Why your political discussions go nowhere | Robb Willer | TEDxMarin

Compelling new research on language offers a response to political polarization. What if new social psychology research held the key to bridging America's political divides?

Robb Willer is a professor of Sociology, Psychology, and Organizational Behavior at Stanford University.  He received his Ph.D. and M.A. from Cornell University and his B.A. from the University of Iowa. He previously taught at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was the 2009 recipient of the Golden Apple Teaching award, the only teaching award given by the student body.

Professor Willer’s research focuses on forces that bring people together (cooperation, morality, solidarity), forces that divide them (prejudice, competition), and settings featuring the complex interplay of the two (politics, organizations). A theme of his research is that many aspects of social life that are often viewed as antisocial – gossip, hierarchies, moral judgments – are in fact fundamental to social order.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

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.

(Laughter)

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

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

(Laughter)

are exactly that.

(Laughter)

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,

the conservatives.

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?

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

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

(Laughter)

They complain about living near us,

having to work with us,

even eating Thanksgiving dinner with us.

And we do all those same things.

Right?

Look, it's true.

The studies that I see on polarization

show that conservatives
look a little bit worse.

They look a little bit angrier,

a little more averse to compromise.

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

That it's them doing it.

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

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 Jon Haidt 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 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
proenvironmental 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 proenvironmental 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

that were assigned
to read just a nonpolitical 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 matter what essay they read.

They tended to have highly
proenvironmental 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.

But, speaking as a liberal,

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

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

on critical issues like climate change,
immigration and inequality.

And to come up with those arguments,

we're going to have to take the time

to really listen
to our conservative counterparts,

to understand what they value,

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

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

the things that they hold most dear.

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

makes 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)