A few years ago, social psychologists Matthew Feinberg and Robb Willer asked people to come up with arguments that would persuade someone with an opposing political view. They found that many people used arguments that matched their own moral position, rather than the position of the person they were trying to persuade. Liberals tried to appeal to values like equality and social justice, while conservatives based their argument on things like loyalty and respect for authority. Arguing on familiar ground might have been a common strategy, but it wasn’t an effective one; people were far more
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