How to have better political conversations

So you probably have the sense,

as most people do,

that polarization is getting worse
in our country,

that the divide between
the left and the right

is as bad as it's been in really
any of our lifetimes.

But you might also reasonably wonder

if research backs up your intuition.

And in a nutshell,
the answer is sadly yes.

In study after study, we find

that liberals and conservatives
have grown further apart.

They increasingly wall themselves off
in these ideological silos,

consuming different news,

talking only to likeminded others,

and more and more choosing to live
in different parts of the country.

And I think that most alarming
of all of it is seeing this rising

animosity on both sides.

Liberals and conservatives,

Democrats and Republicans,

more and more they just
don't like one another.

You see it in many different ways.

They don't want to befriend one another.

They don't want to date one another.

If they do, if they find out,

they find each other less attractive,

and they more and more don't want
their children to marry someone

who supports the other party,

a particularly shocking statistic.

You know, in my lab,
the students that I work with,

we're talking about some
sort of social pattern,

I'm a movie buff,

and so I'm often like,

what kind of movie are we in here
with this pattern?

So what kind of movie are we in
with political polarization?

Well, it could be a disaster movie.

It certainly seems like a disaster.

Could be a war movie.

Also fits.

But what I keep thinking is that
we're in a zombie apocalypse movie.

(Laughter)

Right? You know the kind.

There's people wandering around in packs,

not thinking for themselves,

seized by this mob mentality
trying to spread their disease

and destroy society.

And you probably think, as I do,

that you're the good guy
in the zombie apocalypse movie,

and all this hate and polarization,
it's being propagated by the other people,

because we're Brad Pitt, right?

Free-thinking, righteous,

just trying to hold on
to what we hold dear,

you know, not foot soldiers
in the army of the undead.

Not that.

Never that.

But here's the thing:

what movie do you suppose
they think they're in?

Right?

Well, they absolutely think
that they're the good guys

in the zombie apocalypse movie. Right?

And you'd better believe that they think
that they're Brad Pitt

and that we, we are the zombies.

And who's to say that they're wrong?

I think that the truth is
that we're all a part of this.

And the good side of that is that we
can be a part of the solution.

So what are we going to do?

What can we do to chip away
at polarization in everyday life?

What could we do to connect with
and communicate with

our political counterparts?

Well, these were exactly the questions
that I and my colleague Matt Feinberg

became fascinated with a few years ago,
and we started doing research

on this topic.

And one of the first things
that we discovered

that I think is really helpful
for understanding polarization

is to understand that the political divide
in our country is undergirded

by a deeper moral divide.

So one of the most robust findings
in the history of political psychology

is this pattern identified
by John Hyatt and Jesse Graham,

psychologists,

that liberals and conservatives
tend to endorse different values

to different degrees.

So for example, we find that liberals
tend to endorse values like equality

and fairness and care
and protection from harm

more than conservatives do,

and conservatives tend to endorse
values like loyalty, patriotism,

respect for authority, and moral purity

more than liberals do.

And Matt and I were thinking
that maybe this moral divide

might be helpful for understanding
how it is that liberals and conservatives

talk to one another and why they so often
seem to talk past one another

when they do.

So we conducted a study

where we recruited liberals to a study

where they were supposed to write
a persuasive essay that would be

compelling to a conservative

in support of same-sex marriage.

And what we found was that liberals
tended to make the arguments

in terms of the liberal moral values
of equality and fairness.

So they said things like

"everyone should have the right
to love whoever they choose,"

and "they" -- they being gay Americans --
"deserve the same equal rights

as other Americans."

Overall, we found that
69 percent of liberals

invoked one of the more liberal
moral values in constructing their essay,

and only nine percent invoked
one of the more conservative moral values,

even though they were supposed to be
trying to persuade conservatives.

And when we studied conservatives
and had them make persuasive arguments

in support of making English
the official language of the US,

a classically conservative
political position,

we found that they weren't
much better at this.

59 percent of them made arguments
in terms of one of the more

conservative moral values,

and just eight percent invoked
a liberal moral value,

even though they were supposed
to be targeting liberals for persuasion.

Now, you can see right away
why we're in trouble here. Right?

People's moral values,

they're their most deeply held beliefs.

People are willing to fight
and die for their values.

Why are they going to give that up
just to agree with you

on something that they don't particularly
want to agree with you on anyway?

If that persuasive appeal that
you're making to your Republican uncle

means that he doesn't just have
to change his view,

he's got to change
his underlying values too,

that's not going to go very far.

So what would work better?

Well, we believe it's a technique
that we call moral reframing,

and we've studied it
in a series of experiments.

In one of these experiments,

we recruited liberals and
conservatives to a study

where they read one of three essays

before having their environmental
attitudes surveyed.

And the first of these essays

was a relatively conventional
pro-environmental essay

that invoked the liberal values
of care and protection from harm.

It said things like
"in many important ways

we are causing real harm
to the places we live in,"

and "it is essential
that we take steps now

to prevent further destruction
from being done to our Earth."

Another group of participants
were assigned to read

a really different essay

that was designed to tap into
the conservative value

of moral purity.

It was a pro-environmental essay as well,

and it said things like

"keeping our forests, drinking water,
and skies pure is of vital importance."

"We should regard the pollution of
the places we live in to be disgusting."

And "reducing pollution
can help us preserve

what is pure and beautiful
about the places we live."

And then we had
a third group of participants

that were assigned to read
just a non-political essay.

It was just a comparison group
so we could get a baseline.

And what we found
when we surveyed people

about their environmental
attitudes afterwards,

we found that liberals, it didn't
really matter what essay they read.

They tended to have highly
pro-environmental attitudes regardless.

Liberals are on board
for environmental protection.

Conservatives, however,

were significantly more supportive
of progressive environmental policies

and environmental protection

if they had read the moral purity essay

than if they read
one of the other two essays.

We even found that conservatives
who read the moral purity essay

were significantly more likely
to say that they believed

in global warming and were
concerned about global warming

even though this essay
didn't even mention global warming.

That's just a related environmental issue.

But that's how robust
this moral reframing effect was.

And we've studied this on a whole slew
of different political issues.

So if you want to move conservatives

on issues like same-sex marriage
or national health insurance,

it helps to tie these liberal
political issues to conservative values

like patriotism and moral purity.

And we studied it the other way too.

If you want to move liberals
to the right on conservative policy issues

like military spending and making English
the official language of the US,

you're going to be more persuasive

if you tie those conservative
policy issues to liberal moral values

like equality and fairness.

All these studies have
the same clear message:

if you want to persuade someone
on some policy,

it's helpful to connect that policy
to their underlying moral values.

And when you say it like that

it seems really obvious. Right?

Like, why did we come here tonight?

Why -- ?

(Laughter)

It's incredibly intuitive.

And even though it is, it's something
we really struggle to do.

You know, it turns out that when
we go to persuade somebody

on a political issue,

we talk like we're speaking
into a mirror.

We don't persuade so much as
we rehearse our own reasons

for why we believe some sort
of political position.

We kept saying when we were designing
these reframed moral arguments,

empathy and respect, empathy and respect.

If you can tap into that,

you can connect,

and you might be able to persuade
somebody in this country.

So thinking again

about what movie we're in,

maybe I got carried away before.

Maybe it's not a zombie apocalypse movie.

Maybe instead it's a buddy cop movie.

(Laughter)

Just roll with it, just go with it please.

(Laughter)

You know the kind:

there's a white cop and a black cop,

or maybe a messy cop and an organized cop,

whatever it is, they don't get along

because of this difference.

But in the end, when they have
to come together and they cooperate,

the solidarity that they feel,

it's greater because of that gulf
that they had to cross. Right?

And remember that in these movies,

it's usually worst in the second act

when our leads are further apart
than ever before.

And so maybe that's where
we are in this country,

late in the second act
of a buddy cop movie --

(Laughter) --

torn apart but about to come
back together.

It sounds good,

but if we want it to happen,

I think the responsibility
is going to start with us.

So this is my call to you:

let's put this country back together.

Let's do it despite the politicians

and the media and Facebook and Twitter

and Congressional redistricting
and all of it, all the things

that divide us.

Let's do it because it's right.

And let's do it because this hate

and contempt that flows through
all of us every day make us ugly

and it corrupts us,

and it threatens the very
fabric of our society.

We owe it to one another and our country

to reach out and try to connect.

We can't afford to hate them any longer,

and we can't afford
to let them hate us either.

Empathy and respect.

Empathy and respect.

If you think about it, it's the very least
that we owe our fellow citizens.

Thank you.

(Applause)