issue that was perceived as negative to an issue that’s now perceived as positive.
  - - - At any point in the conversation, if you realize you’ve been harboring an incorrect belief, say, “I just realized my belief might be wrong. I’ve changed my mind.” Because this almost never happens, when it does, your conversation partner will likely be completely taken aback.
      - There is, of course, a catch. You should only say this if you’re sincere. “I’ve changed my mind” is therefore a type of invitation. It displays the virtues of revising beliefs and modeling, and thus becomes an invitation for others to do the same. It’s also the ultimate rapport builder—it’s almost impossible for someone to dislike you after you say this.
  - - - Use Outsourcing toward the end of a conversation.
        
        Say, “I’m not sure about that. If I could be shown reliable data, I’m open to changing my mind. Bring it back next time we talk. If it’s persuasive enough to change my mind, I will.” This one statement makes use of several techniques at once: Focus on Epistemology, Modeling, Learning, Build Golden Bridges, and Partnership. (Asking someone to provide evidence is not the same as interjecting your own evidence. See Chapter 5: Do not offer evidence unless explicitly invited to do so—even then, ask questions and make sure they genuinely want you to provide evidence. Presenting conflicting evidence may cause the backfire effect and further entrench your conversation partner in her beliefs.)
        Black musician Daryl Davis sometimes uses this technique—specifically, when he claims to know people’s ideas are wrong—to de-convert members of the KKK.60 Davis often meets with Klansmen and then sends them off seeking information that might support their claims, which he believes they cannot find, and capitalizes upon the doubt sown by their own research.
      - If you’re stuck mid-conversation, ask, “How would an independent, neutral observer figure out what source of information to trust?”62
        
        You can also ask, “If we were to ask an expert who shares this opinion, who’s an expert on the other side of the issue who makes the strongest case, who would that be?” Note also that this is a type of “outsider question
      - Here are a few alternative ways to phrase Outsourcing (and disconfirmation, Chapter 5) questions:
        
        “What specific evidence could we find that might settle this?”63
        
        “What evidence should be sufficient to persuade an independent observer?”
        
        “What evidence is there that could persuade every reasonable person?”64
        
        “What’s the best counterargument for why one should question conclusions drawn from that evidence?” Followed up by asking, “What’s the best argument of two well-known experts and why are these arguments incorrect?”
      - Combine Outsourcing with building Golden Bridges.
        
        Say, “Let’s set this aside for now and come back to it later when we have more information.” (Notice the use of the team word we and the absence of the word you. See Language, above.) Don’t press your partner to change her views. It’s okay to let an issue rest, revisit it later, and build a Golden Bridge while doing so.65 Combining Outsourcing with Golden Bridges can also defuse a tense situation. Doing so provides people with a shame-free way to analyze, verify, and assimilate the new information in their own time without feeling pressure to change their mind on the spot.
      - If, in an attempt at Outsourcing, you invite your partner to present evidence for her beliefs, and she responds, “There’s no point in seeking evidence because there is no evidence that would change my mind,” then her belief is not based on evidence.
        
        What it means to hold a belief based on evidence is, by definition, that one is open to the possibility that evidence might be discovered that would change one’s mind. If no evidence would change one’s mind, then one is not forming one’s beliefs on the basis of evidence. Therefore, there’s no point in Outsourcing. This is discussed in more detail in Chapter 5, Seek Disconfirmation.
      - Outsourcing only works with empirical questions.
        
        Outsourcing only works with verifiable, testable propositions about the world or verifiable facts. It’s not termed “moral outsourcing” because it does not work with moral questions, which are notoriously difficult to resolve.
        Consequently, do not attempt moral outsourcing by appealing to “moral experts,” for example, the Pope, your favorite theologian, your mother, a wise man you once knew, or a talk show host. If your partner does defer to her experts as a means to outsource moral questions, you have several options:
        
        Say, “I don’t recognize X as a moral authority.” (Be careful, however, as this might evoke a defensive posture. Your partner might infer that you have a moral deficiency because you don’t recognize her expert.)
        
        Say, “The issue I have with that is that there are different people who profess to be moral experts and often these people have conflicting views. This gets us back to our original question of how can we figure this out.”
        
        If your conversation is more thoughtful, say, “The problem with bringing moral experts into our conversation is that one has to already buy into the moral system before deferring to that person’s authority. For example, we’re not Scientologists, so neither one of us defers to L. Ron Hubbard’s moral pronouncements.”
      - Ask, “Whose expert opinion can I read to gather more information?”
        
        Either (a) your partner won’t have any relevant experts to name, at which point her underinformed state may become obvious to her; (b) she will name someone whose bias is well-known, at which point you can follow up by asking, “How is that source authoritative?” and “What are the best arguments against that position?”; or (c) she will name a genuine expert from whom you can learn.
      - Ask, “Who are the three best experts who disagree with that position?”
        
        This is a useful question for exposing the illusion of explanatory depth
      - If your conversation is stuck, say, “We seem to be stuck. How about we only use statements/information/evidence both sides would agree upon?