WEBVTT

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So you probably have the sense,

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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

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if research backs up your intuition.

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And in a nutshell,
the answer is sadly yes.

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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,

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talking only to likeminded 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 is seeing this rising

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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.

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They don't want to date one another.

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If they do, if they find out,

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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
sort of social pattern,

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I'm a movie buff,

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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
trying to spread their disease

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and destroy society.

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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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because 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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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,
and we started doing research

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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 that the political divide
in our country is undergirded

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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 John Hyatt 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 that liberals and conservatives

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talk to one another 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 that would be

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compelling to a conservative

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in support of same-sex marriage.

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And what we found was that liberals
tended to make the 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 --
"deserve the same equal rights

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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
in terms of one of the more

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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,

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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
pro-environmental 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
were assigned to read

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a really different essay

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that was designed to tap into
the conservative value

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of moral purity.

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It was a pro-environmental 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 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 of participants

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that were assigned to read
just a non-political 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
really matter what essay they read.

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They tended to have highly
pro-environmental 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

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in global warming 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

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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

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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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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

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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:

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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
and all of it, all the things

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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

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and contempt that flows through
all of us every day make us ugly

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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,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
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)