WEBVTT

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So you probably have the sense,
as most people do,

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that polarization
is getting worse in our country,

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that the divide
between the left and the right

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

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But you might also reasonably wonder
if research backs up your intuition.

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And in a nutshell,
the answer is sadly yes.

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(Laughter)

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In study after study, we find

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that liberals and conservatives
have grown further apart.

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They increasingly wall themselves off
in these ideological silos,

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consuming different news,
talking only to like-minded others

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

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And I think that
most alarming of all of it

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is seeing this rising
animosity on both sides.

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Liberals and conservatives,

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Democrats and Republicans,

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

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You see it in many different ways.

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They don't want to befriend one another.
They don't want to date one another.

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If they do, if they find out,
they find each other less attractive,

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

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who supports the other party,

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a particularly shocking statistic.

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

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we're talking about some social pattern --

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I'm a movie buff, and so I'm often like,

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

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

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Well, it could be a disaster movie.

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It certainly seems like a disaster.

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Could be a war movie.

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Also fits.

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

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(Laughter)

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Right? You know the kind.

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There's people wandering around in packs,

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not thinking for themselves,

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seized by this mob mentality,

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trying to spread their disease
and destroy society.

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And if you're like me,
and you're a college-educated liberal --

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and statistically, I'm guessing,
the majority of you ...

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(Laughter)

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are exactly that.

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(Laughter)

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And you probably think, as I do,

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

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

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the conservatives.

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We're Brad Pitt, right?

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Free-thinking, righteous,

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just trying to hold on
to what we hold dear,

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

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Not that.

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Never that.

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But here's the thing:

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

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Right?

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

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in the zombie apocalypse movie. Right?

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

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and that we, we are the zombies.

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

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Look, they click on stupid internet links
that say stuff like that ...

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We click on stupid internet links
that say stuff like this.

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(Laughter)

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They complain about living near us,

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having to work with us,

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even eating Thanksgiving dinner with us.

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And we do all those same things.

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Right?

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Look, it's true.

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The studies that I see on polarization

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show that conservatives
look a little bit worse.

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They look a little bit angrier,

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a little more averse to compromise.

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And we could tell ourselves that means
that this is not our problem.

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That it's them doing it.

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But I think that would be taking
the easy way out.

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

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

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So what are we going to do?

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

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What could we do to connect with
and communicate with

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our political counterparts?

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

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became fascinated with a few years ago,

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and we started
doing research on this topic.

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And one of the first things
that we discovered

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that I think is really helpful
for understanding polarization

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is to understand

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that the political divide in our country
is undergirded by a deeper moral divide.

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

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is this pattern identified
by Jon Haidt and Jesse Graham,

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psychologists,

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that liberals and conservatives
tend to endorse different values

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to different degrees.

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

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and fairness and care
and protection from harm

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more than conservatives do,

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and conservatives tend to endorse
values like loyalty, patriotism,

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respect for authority and moral purity

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more than liberals do.

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And Matt and I were thinking
that maybe this moral divide

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might be helpful
for understanding how it is

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that liberals and conservatives
talk to one another

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and why they so often
seem to talk past one another

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when they do.

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So we conducted a study

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where we recruited liberals to a study

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where they were supposed
to write a persuasive essay

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that would be compelling to a conservative
in support of same-sex marriage.

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And what we found was that liberals
tended to make arguments

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

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So they said things like

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

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and they -- "they" being gay Americans --

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"deserve the same equal rights
as other Americans."

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Overall, we found
that 69 percent of liberals

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

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

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

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And when we studied conservatives
and had them make persuasive arguments

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

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a classically conservative
political position,

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

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59 percent of them made arguments

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in terms of one of the more
conservative moral values,

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and just eight percent
invoked a liberal moral value,

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

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

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People's moral values,
they're their most deeply held beliefs.

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People are willing
to fight and die for their values.

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

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

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

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

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he's got to change
his underlying values too,

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that's not going to go very far.

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So what would work better?

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

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

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In one of these experiments,

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we recruited liberals
and conservatives to a study

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where they read one of three essays

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before having their environmental
attitudes surveyed.

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And the first of these essays

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was a relatively conventional
proenvironmental essay

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

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It said things like
"in many important ways

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

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and "it is essential
that we take steps now

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

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Another group of participants

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were assigned to read
a really different essay

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that was designed to tap into
the conservative value of moral purity.

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It was a proenvironmental essay as well,

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and it said things like

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

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"We should regard the pollution

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of the places we live in
to be disgusting."

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And "reducing pollution
can help us preserve

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

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And then we had a third group

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that were assigned
to read just a nonpolitical essay.

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

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And what we found when we surveyed people

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about their environmental
attitudes afterwards,

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

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They tended to have highly
proenvironmental attitudes regardless.

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Liberals are on board
for environmental protection.

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Conservatives, however,

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were significantly more supportive
of progressive environmental policies

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and environmental protection

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if they had read the moral purity essay

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than if they read
one of the other two essays.

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We even found that conservatives
who read the moral purity essay

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were significantly more likely to say
that they believed in global warming

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and were concerned about global warming,

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

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That's just a related environmental issue.

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

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

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So if you want to move conservatives

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

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it helps to tie these liberal
political issues to conservative values

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like patriotism and moral purity.

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And we studied it the other way too.

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

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

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you're going to be more persuasive

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if you tie those conservative
policy issues to liberal moral values

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like equality and fairness.

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All these studies
have the same clear message:

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if you want to persuade
someone on some policy,

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

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And when you say it like that,
it seems really obvious. Right?

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Like, why did we come here tonight?

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Why --

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(Laughter)

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It's incredibly intuitive.

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

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You know, it turns out that when we go
to persuade somebody on a political issue,

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we talk like we're speaking into a mirror.

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

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for why we believe
some sort of political position.

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But, speaking as a liberal,

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I believe that we're going to need
a whole new set of arguments,

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if we're going to move
the next wave of people

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on critical issues like climate change,
immigration and inequality.

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And to come up with those arguments,

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we're going to have to take the time

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to really listen
to our conservative counterparts,

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to understand what they value,

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and then creatively think about
why they should come to agree with us,

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and in a way that doesn't
involve them having to sacrifice

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the things that they hold most dear.

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

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"empathy and respect,
empathy and respect."

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If you can tap into that,

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you can connect

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

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So thinking, again,
about what movie we're in,

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maybe I got carried away before.

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Maybe it's not a zombie apocalypse movie.

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Maybe instead it's a buddy cop movie.

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(Laughter)

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Just roll with it, just go with it please.

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(Laughter)

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You know the kind:
there's a white cop and a black cop,

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or maybe a messy cop and an organized cop.

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Whatever it is, they don't get along

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because of this difference.

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

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the solidarity that they feel,

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

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And remember that in these movies,

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it's usually worst in the second act

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when our leads are further apart
than ever before.

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

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

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(Laughter)

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torn apart but about
to come back together.

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It sounds good,

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but if we want it to happen,

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I think the responsibility
is going to start with us.

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So this is my call to you:

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let's put this country back together.

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Let's do it despite the politicians

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and the media and Facebook and Twitter

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and Congressional redistricting

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and all of it,
all the things that divide us.

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Let's do it because it's right.

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And let's do it
because this hate and contempt

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that flows through all of us every day

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makes us ugly and it corrupts us,

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and it threatens
the very fabric of our society.

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We owe it to one another and our country

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to reach out and try to connect.

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We can't afford to hate them any longer,

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

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Empathy and respect.

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Empathy and respect.

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

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Thank you.

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(Applause)