I recently attended an academic panel discussion on why people fail and succeed. Part of the way through, it struck me how public discourse has come to resemble that of the couples in my practice, which specializes in chronic resentment, anger, and emotional abuse.
The panel of experts, all of whom had political ambitions, divided between those who emphasized societal fault and structural injustice, arguing against those who stressed personal effort and responsibility. I believed the discussion would yield a plausible synthesis of the positions, and it started out that way.
Once the panelists began to respond dismissively to what the other side said, they grew more extreme in reaction to each other. They refused to concede any point made by the other side. Twice they cited the same research to prove each other wrong. Despite their obvious intelligence and knowledge, they expressed contempt and disgust to the point of accusing each other of fomenting violence. Yes, they claimed that academics in a panel discussion could incite public violence.
Their accusations weren't based on the content of their arguments but on their assumptions about the hidden agendas and manipulations of people who believe something different. They sounded like every resentful couple I've ever treated.
Concepts That Must Go Together
If we're to have productive public discourse and satisfying love relationships, we must consider the following inexorably joined:
- Rights and responsibility
- Truth and complexity
- Facts and emotion
- Persuasion and positive regard.
Everyone is entitled to have a voice and a responsibility to respect that everyone is entitled not to listen. When you honor this responsibility, the tone of your voice is not entitled, arrogant, or self-righteous. If you want people to listen to you, recognition of their right not to listen will make your tone respectful and appreciative.
In the complex worlds of love and politics, almost every statement of truth is oversimplified, incomplete, or subject to interpretation. People fight about disparate interpretations. Unlike facts, interpretations are inherently biased and driven by personal history and psychological coping mechanisms.
Social psychology suggests that we accept facts as truth only from people we trust. Yes, I’m old enough to remember when we trusted Walter Cronkite and the Huntley-Brinkley Report for news. Now we trust only those sources that reinforce our biases.
Politicians, social advocates, and partners in resentful love relationships tend to judge each other’s interpretations of facts as attempts to manipulate or mislead.
Test the hypothesis.
Consider your reaction to your partner who tried to win an argument by citing facts. Did the tactic improve trust or raise suspicion? Was there an implication that, because of the cited facts, your feelings were wrong and misguided, if not pathological?
Feelings about facts drive judgments about whether they’re important, relevant, illuminating, or misleading. Discussions of facts that ignore or dismiss feelings come off as arrogant, if not rejecting and hostile. Extreme examples are discussions about infidelity or abuse in love and hot-button political issues like abortion.
THE BASICS
The most productive discussions and enjoyable conversations feature curiosity about other positions. It’s arguing to learn rather than win. Arguing to win makes issues seem absolute and self-evident. Arguing to learn makes them seem relative and complicated.
When asked to adopt the opposite argument style, players view the issue differently. In other words, the arguing style shapes perceptions of issues rather than the other way around.
Test the hypothesis.
Consider an argument you had with your spouse about a personal issue or with someone at work about a political position. Shift the argument to learn about the other perspective. Compare the imagined outcomes.
Arguing to learn increases knowledge, growth, and self-value. It strengthens convictions by making them more complex and nuanced. It increases trust and improves relationships.
Relationships Essential Reads
The Temporary Certainty of Anger
The adrenaline of anger creates temporary feelings of energy and confidence. We feel right when angry, despite being:
- Unable to see other perspectives
- Prone to oversimplify
- Quick to ignore or discount evidence that we might not be so right.
We don’t get angry because we’re right; we feel right because we’re angry. When the adrenaline wears off, self-doubt returns. To avoid a depressed mood and the anxiety provoked by messy ambiguity, we get angry again.
Although we’re more confident when angry, we sense that reality testing might be impaired. So we seek validation of the anger from others. But the only validation possible is from other angry people who share our biases. You can’t win an angry argument; the best you can do is preach to the choir.
Even the Choir Doesn’t Listen for Long
We've become so insecure about the depth of our convictions that we feel compelled to preach to the choir and shut down everyone else. (The algorithms of social media encapsulate us in an endless flow of articles that fit our biases, making us the choir.) Partners in resentful love relationships preach to the choir by complaining to friends and relatives and by seeking pop-psychology condemnations of each other on the Internet.
Criticizing and condemning others energizes, but listening to criticisms and condemnations depletes energy. Whatever the choir, it will eventually desensitize to complaints and criticisms that make the same points over and over. Desensitization kills relationships.
Persuasion and Positive Regard
To persuade anyone to think or act differently, you must appeal to their reflective brain, which can minimize biases and come close to objectively analyzing one's own beliefs and behaviors. Objective analysis includes consideration of the consequences of behaviors and their effects on others. These are sophisticated cognitive operations, unavailable when people are defensive or self-righteous.
You will never persuade someone that you’re right by making them defensive through accusations, criticism, negative characterizations, or disrespect. (Those behaviors are more autobiographical than revealing descriptions of others.) Persuasion comes only with positive regard.
The key to positive regard is recognizing our basic humanity. We’re all frail humans, we all make mistakes, we’re all biased, and we’re all prone to deny or minimize our frailty, mistakes, and biases. In the words of Harry Stack Sullivan:
"We’re all more human than otherwise."
We lose sight of this truth when we conflate respect with validation of our feelings about facts. For example, I heard a caller on a radio show complain about an inconsistency in a politician’s statements on a relatively minor issue. He opened his remarks with, “Where is the outrage?” He repeated the phrase four times in his brief comments.
The panel of journalists all agreed with him about the inconsistencies, but agreement about the facts wasn’t enough. He wanted his outrage validated. Angry arguments are not about facts; they’re about emotional validation.
You can find self-awareness in the confusion of validation with respect. Ask yourself how you might gain the genuine respect of others. Is it by:
- Demanding that they respect you?
- Demanding that they earn your respect?
- Or by respecting them?
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November 05, 2022 at 09:38PM
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When Love and Politics Sound the Same - Psychology Today
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