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interacting with an empathetic, nonjudgmental, attentive listener made people less anxious and defensive. They felt less pressure to avoid contradictions in their thinking, which encouraged them to explore their opinions more deeply, recognize more nuances in them, and share them more openly.
Many communicators try to make themselves look smart. Great listeners are more interested in making their audiences feel smart. They help people approach their own views with more humility, doubt, and curiosity. When people have a chance to express themselves out loud, they often discover new thoughts.
inverse charisma, a sense of being listened to with such intensity that you had to be your most honest, sharpest, and best self.”
Eventually, when he understood Marie-Hélène’s beliefs, Arnaud asked if he could share some information about vaccines based on his own expertise.
the means are a measure of our character. When we succeed in changing someone’s mind, we shouldn’t only ask whether we’re proud of what we’ve achieved. We should also ask whether we’re proud of how we’ve achieved
When conflict is cliché, complexity is breaking news. —Amanda Ripley
binary bias. It’s a basic human tendency to seek clarity and closure by simplifying a complex continuum into two categories.
complexifying: showcasing the range of perspectives on a given topic.
less like a lawyer’s opening statement and more like an anthropologist’s field notes.” Those field notes were enough to help pro-life and pro-choice advocates find some areas of agreement on abortion in only twenty minutes.
Resisting the impulse to simplify is a step toward becoming more argument literate.
Polls suggest that on climate change, there are at least six camps of thought. Believers represent more than half of Americans, but some are concerned while others are alarmed. The so-called nonbelievers actually range from cautious to disengaged to doubtful to dismissive. It’s especially important to distinguish skeptics from deniers.
prominent climate contrarians received disproportionate coverage: they were featured 49 percent more often than expert scientists. As a result, people end up overestimating how common denial is—which
when journalists acknowledge the uncertainties around facts on complex issues like climate change and immigration, it doesn’t undermine their readers’ trust. And multiple experiments have shown that when experts express doubt, they become more persuasive. When someone knowledgeable admits uncertainty, it surprises people, and they end up paying more attention
Each of the one-sided headlines took seven to twelve words to mislead the reader about the effects of drinking coffee. A more accurate headline needed just twelve words to serve up a jolt of instant complexity:
In building a team, there are some dimensions where fit is important and others where misfit adds value. Research suggests that we want people with dissimilar traits and backgrounds but similar principles. Diversity of personality and experience brings fresh ideas for rethinking and complementary skills for new ways of doing. Shared values promote commitment and collaboration.
Thousands of years ago, when it was rare to interact with different groups, beliefs about the tendencies of different tribes might have helped our ancestors protect their own tribe. Yet today, when intergroup interactions are so common, assumptions about a group no longer have the same utility: it’s much more helpful to learn something about individuals. The same psychologists have shown that our stereotypes become consistently and increasingly inaccurate when we’re in conflict with another group—and when we’re judging the ideologies of groups that are very different from our own.
arbitrary names of zodiac signs can give rise to stereotypes and discrimination. Virgo was translated into Chinese as “virgin,” which calls to mind prejudice against old virgins—spinsters—as critical, germophobic, fussy, and picky.
When men make self-deprecating jokes, they’re seen as more capable leaders, but when women do it, they’re judged as less capable.
