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“But if you can remember that you’re a parent, then you know how scary it is to make health choices for your kids, and that sparks a little bit of sympathy,” he told me. “If you can remember that you’re a neighbor, then you know neighbors don’t say things like I know better than you.
In doing so, though, we hobble ourselves, because we start to see the world solely through that one lens.
We might remember that asking questions is what good parents are supposed to do.
“It reminded me I was more than a doctor,”
“Then, when someone would say something irrational—like vaccines are a big plot—instead of getting annoyed, I felt some connection, because I know what it feels like to get pushed around by experts. I’ve experienced that.”
It’s crucial, in a Who Are We? conversation, to remind ourselves that we all possess multiple identities: We are parents but also siblings; experts in some topics and novices in others; friends and coworkers and people who love dogs but hate to jog. We are all of these simultaneously, so no one stereotype de...
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In a Who Are We? conversation, invite people to talk about their backgrounds, allegiances, how their communities have shaped them. (“Where are you from? Oh, really? What was it like growing up there?”) Then, reciprocate by describing how you see yourself. (“You know, as a southerner, I think that…”) Finally, avoid the trap of one-dimensionality by evoking all the many identities we all possess as a conversation unfolds: “I hear you saying that, as a lawyer, you support the police, but as a parent, do you worry about cops pulling over your kid?”
Prejudices didn’t disappear, of course. Christian players admitted they still felt uncertain about other Muslims, those who weren’t their teammates. But the shift was striking:
The soccer teams were deliberately structured to give players roles that nudged them to think about identities beyond religion.
These kinds of environmental shifts point to what is needed for a successful Who Are We? conversation: First, try to draw out your conversational partners’ multiple identities. It’s important to remind everyone that we all contain multitudes; none of us is one-dimensional. Acknowledging those complexities during a conversation helps disrupt the stereotypes within our heads.
Second, try to ensure everyone is on equal footing. Don’t offer unsolicited advice or trumpet your wealth or connections. Seek out topics where everyone has some experience and knowledge, or everyone is a novice. Encourage the quiet to speak and the talkative to listen, so everyone is participating. Finally, look for social similarities that already exist. We do this naturally when we meet someone new and start searching for people we know in common.
Chamie’s conversations put everyone on equal footing—no one is an expert on parenting or God’s will.
“It worked because they felt listened to,” Rosenbloom told me. “You have to find some way to connect if you want people to hear what you’re saying.”
Sometimes, simply reminding ourselves that we all contain multitudes can shift how we speak and listen. The Who Are We? conversation can help us understand how the identities we choose, and the identities imposed on us by society, make us who we are.[*] But what happens when simply talking about
One advantage of this culture, though, was that it made it easy to discuss nearly anything. “Nothing is off the table,” a high-ranking executive told me. “You think your boss is making a mistake? Tell them. You don’t like how someone runs meetings? Say it. You’re more likely to get promoted than punished.” Employees would regularly send Hastings emails critiquing his strategies or what he had said during meetings, or they would openly criticize him on internal message boards, “and Reed would publicly thank them,” said the executive. “I’ve never worked in a culture like this before. It’s
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Who Are We? conversations have a place beyond discussions of race, ethnicity, and gender, of course. Many of our toughest conversations are hard precisely because they touch on social identities that have nothing to do with our ancestry. When we critique an underperforming employee, criticize a spouse, or tell a boss they aren’t giving us what we need, it can easily come off as a denunciation of who they are, a swipe at their abilities and judgments, or an attack on their sense of identity.
But there was one behavior, in particular, that consistently made people uncomfortable and upset: If a speaker said something that lumped a listener into a group against her or his will, the discussion would likely go south.
Anger and alienation, a conversation that fell apart.
In psychology, this is known as identity threat, and it is deeply corrosive to communication. “When someone says you don’t belong, or they put you in a group you don’t appreciate, it can cause extreme psychological discomfort,” Slepian told me. Studies have shown that when people confront identity threats, their blood pressure can rise, their bodies can become flooded with stress hormones, they begin looking for ways to escape or fight back.
The mere possibility of identity threat frequently stops people from talking about Who Are We?
But if we care about making the world more inclusive and fair, then talking about Who Are We? is crucial.
Conversations about who we are—and who we want to be—are essential if we hope society will change.
Put differently, the researchers hypothesized that nudging participants to think, just a little harder, about how a conversation will unfold, before it starts, might make identity threats a bit less threatening.
In a misguided attempt to console his Black friend, he might have minimized this experience by implying that he was being oversensitive or needlessly anxious. And the Black participant, in reply, might have suggested that his white partner was unwilling to acknowledge racism, was blinded by white privilege, and was inadvertently perpetuating a supremacist mindset. Both of them might have threatened the other’s identity without intending to do so.
During this and other conversations, there were few dramatic moments, or big revelations, or passionate outbursts. But to researchers, that was the point: These kinds of dialogues were noteworthy precisely because they seemed so normal. They were two friends discussing a tough subject, rather than avoiding it.
There are lessons here for tough conversations of all types, even beyond those related to our identities. The first insight is that, as we’ve seen before, preparing for a conversation before it begins—thinking just a little bit more when we open our mouths—can have enormous impacts. Anticipating obstacles, planning for what to do when they arise, considering what you hope to say, thinking about what might be important to others: Before any challenging conversation, think for a few moments about what you hope will happen, what might go wrong, and how you’ll react when it does. The second lesson
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This requires some work, because avoiding generalizations means not only describing ourselves with honesty, but also listening closely to our companions so we can hear their specific pain and frustrations. We must not give in to the temptation to minimize someone’s struggles, or try to solve their problems, simply because witnessing their discomfort is so difficult. We must not imply that, because we have not personally experienced their suffering, it therefore is not real.
Discomfort pushes us to think before we speak, to try to understand how others see or hear things differently. Discomfort reminds us to keep going, that the goal is worth the challenge.
Sometimes a simple shift—moving a discussion from a group setting to something more personal; talking away from the workplace; starting a meeting by discussing the weekend before getting to business—can shift what feels safe, and who feels welcomed. (And, by the same token, when an environment makes someone feel left out, it can undermine our sense of safety.)
However, as important as these factors were, one thing seemed to matter much more than anything else. It didn’t come as a surprise; it had been obvious to everyone, across the decades, as they had conducted their interviews. The most important variable in determining whether someone ended up happy and healthy, or miserable and sick, was “how satisfied they were in their relationships,” one researcher wrote. “The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest (mentally and physically) at age 80.”
Another researcher put it more bluntly: “The most important influence, by far, on a flourishing life is love.” Not romantic love, but, rather, the kinds of deep connections we form with our families, friends, and coworkers, as well as neighbors and people from our community. “Love early in life facilitates not only love later on, but also the other trappings of success, such as prestige and even high income. It also encourages the development of coping styles that facilitate intimacy, as opposed to ones that discourage it.”
“Through all the years of studying these lives, one crucial factor stands out for the consistency and power of its ties to physical health, mental health and longevity,” reads a 2023 summary of the Harvard data. “Good relationships keep us healthier and happier.” And, in many instances, those relationships were established, and kept alive, via long and intimate discussions.
Conversations can change our brains, bodies, and how we experience the world.
