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Speaker 1: Pushkin.

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Speaker 2: It's no secret that politics around the world has become

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Speaker 2: more divided and more toxic. Here in the US, our

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Speaker 2: political parties seem further apart on key issues than ever before.

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Speaker 3: Back in the.

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Speaker 2: Nineteen eighties, Democrats and Republicans reported liking people in their

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Speaker 2: own party and feeling relatively neutral about folks on the

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Speaker 2: other side. But today those feelings are much more polarized.

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Speaker 2: One survey from twenty twenty found that Democrats and Republicans

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Speaker 2: now dislike their rivals more than they like the people

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Speaker 2: who share their political views. This level of emotional polarization

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Speaker 2: is new in American politics, but it's not that surprising

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Speaker 2: given well, pretty much every screen you look at these days,

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Speaker 2: cable news, shows, social media sites, emailed attack ads, they

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Speaker 2: all show us a very extreme version of the other side.

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Speaker 2: Our opponents aren't just wrong about the policies, they're moral

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Speaker 2: and out to destroy our nation.

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Speaker 4: Of brainwashing that's going to the young people right now

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Speaker 4: is unbelieving.

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Speaker 5: Now they're inviting the government into their bedroom to tell

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Speaker 5: any woman what to do with her private parts.

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Speaker 2: I don't think that's right.

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Speaker 5: We're being flooded in by illegal people coming in a

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Speaker 5: lot of people that vote for certain candidate of voting

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Speaker 5: against democracy. This level of division, distrust and anger, it

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Speaker 5: takes a huge toll on us. It's exhausting. I'm Jamil Zaki,

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Speaker 5: and in my lab at Stanford, we found that more

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Speaker 5: than eighty percent of Americans on both sides are fed

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Speaker 5: up with it and wish that the country was less divided.

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Speaker 5: But if you're convinced that the other side is made

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Speaker 5: up of terrible, hostile people, there's little hope for things

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Speaker 5: to get any better.

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Speaker 6: They're so annoying, they're come with so money negative. That's

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Speaker 6: what a Republican come.

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Speaker 4: You know, it's always put out there that Republicans are this,

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Speaker 4: Republicans are that we're racists.

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Speaker 7: We don't listen to other people.

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Speaker 4: A lot of my family are Republicans, but I'm not

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Speaker 4: friends with any Republicans.

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Speaker 5: But are we right to imagine that everyone on the

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Speaker 5: other side is just plain awful? And if we're not,

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Speaker 5: can we fight this polarization and connect with our fellow

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Speaker 5: citizens across the aisle? Is there any hope that we

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Speaker 5: even could be less divided?

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Speaker 2: Our minds are constantly telling us what you to be happy?

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Speaker 2: What if our minds are wrong? What if our minds

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Speaker 2: are lying to us, leading us away from what will

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Speaker 2: really make us happy. The goodness is that understanding the

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Speaker 2: science of the mind can point us all back in

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Speaker 2: the right direction. You're listening to the Happiness Lab with me,

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Speaker 2: doctor Laurie Santos.

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Speaker 5: And me doctor Jamille Zaki. Amanda, it's great to meet you.

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Speaker 5: I'm a huge fan.

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Speaker 3: Oh, thanks for saying that.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I recommend your book for everybody.

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Speaker 3: Likewise, I've really been enjoying When I.

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Speaker 5: Was writing Hope for Cynics, I wanted to learn more

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Speaker 5: about how cynical thinking might worsen polarization. One of the

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Speaker 5: people who inspired me the most was Amanda Ripley.

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Speaker 3: I've been a journalist for twenty years and I spent

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Speaker 3: a lot of time covering conflict. That's part of the job,

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Speaker 3: and I thought I was pretty good at it. I

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Speaker 3: thought I understood it pretty well. I thought it was

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Speaker 3: comfortable with it. And then, you know, six or eight

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Speaker 3: years ago, I started to feel like things were happening

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Speaker 3: in the country politically that didn't make sense, and anything

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Speaker 3: I might do as a journalist was either going to

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Speaker 3: have no impact or make things worse.

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Speaker 5: People have gotten more polarized in the past few decades,

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Speaker 5: but so is the media. When I was a kid,

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Speaker 5: not quite in the age of the dinosaurs, TV news

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Speaker 5: was like the ancient land mass of Pangaea, a single

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Speaker 5: continent of information on which we all lived. We might

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Speaker 5: not have shared our views, but at least we shared

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Speaker 5: a sense of what was going on. But then the

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Speaker 5: tectonic plates shifted, that single continent of news broke into

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Speaker 5: pieces that drifted apart. With media companies competing for our attention,

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Speaker 5: a new business mindel emerged. Instead of trying to get

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Speaker 5: the most viewers, news channels started cultivating audience loyalty by

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Speaker 5: feeding people what they wanted to hear twenty four hours

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Speaker 5: a day. Partisan cable news was born, pumping out divisive

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Speaker 5: rhetoric and encouraging us to fear and loathe our rivals.

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Speaker 3: It's just painful because you can see the ways in

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Speaker 3: which the places I worked exploited and incited conflict without

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Speaker 3: anyone knowing it.

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Speaker 5: So, according to Amanda, the news wasn't just reflecting polarization,

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Speaker 5: it was profiting from it. Research suggests this is spreading

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Speaker 5: cynicism through what's called mean world syndrome. The more people

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Speaker 5: tune into the news, the worse they think humanity is.

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Speaker 5: And that makes sense because, in addition to becoming more divisive,

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Speaker 5: the news has also grown more negative. Since the beginning

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Speaker 5: of this century, the presence of angry words and headlines

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Speaker 5: has increased by one hundred percent and the presence of

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Speaker 5: fear by one hundred and fifty percent.

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Speaker 2: Unsurprisingly, none of this makes us happy. Once survey asked

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Speaker 2: people to complete the following sentence, the news makes me

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Speaker 2: feel blank the top answers, hopeless, agitated, and despair. What

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Speaker 2: would your answers be? Amanda was devastated that her industry

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Speaker 2: was making people miserable. She hated the idea that she

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Speaker 2: might be contributing to the conflict brewing all around us.

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Speaker 3: There are stories I've written or headlines I've approved that

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Speaker 3: definitely piled on that exploited the conflict in order to

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Speaker 3: get attention or status or profit.

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Speaker 2: Amanda wanted to better understand how good journalists wound up

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Speaker 2: fanning the flames of polarization and what they could do

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Speaker 2: to break free.

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Speaker 3: So I started following people who have been through really

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Speaker 3: dysfunctional conflict and now are in healthier conflict.

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Speaker 2: Amanda interviewed rival gang leaders in Chicago. She traveled to

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Speaker 2: Columbia to learn about that country's civil war. She shadowed

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Speaker 2: radical environmentalists and even did a deep dive into small

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Speaker 2: time politics. What she discovered turned into a book, High Conflict,

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Speaker 2: Why we get trapped, and How we get out.

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Speaker 3: Conflict is not a problem, right, and we know this

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Speaker 3: from all of the research into human behavior. The conflict

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Speaker 3: onto itself can be really important and helpful. The problem

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Speaker 3: is high conflict or intractable conflict, which becomes kind of

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Speaker 3: like conflict for conflict's sake.

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Speaker 5: So if conflict can be just fine, when does it

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Speaker 5: turn into a problem. According to Amanda, the first step

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Speaker 5: is when we draw up rigid battle.

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Speaker 3: Lines, we literally lose our peripheral vision. We start to

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Speaker 3: cleanly divide the world into us and them and miss

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Speaker 3: all the people that don't really fit.

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Speaker 5: Once we define ourselves as members of a group, we

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Speaker 5: begin stereotyping the other group as the enemy. Caught in

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Speaker 5: a zero sum competition, we win only if they lose.

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Speaker 5: This is when emotional polarization takes over. We begin to

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Speaker 5: dislike the other side and take pleasure in their suffering,

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Speaker 5: known as schadenfreude. But it even opens the door to

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Speaker 5: us finding a justification to hurt them ourselves.

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Speaker 3: We know that when people feel like they are better

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Speaker 3: than another person or another group, when they feel maybe

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Speaker 3: humiliated by that other person or other group, all of

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Speaker 3: that makes violent conflict much more likely.

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Speaker 5: So this cycle of fear creates hatred and even violence.

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Speaker 5: It's exhausting and most of us wish it would stop.

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Speaker 5: Remember that statistic saying eighty percent of us want less division.

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Speaker 5: But it does help at least one group of people.

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Speaker 5: Amanda calls them conflict entrepreneurs, So.

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Speaker 3: People who exploit or inflame conflict for their own ends.

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Speaker 5: We've always had conflict entrepreneurs who earned a living saying

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Speaker 5: outrageous things in newspapers or on TV. But these days

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Speaker 5: anyone can engineer conflict and profit from it, reaching millions

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Speaker 5: of people from the comfort of their own home.

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Speaker 3: You know, you can go viral online, as we all know,

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Speaker 3: with like really cool, inspiring, hopeful, surprising content. You can

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Speaker 3: absolutely do that, but it's a lot easier to go

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Speaker 3: viral with like really uninspired and kind of mediocre content

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Speaker 3: if you can provoke outrage. So we've kind of set

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Speaker 3: things up to create a golden age for conflict entrepreneurs,

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Speaker 3: and it's very easy to be one. You can raise

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Speaker 3: money by being a conflict entrepreneur. You can get attention,

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Speaker 3: you can get a sense of belonging, you get followers.

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Speaker 1: You get likes.

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Speaker 5: You know, Amanda, it's easy to think about the conflict

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Speaker 5: entrepreneur as somebody cynical who's trying to make money from

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Speaker 5: or gain notoriety from their the ideological bomb throwing. But

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Speaker 5: you're actually saying, sometimes conflict entrepreneurs are looking for what

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Speaker 5: the rest of us are looking for, community and belonging.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great way of putting into meal. I mean,

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Speaker 3: I think certainly profit is maybe the least seductive reward

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Speaker 3: for conflict entrepreneurs. It's definitely in there.

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Speaker 1: But what is money?

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Speaker 3: Right? Money is often, especially for someone who's been doing

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Speaker 3: this their whole life, it's a proxy for being loved,

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Speaker 3: for being respected, for being powerful. Right, So it's a

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Speaker 3: way for people to feel like they matter.

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Speaker 5: Mattering it's a core psychological need we all share. We

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Speaker 5: go back again and again to whatever makes us feel

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Speaker 5: that way, and conflict, even when it's scary, can make

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Speaker 5: us feel a sense of purpose, belonging and mattering because

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Speaker 5: of this it can suck people in, turning any of

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Speaker 5: us into many conflict entrepreneurs. And once it gets going,

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Speaker 5: it's also hard to get out of. Once we're in

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Speaker 5: a state of high conflict, we experience a whole host

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Speaker 5: of psychological changes. Our thinking becomes oversimplified. If you think

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Speaker 5: you're smart, your enemy must be dumb. If you're good,

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Speaker 5: they're bad. If you want one thing, they must want

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Speaker 5: the exact opposite. But lots of these assumptions are just

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Speaker 5: plain wrong.

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Speaker 1: The democratic way it drives me absolute.

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Speaker 3: I can't tell you how many terrorists are actually coming

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Speaker 3: into our country right now.

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Speaker 7: I think their Republicans is very hard paper.

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Speaker 5: Democrats are real stupid, and they don't know much, and they.

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Speaker 1: Better than everyone.

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Speaker 5: At least in the US. Political groups are wrong about

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Speaker 5: each other in almost every way we can measure. We

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Speaker 5: don't know what people on the other side are like,

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Speaker 5: even at a basic level. For example, Democrats tend to

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Speaker 5: think that Republicans are super rich. When asked how many

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Speaker 5: Republicans have a salary of over two hundred and fifty

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Speaker 5: thousand dollars a year, Democrats, on average guess around forty

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Speaker 5: four percent.

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Speaker 3: I think the real number Epison like twelve percent.

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Speaker 5: I don't want to correct, Amanda, but the actual statistic

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Speaker 5: is two percent.

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Speaker 6: See even I just did it.

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Speaker 1: I just did the same mistake.

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Speaker 5: The right gets the left wrong too. When Republicans are

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Speaker 5: asked how many Democrats identify as LGBTQ, they assumed it

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Speaker 5: was around thirty eight percent, the actual proportion six percent.

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Speaker 5: We don't know who the other side is or what

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Speaker 5: they think. This is called false polarization. Of course, we

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Speaker 5: are polarized, but these divisions are larger in our minds

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Speaker 5: than in reality. Both Democrats and Republicans report that the

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Speaker 5: average person they disagree with is much more extreme than

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Speaker 5: they really are, and it gets worse. We also think

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Speaker 5: our average rival is about twice as hateful as they

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Speaker 5: really are.

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Speaker 3: We kind of caricature each other, or rather, I should say,

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Speaker 3: conflict entrepreneurs caricature each other, and then we believe these things,

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Speaker 3: especially when we're really segregated like we are right now.

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Speaker 5: The good news is there is way more common ground

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Speaker 5: in our political landscape than we realize. Most of us

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Speaker 5: agree on at least some issues, and almost all of

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Speaker 5: us share certain values. Most Americans want peace and democracy.

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Speaker 5: The bad news is that conflict. Entrepreneurs convince us that

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Speaker 5: people on the other side are awful, so we avoid

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Speaker 5: talking with them, even when the those conversations might help

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Speaker 5: us become less wrong. What's worse, we end up thinking

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Speaker 5: that we need to escalate conflict even though almost no

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Speaker 5: one wants to. This feeds even more division. An exhausted

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Speaker 5: majority wishes things could be different, but feels incorrectly that

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Speaker 5: they're alone.

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Speaker 3: I think people are getting really tired of it, but

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Speaker 3: they also feel totally trapped. We know this doesn't feel right.

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Speaker 3: I think we all know that something is wrong in

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Speaker 3: our culture, in our politics, and that we need to

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Speaker 3: do better. I think there's huge unmet demand for a

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Speaker 3: different way to do politics, a different way to do journalism,

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Speaker 3: different way to fight.

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Speaker 5: Is there hope that we can find a way out

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Speaker 5: of high conflict. Well, after the break, we'll meet someone

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Speaker 5: who's had to diffuse lots of polarizing situations and open

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Speaker 5: a type of dialogue not where we agree, but where

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Speaker 5: we can still see each other's humanity and common goals.

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Speaker 5: Even with our families.

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Speaker 2: Half my families Republicans. It always makes for a great thanksgeving.

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Speaker 5: It out more on that when the happiness lab returns

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Speaker 5: in a moment.

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Speaker 7: A lot of people surprise us, both good and bad.

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Speaker 2: Britt Baron tries not to see the world in black

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Speaker 2: and white. Instead, she's a self proclaimed master of nuance.

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Speaker 6: You know traditional cartoon Disney. They're just a good guy,

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Speaker 6: there's a bad guy. You want the good guy to win.

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Speaker 1: That is it. That is the entire story. And so

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Speaker 1: we have this.

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Speaker 6: Idea in our mind that things are that clean and

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Speaker 6: that things can be that clean.

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Speaker 2: But BRIT's own identities never fit cleanly into simple categories.

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Speaker 7: I grew up in the Evangelical church.

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Speaker 6: My parents were both very committed, and so that identity

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Speaker 6: I actually shaped a lot of decisions I made, schools,

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Speaker 6: I went to things I was a part of.

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Speaker 2: But growing up as a black woman in these predominantly

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Speaker 2: white religious spaces was I to achieve a sense of belonging.

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Speaker 2: Britt wound up embracing some strong fundamentalist beliefs, like the

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Speaker 2: idea that homosexuality is a sin and that girls need

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Speaker 2: to save themselves for marriage.

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Speaker 6: I think when I was like twelve or something, I

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Speaker 6: was in this youth group and the youth pastor passed

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Speaker 6: around a glass of water and everyone spit in the water,

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Speaker 6: and in the end he said, would anyone want to

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Speaker 6: drink this?

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Speaker 7: This is what happens every time you sleep with someone.

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Speaker 7: This is what's happening.

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Speaker 6: I mean even now saying that, I'm like, you know,

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Speaker 6: throwing up in my mouth. But yeah, I carried all

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Speaker 6: these stories and then I passed these stories on.

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Speaker 2: Britt was a dynamic speaker. She quickly rose through the

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Speaker 2: leadership breaks of her mostly white congregation, and I.

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Speaker 6: Found myself at a very young age of twenty six

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Speaker 6: being a pastor at a megachurch.

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Speaker 2: Things were going smoothly until Britt and the church's creative director, Sammy,

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Speaker 2: fell in love.

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Speaker 6: And so that is where I feel like I had

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Speaker 6: a decision to make.

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Speaker 2: Sammy is not the sort of person that Britt expected

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Speaker 2: to fall for. Sammy is a woman, and Britt had

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Speaker 2: spent her career preaching that same sex relationships were evil.

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Speaker 6: I struggled a lot with feeling like this seems like

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Speaker 6: a good thing, but what if it's bad?

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Speaker 7: What if this is a trick? What if you know,

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Speaker 7: the devil tricking you know?

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Speaker 6: I mean, I was like so deeply in this religion

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Speaker 6: called you know, what if you want to call it.

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Speaker 1: I was so deep in it.

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Speaker 2: Eventually, Britt and Sammy decided to declare their love openly

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Speaker 2: and came out to their church community.

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Speaker 1: I thought we would lose our jobs, which we both did.

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Speaker 6: I thought that we would get weird messages on the internet,

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Speaker 6: and we did.

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Speaker 2: Britta and Sammy lost much of the community they'd built

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Speaker 2: over decades. Many of BRIT's friends were so steeped in

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Speaker 2: binary thinking they simply couldn't accept that their former friends

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Speaker 2: had become a loving couple.

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Speaker 6: We got engaged not too long after coming out, and

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Speaker 6: there were three people, some of our closest friends in life,

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Speaker 6: who we asked to be in our wedding, who eventually

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Speaker 6: said this sort of stands against what they believe in.

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Speaker 1: They're not able to participate.

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Speaker 6: In with this.

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Speaker 2: The experience was devastating, but it got Brit thinking could

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Speaker 2: people who DRIs agreed so deeply on key issues ever

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Speaker 2: find a way to connect. She dedicated the next stages

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Speaker 2: of her career to helping people start meaningful dialogue to

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Speaker 2: see beyond their usual black and white views. I first

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Speaker 2: learned about BRIT's work through her book Do You Still

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Speaker 2: Talk to Grandma? When the problematic people in our lives

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Speaker 2: are the ones we love.

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Speaker 6: I was at dinner with a group of friends and

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Speaker 6: one of our friends was saying, oh, yeah, my grandma

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Speaker 6: voted for Trump, And someone else was like, do you

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Speaker 6: still talk to her? And she was like my nana,

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Speaker 6: And I was like, oh my gosh, are we cancling Grandma's?

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Speaker 2: Like?

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Speaker 1: Are we saying?

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Speaker 6: It's too hard for me to sit in any gray?

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Speaker 6: So I am just going to talk to people with

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Speaker 6: whom I'm on the same page.

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Speaker 2: Britt argues that we'd all be happier if we found

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Speaker 2: ways to disagree more agreeably.

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Speaker 6: My assumption, my feeling, my hunch is that a lot

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Speaker 6: of us are actually looking for a way to disagree

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Speaker 6: and still be in relationships with each other.

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Speaker 5: But to do that, we need to recognize that we

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Speaker 5: actually agree with the vast majority of people more than

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Speaker 5: our lying minds think. False polarization is just that false.

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Speaker 5: Take the US for example. Did you know that seventy

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Speaker 5: two percent of Americans think that climate change is happening

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Speaker 5: and agree we should take action, Or that more than

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Speaker 5: eighty percent of Americans believe that racism is a problem

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Speaker 5: we need to address. Over eighty percent of our fellow

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Speaker 5: citizens agree we should be fighting for a free press,

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Speaker 5: for freedom of speech, and for reasonable gun control measures

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Speaker 5: like background checks. Ninety percent of Americans support everyone's right

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Speaker 5: to a fair vote. Those stats make it clear we

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Speaker 5: actually see eye to eye on way more of the

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Speaker 5: fundamentals than we think.

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Speaker 6: If we can agree on the what, then we don't

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Speaker 6: necessarily have to agree.

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Speaker 7: On the how.

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Speaker 5: The problem is that we don't realize how aligned we

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Speaker 5: really are. But what would happen if we did realize

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Speaker 5: if we corrected our mistaken intuitions and developed a more

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Speaker 5: accurate view of what people on the other side actually believe.

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Speaker 5: That's what Stanford's sociologist Rob Willer and his colleagues tested.

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Speaker 5: They brought Democrats and Republicans into the lab and asked them,

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Speaker 5: how much do you feel it's justified for your party

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Speaker 5: to use violence to advance political goals. He then had

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Speaker 5: the same people predict what the other side would answered.

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Speaker 5: Willer found that each side overestimated the other's approval of

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Speaker 5: violence by nearly three hundred percent three hundred percent. But

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Speaker 5: Willer and his colleagues didn't stop there. They showed a

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Speaker 5: different group of people how big the usual overestimate was.

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Speaker 5: They explained just how off the average person was in

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Speaker 5: their predictions about the other side and what happened while

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Speaker 5: those new participants corrected their beliefs about the other side's

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Speaker 5: violent tendencies, and maybe more importantly, their own support for

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Speaker 5: political violence went down. Simply correcting our inaccurate perceptions of

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Speaker 5: our rivals can help us dial back our willingness to

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Speaker 5: strike preemptively. It can make us seek more peace.

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Speaker 2: Brit thinks that results like these prove that we need

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Speaker 2: to embrace a bit more nuance and drop the binary

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Speaker 2: judgments we make about say a grandma who's kind and

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Speaker 2: loving but also votes for someone.

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Speaker 1: We hate, So is she good or is she bad?

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Speaker 6: Right, very few of us are willing to sit with

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Speaker 6: the fact of Grandma's both, and so are we.

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Speaker 2: And that gets to the heart of BRIT's strategy for

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Speaker 2: disagreeing better. We need to bring some humility to our

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Speaker 2: own views too.

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Speaker 6: I think a lot of us have convinced ourselves that

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Speaker 6: we can fully exist on the quote unquote right side

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Speaker 6: of the line. So if someone can be all bad,

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Speaker 6: then we can be all good, and we can exist

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Speaker 6: in only right answers, and we can know the formula

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Speaker 6: and we can have it right, and we know the

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Speaker 6: right people to follow, we know the right things to repost,

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Speaker 6: we know the right books to read, and oh my gosh,

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Speaker 6: I just wipe this one off my brow because I

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Speaker 6: don't have to worry about ever being bad.

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Speaker 2: Brit worries that we don't just think we're right right now.

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Speaker 2: We assume we've always been right and that we always

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Speaker 2: will be right. It's a bias calls progressive amnesia.

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Speaker 6: Progressive amnesia is our ability to conveniently forget a time

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Speaker 6: before we knew what we know now. We have all

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Speaker 6: seen a movie that we like love from our childhood.

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Speaker 6: We rewatch it only to find and we've all said

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Speaker 6: this phrase before that movie doesn't hold up. And owning

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Speaker 6: that and experiencing that should give us a different perspective.

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Speaker 7: It should change our lens.

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Speaker 6: To sort of soften some of that black and white

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Speaker 6: line we've drawn so firmly.

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Speaker 2: Noticing just how much our own views have changed can

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Speaker 2: help us remember that other people have the capacity for

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Speaker 2: change too. It's a reminder that Britt turns to whenever

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Speaker 2: she encounters someone she disagrees with.

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Speaker 6: I have outgrown so many beliefs I used to firmly

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Speaker 6: hold right. I believe these fundamentally Christian things. I had

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Speaker 6: thoughts about women and purity culture. I used to believe

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Speaker 6: that being gay was a sin, like I bought into that.

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Speaker 6: Now I can't look at the people who are there

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Speaker 6: as just like antiquated, prehistoric idiots who don't stand a

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Speaker 6: chance and they're just dumb and they're bad, when in

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Speaker 6: reality they're just me.

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Speaker 1: Fifteen years ago.

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Speaker 6: I think there's just a lot of empathy I feel

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Speaker 6: for people who have only ever been told one story

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Speaker 6: and now are retelling that story because what else.

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Speaker 1: Would they know?

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Speaker 6: And that doesn't change the work that we have to

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Speaker 6: do in terms of justice and fighting for equity, but

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Speaker 6: it should change our approach to the work as we

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Speaker 6: understand those people in a different way.

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Speaker 2: But we don't just need to change the way we

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Speaker 2: think about people on the other side of political debates.

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Speaker 2: We also need to change how we act. We actually

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Speaker 2: need to talk to the people we disagree.

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Speaker 6: With, and so talking to people is so wildly important

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Speaker 6: because that is how we see them as people.

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Speaker 7: Again, I think there are a lot of ways in.

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Speaker 6: Which human interaction can actually turn the needle quite a bit.

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Speaker 1: Because I've experienced that.

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Speaker 2: But how do we get those tricky conversations going. We'll

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Speaker 2: find out when the Happiness Lab returns after the break.

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Speaker 2: Hey Lisa, how's it going?

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Speaker 6: Hello?

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Speaker 1: Doing well?

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Speaker 4: Thank you for having.

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Speaker 3: Me, No, thanks for coming on.

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Speaker 7: I love, love love.

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Speaker 5: This is Louisa Santims no relation to Laurie. In fact,

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Speaker 5: she hails from a different continent than our fearless host.

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Speaker 4: I was born in Brazil, and Brazil has an interesting

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Speaker 4: history because we had a military dictatorship. So my parents

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Speaker 4: lived through that and I kind of saw their shifting

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Speaker 4: and their political beliefs.

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Speaker 5: Louise's homeland has seen decades of political upheaval and division,

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Speaker 5: and sadly, those disagreements have driven a painful wedge directly

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Speaker 5: between members of her closest family.

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Speaker 4: My mom and one of my cousins stopped talking until

445
00:22:50,596 --> 00:22:55,476
Speaker 4: this day, don't really communicate, and it's been, you know,

446
00:22:55,556 --> 00:22:58,956
Speaker 4: ten years, and so that was really shocking for me

447
00:22:59,116 --> 00:23:03,156
Speaker 4: to see how something that at times in people's lives

448
00:23:03,276 --> 00:23:09,276
Speaker 4: feels abstract can really corrode these very real relationships.

449
00:23:09,396 --> 00:23:13,036
Speaker 5: Left Brazil to study psychology in the US, eventually working

450
00:23:13,076 --> 00:23:16,636
Speaker 5: with me at Stanford, and quickly realized that the rise

451
00:23:16,676 --> 00:23:21,156
Speaker 5: of populist politicians was causing worrying levels of polarization in

452
00:23:21,196 --> 00:23:21,996
Speaker 5: both countries.

453
00:23:22,396 --> 00:23:25,276
Speaker 4: So I was in college when thewenty sixteen election happened,

454
00:23:25,316 --> 00:23:28,116
Speaker 4: and I kind of saw the fabric of both countries

455
00:23:28,356 --> 00:23:32,316
Speaker 4: unraveling because of these dynamics, and I became really interested

456
00:23:32,356 --> 00:23:36,116
Speaker 4: in if there's anything we could use to help mitigate

457
00:23:36,156 --> 00:23:37,756
Speaker 4: some of these effects.

458
00:23:37,996 --> 00:23:41,956
Speaker 5: Louisa became interested in false polarization, the idea that people

459
00:23:42,036 --> 00:23:45,196
Speaker 5: simply don't disagree as much as they think. She began

460
00:23:45,276 --> 00:23:47,716
Speaker 5: to wonder what was causing us to be so wrong

461
00:23:47,796 --> 00:23:52,156
Speaker 5: about the views of others. Louisa gravitated towards an answer.

462
00:23:52,516 --> 00:23:55,356
Speaker 5: Study after study showed that, like in her own family,

463
00:23:55,756 --> 00:23:58,356
Speaker 5: people don't know what the other side really thinks because

464
00:23:58,356 --> 00:24:00,356
Speaker 5: they're unwilling to even talk to them.

465
00:24:00,436 --> 00:24:02,756
Speaker 4: People might see value in it, but they are just

466
00:24:03,236 --> 00:24:06,436
Speaker 4: very concerned about how these conversations are going to go

467
00:24:06,476 --> 00:24:09,636
Speaker 4: and tend to imagine kind of the worst a breeding

468
00:24:09,636 --> 00:24:11,876
Speaker 4: ground for these misperceptions.

469
00:24:11,556 --> 00:24:14,836
Speaker 2: And that breeding ground has grown pretty extreme. One recent

470
00:24:14,916 --> 00:24:18,476
Speaker 2: experiment found that people will refuse money if it requires

471
00:24:18,516 --> 00:24:22,036
Speaker 2: listening to a political opponent. In another study, subjects predicted

472
00:24:22,036 --> 00:24:25,076
Speaker 2: that talking to a political opponent would feel about as

473
00:24:25,076 --> 00:24:27,836
Speaker 2: bad as getting a tooth pulled, and family members who

474
00:24:27,836 --> 00:24:30,756
Speaker 2: spent their Thanksgiving dinners in a town where people voted

475
00:24:30,756 --> 00:24:33,716
Speaker 2: differently than they did wound up leaving that holiday meal

476
00:24:33,836 --> 00:24:36,836
Speaker 2: fifty minutes earlier than those who wait in communities that

477
00:24:36,956 --> 00:24:37,956
Speaker 2: voted more similarly.

478
00:24:38,036 --> 00:24:40,276
Speaker 5: Hold up, LORI wait a minute, you're saying that these

479
00:24:40,316 --> 00:24:43,716
Speaker 5: people leave before dessert. They're giving up pie. I mean

480
00:24:44,276 --> 00:24:48,356
Speaker 5: pumpkin pie, apple pie. That's an incredible desire to avoid

481
00:24:48,396 --> 00:24:50,436
Speaker 5: a conversation if you're willing to give that up.

482
00:24:51,236 --> 00:24:55,276
Speaker 4: So our idea was, can we get everyday people who

483
00:24:55,356 --> 00:24:58,396
Speaker 4: disagree on topics that are important for the country to

484
00:24:58,716 --> 00:25:01,716
Speaker 4: just sit and have a conversation for twenty minutes and

485
00:25:01,756 --> 00:25:04,196
Speaker 4: what are the consequences of that?

486
00:25:04,476 --> 00:25:07,276
Speaker 2: The idea turned into Luisa's PhD dissertation.

487
00:25:07,676 --> 00:25:11,876
Speaker 4: We basically out and asked a bunch of Republicans and

488
00:25:11,916 --> 00:25:16,556
Speaker 4: Democrats about their beliefs on three hot button topics. It

489
00:25:16,596 --> 00:25:21,676
Speaker 4: was immigration, gun control, and climate change. And we explained

490
00:25:21,676 --> 00:25:24,156
Speaker 4: to them that we were trying to have the study

491
00:25:24,156 --> 00:25:28,396
Speaker 4: where people would meet over zoom and talk about disagreements

492
00:25:28,436 --> 00:25:31,476
Speaker 4: with a person who supported the other party, And then

493
00:25:31,516 --> 00:25:33,796
Speaker 4: we asked them to forecast how these conversations were going

494
00:25:33,876 --> 00:25:36,036
Speaker 4: to go, So we asked them how pleasant do you

495
00:25:36,076 --> 00:25:37,196
Speaker 4: think the conversation will be?

496
00:25:37,236 --> 00:25:37,916
Speaker 7: How productive?

497
00:25:37,956 --> 00:25:39,356
Speaker 4: How much do you think you're going to like the

498
00:25:39,396 --> 00:25:42,756
Speaker 4: person on the other side, And a week later we

499
00:25:42,796 --> 00:25:45,196
Speaker 4: actually paired people to have conversations.

500
00:25:45,436 --> 00:25:49,556
Speaker 2: Louisa's methods seems straightforward enough, but her PhD advisor was

501
00:25:49,596 --> 00:25:51,076
Speaker 2: a little worried, more than a little.

502
00:25:51,356 --> 00:25:53,916
Speaker 5: One of our core missions in research, as you know, Laurie,

503
00:25:53,956 --> 00:25:56,076
Speaker 5: is not just to find out about people, but to

504
00:25:56,156 --> 00:25:59,676
Speaker 5: keep them safe. Louisa and I were terrified that people

505
00:25:59,716 --> 00:26:03,196
Speaker 5: would threaten each other, or dox each other, you name it.

506
00:26:03,556 --> 00:26:06,236
Speaker 5: We wanted to do everything we could to avoid harm,

507
00:26:06,516 --> 00:26:07,356
Speaker 5: so Luisa.

508
00:26:07,076 --> 00:26:09,436
Speaker 2: And Jamille put protections in place to make make sure

509
00:26:09,476 --> 00:26:12,796
Speaker 2: that the conversations went smoothly. They added a moderator who

510
00:26:12,796 --> 00:26:15,756
Speaker 2: had explicit instructions about what to do if the conversation

511
00:26:15,836 --> 00:26:19,196
Speaker 2: went south. The moderator began the conversation by reminding the

512
00:26:19,196 --> 00:26:23,236
Speaker 2: participants about the political questions they'd answered before, and explained

513
00:26:23,276 --> 00:26:25,796
Speaker 2: that they'd now be having a conversation with someone who

514
00:26:25,876 --> 00:26:29,116
Speaker 2: disagreed with their views. The moderator that introduced the first

515
00:26:29,196 --> 00:26:33,076
Speaker 2: of two hot fun topics, say gun control, and invited

516
00:26:33,116 --> 00:26:35,156
Speaker 2: the strangers to exchange their views.

517
00:26:35,276 --> 00:26:37,876
Speaker 4: And then a moderator would mute themselves and turn their

518
00:26:37,916 --> 00:26:40,916
Speaker 4: camera off, and then people will basically have this ten

519
00:26:40,956 --> 00:26:44,156
Speaker 4: minute conversation with the stranger that person they just met

520
00:26:44,196 --> 00:26:45,476
Speaker 4: on this issue.

521
00:26:45,716 --> 00:26:48,436
Speaker 5: Well, I think we need guns because there are a

522
00:26:48,476 --> 00:26:49,636
Speaker 5: lot of crazies out there.

523
00:26:50,276 --> 00:26:52,276
Speaker 3: I think the real problem is that there are just

524
00:26:52,356 --> 00:26:54,916
Speaker 3: too many crazy people with guns.

525
00:26:55,356 --> 00:26:59,036
Speaker 2: When I first heard about Luisa's study, my initial reaction was, man,

526
00:26:59,116 --> 00:27:01,796
Speaker 2: I hope she plaid those poor moderators a lot of money,

527
00:27:02,236 --> 00:27:05,436
Speaker 2: because I assumed most conversations would turn into twenty minute

528
00:27:05,476 --> 00:27:08,916
Speaker 2: screaming matches. And I wasn't the only one with this prediction.

529
00:27:09,396 --> 00:27:12,196
Speaker 2: Luisa recruited a different group of people and asked them

530
00:27:12,236 --> 00:27:16,236
Speaker 2: to forecast how many conversations would require moderator intervention.

531
00:27:17,036 --> 00:27:21,436
Speaker 4: And people thought that twenty five percent of conversations would

532
00:27:21,436 --> 00:27:24,636
Speaker 4: have to be stopped, when in fact none did.

533
00:27:25,556 --> 00:27:26,436
Speaker 7: I was shocked.

534
00:27:26,676 --> 00:27:29,036
Speaker 4: I did not think that they were gonna love it,

535
00:27:29,676 --> 00:27:30,556
Speaker 4: but people.

536
00:27:30,356 --> 00:27:33,436
Speaker 2: Did love it. They shared their views civilly and listened

537
00:27:33,476 --> 00:27:35,836
Speaker 2: to stories from a complete stranger on the other side

538
00:27:35,956 --> 00:27:37,316
Speaker 2: with genuine curiosity.

539
00:27:37,636 --> 00:27:38,756
Speaker 4: My Mom's not guns.

540
00:27:38,916 --> 00:27:41,476
Speaker 5: I mean, she's in her eighties, SAEs it make her

541
00:27:41,516 --> 00:27:45,556
Speaker 5: feel safer. I guess I can understand that my sister's

542
00:27:45,596 --> 00:27:46,156
Speaker 5: the same way.

543
00:27:46,556 --> 00:27:49,356
Speaker 2: But the most shocking finding came when Luisa asked people

544
00:27:49,356 --> 00:27:52,356
Speaker 2: how much they enjoyed the conversation on a scale from

545
00:27:52,436 --> 00:27:55,556
Speaker 2: one not at all to one hundred extremely enjoyable.

546
00:27:56,196 --> 00:27:59,116
Speaker 4: The most common response was one hundred out of one hundred.

547
00:27:59,236 --> 00:28:02,676
Speaker 4: People thought it was extremely pleasant, that these conversations were

548
00:28:02,716 --> 00:28:06,036
Speaker 4: extremely productive, that they found a lot of common ground

549
00:28:06,036 --> 00:28:09,756
Speaker 4: with their partner, and that they liked their conversation partner

550
00:28:09,956 --> 00:28:13,476
Speaker 4: a lot. And a very common comment at the end

551
00:28:13,556 --> 00:28:18,116
Speaker 4: of the survey was that people were shocked by how

552
00:28:18,156 --> 00:28:20,636
Speaker 4: well it went and how much they liked the person

553
00:28:20,676 --> 00:28:23,316
Speaker 4: they talked to. They even wrote things like I would

554
00:28:23,356 --> 00:28:26,356
Speaker 4: love to have this person over for cocktails in dinner,

555
00:28:26,396 --> 00:28:30,396
Speaker 4: and you know, they really seemed to connect with one another,

556
00:28:30,556 --> 00:28:34,436
Speaker 4: even though they were talking about these frot topics of

557
00:28:34,476 --> 00:28:37,156
Speaker 4: political disagreement. And I think it speaks a little bit

558
00:28:37,196 --> 00:28:40,556
Speaker 4: to the hunger that people have to find these types

559
00:28:40,636 --> 00:28:43,036
Speaker 4: of connections, you know, to kind of feel that there

560
00:28:43,196 --> 00:28:46,236
Speaker 4: is common ground out there when everything around.

561
00:28:45,956 --> 00:28:47,476
Speaker 1: Us seemed to indicate otherwise.

562
00:28:47,636 --> 00:28:51,196
Speaker 2: But why did these conversations go so shockingly well? Luisa

563
00:28:51,196 --> 00:28:54,036
Speaker 2: think's part of the success involved the way strangers talked

564
00:28:54,036 --> 00:28:56,756
Speaker 2: about their views. Rather than give some lecture aimed at

565
00:28:56,756 --> 00:29:00,076
Speaker 2: convincing the other side, most participants just talked about their

566
00:29:00,076 --> 00:29:03,756
Speaker 2: lived experience. They told stories about how and why they

567
00:29:03,756 --> 00:29:04,916
Speaker 2: came to believe what they did.

568
00:29:05,476 --> 00:29:08,996
Speaker 4: For example, in one of our conversations, this person who

569
00:29:09,196 --> 00:29:14,116
Speaker 4: the Republican gun supporter, shared that he's gay, he lives

570
00:29:14,156 --> 00:29:17,076
Speaker 4: in an area where he feels very unsafe, and he

571
00:29:17,156 --> 00:29:20,156
Speaker 4: has received death threats in the past, and that was

572
00:29:20,196 --> 00:29:22,836
Speaker 4: the time where he bought his first gun. So he

573
00:29:22,916 --> 00:29:24,596
Speaker 4: kind of shares the story about how he was actually

574
00:29:24,636 --> 00:29:28,196
Speaker 4: opposed to guns before and then this setting of being

575
00:29:28,276 --> 00:29:32,596
Speaker 4: frightened made him purchase a gun, and nowadays he feels

576
00:29:32,916 --> 00:29:36,476
Speaker 4: safer because of that purchase. I feel like stories like

577
00:29:36,556 --> 00:29:39,236
Speaker 4: that really shatter kind of preconceived ideas of who that

578
00:29:39,236 --> 00:29:41,076
Speaker 4: person on the other side is, and it kind of

579
00:29:41,116 --> 00:29:43,756
Speaker 4: opens us up to understanding how a person can disagree

580
00:29:43,796 --> 00:29:46,276
Speaker 4: with us, and it might not fully change or believes,

581
00:29:46,316 --> 00:29:48,396
Speaker 4: but at least gives insight into the humanity of that

582
00:29:48,436 --> 00:29:49,516
Speaker 4: person who believes that.

583
00:29:49,916 --> 00:29:53,276
Speaker 2: Luis's conversations involved a rhetorical tactic that we've talked about

584
00:29:53,316 --> 00:29:57,116
Speaker 2: before on the Happiness Lab, asking deep questions. Research shows

585
00:29:57,116 --> 00:30:00,116
Speaker 2: that people feel more hurt when their conversation partners ask

586
00:30:00,196 --> 00:30:03,556
Speaker 2: deep questions and listen to their replies. Hearing a partner's

587
00:30:03,636 --> 00:30:06,396
Speaker 2: question can also help us think more carefully about our

588
00:30:06,396 --> 00:30:07,156
Speaker 2: own views on a.

589
00:30:07,116 --> 00:30:10,356
Speaker 4: Topic, like sometimes when people ask enough questions, even the

590
00:30:10,396 --> 00:30:13,196
Speaker 4: person who was very confident in their beliefs starting out

591
00:30:13,556 --> 00:30:15,716
Speaker 4: become a little less confident as it goes on.

592
00:30:16,316 --> 00:30:19,716
Speaker 2: Asking questions also helps your conversation partner know that you

593
00:30:19,756 --> 00:30:22,396
Speaker 2: really care about their experiences and perspective.

594
00:30:22,876 --> 00:30:25,756
Speaker 4: So I think that sometimes people come to conversations thinking

595
00:30:25,796 --> 00:30:28,036
Speaker 4: that the sole goal on the other side is to

596
00:30:28,036 --> 00:30:30,676
Speaker 4: persuade you, but actually people are more interested in learning

597
00:30:30,716 --> 00:30:31,716
Speaker 4: than we give them credit for.

598
00:30:32,436 --> 00:30:36,036
Speaker 2: Louis's study shows that hard political conversations are much more

599
00:30:36,036 --> 00:30:39,436
Speaker 2: effective and enjoyable than we think. Her findings about the

600
00:30:39,436 --> 00:30:42,196
Speaker 2: power of a quick one on one political dialogue have

601
00:30:42,276 --> 00:30:44,676
Speaker 2: made her much more hopeful that we can fight our

602
00:30:44,676 --> 00:30:48,116
Speaker 2: polarization and fix the toxic conflict that so many of

603
00:30:48,196 --> 00:30:48,836
Speaker 2: us despise.

604
00:30:49,116 --> 00:30:52,236
Speaker 4: Most people do not want the world that we currently

605
00:30:52,316 --> 00:30:54,596
Speaker 4: live in, and they kind of would like more connection.

606
00:30:55,476 --> 00:30:59,036
Speaker 5: Louise's research is so encouraging and compelling, but has it

607
00:30:59,116 --> 00:31:01,316
Speaker 5: fixed the rift between her mother and her cousin.

608
00:31:01,516 --> 00:31:04,916
Speaker 4: I try in private conversations with each of them, and

609
00:31:05,036 --> 00:31:07,916
Speaker 4: both of them asked me about each other, you know,

610
00:31:07,956 --> 00:31:10,716
Speaker 4: So there's a lot of care there and love, And

611
00:31:10,756 --> 00:31:13,876
Speaker 4: I think that like both of them seem when I

612
00:31:13,876 --> 00:31:15,796
Speaker 4: talk to them in private, very open to the idea

613
00:31:15,796 --> 00:31:18,316
Speaker 4: of it. But no one wants to do the first step.

614
00:31:18,436 --> 00:31:21,076
Speaker 4: So I hope I can come back to this podcast

615
00:31:21,116 --> 00:31:24,956
Speaker 4: in a few years and say that that conflict has ended.

616
00:31:25,636 --> 00:31:28,916
Speaker 5: This points to a new frontier for Louisa's work. Getting

617
00:31:28,956 --> 00:31:31,396
Speaker 5: strangers to be polite to each other is one thing,

618
00:31:31,916 --> 00:31:34,676
Speaker 5: but the emotions of a family dynamic are on another

619
00:31:34,756 --> 00:31:38,036
Speaker 5: level of challenge, one we hope to explore in the future.

620
00:31:39,116 --> 00:31:42,116
Speaker 5: Of course, there are real disagreements in our country and

621
00:31:42,156 --> 00:31:45,876
Speaker 5: around the world. There are real violent extremists and bad

622
00:31:45,916 --> 00:31:49,236
Speaker 5: faith actors out there, and real threats to our values

623
00:31:49,476 --> 00:31:53,476
Speaker 5: and even democracy itself. But our problems only get worse

624
00:31:53,716 --> 00:31:57,556
Speaker 5: when we cynically decide that absolutely everyone we disagree with

625
00:31:57,716 --> 00:32:01,236
Speaker 5: is awful. The way we see each other now shapes

626
00:32:01,276 --> 00:32:04,436
Speaker 5: the future we can imagine together. When we write off

627
00:32:04,476 --> 00:32:07,476
Speaker 5: the other side, we give up on things getting any better.

628
00:32:07,996 --> 00:32:11,156
Speaker 5: The common ground we could explore it together remains an

629
00:32:11,236 --> 00:32:14,236
Speaker 5: undiscovered country. But we don't have to give into this.

630
00:32:14,796 --> 00:32:18,076
Speaker 5: The data about what people really want is more accurate

631
00:32:18,116 --> 00:32:22,236
Speaker 5: than our assumptions and more hopeful too. By opening our

632
00:32:22,276 --> 00:32:26,036
Speaker 5: minds and paying closer attention, we can rediscover the things

633
00:32:26,116 --> 00:32:30,196
Speaker 5: most of us want and maybe even start to mend division.

634
00:32:31,076 --> 00:32:33,876
Speaker 5: And that new approach probably won't hurt our happiness either.

635
00:32:35,156 --> 00:32:37,836
Speaker 2: In our next episode, in this special season on Finding Hope,

636
00:32:37,996 --> 00:32:40,276
Speaker 2: we'll build on what you've heard so far and talk

637
00:32:40,316 --> 00:32:42,756
Speaker 2: to people who put their cynicism aside to work with

638
00:32:42,836 --> 00:32:45,716
Speaker 2: others to fix the problems our society is facing, and

639
00:32:45,716 --> 00:32:49,276
Speaker 2: in doing so made their communities and themselves a lot happier.

640
00:32:49,556 --> 00:32:51,756
Speaker 7: There was no guarantee we were going to be successful.

641
00:32:51,836 --> 00:32:54,076
Speaker 3: If anything, everybody told us all the reasons.

642
00:32:53,756 --> 00:32:56,476
Speaker 7: We would fail, and yet we.

643
00:32:56,316 --> 00:32:57,556
Speaker 3: Were willing to try anyways.

644
00:32:57,996 --> 00:33:00,396
Speaker 2: All that next time on the Happiness Lab would be

645
00:33:00,796 --> 00:33:03,876
Speaker 2: doctor Laurie Santos and me, doctor jimille Zaki.

646
00:33:09,196 --> 00:33:09,276
Speaker 5: Yes,