How to have a civil conversation (tips from social psychology)

Do you ever fight with your parents? No, me either. Actually, that's not true. I fight with my dad quite a lot. We pretty much disagree on everything except baseball. And all these years I've thought that if only he would listen to reason (mine, of course) then he would thank me profusely for helping him see the light and we would end our disagreements.

Well, my logic was way off according to research in social psychology. Specifically the work of Jonathan Haidt at NYU. Here he is below.

He has been examining how different groups of people all over the world think differently and he's got some great insight into how to move forward on difficult topics where the parties seem stuck in their own position (hint - there's a basic activity that you do every day that could help to get past the stuckness).

Listen to him here in an interview with On Being's Krista Tippet. They are at Encounter. Encounter is a non-partisan educa­tional orga­ni­za­tion culti­vating informed and construc­tive Jewish lead­er­ship on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

He's also given TED talks. Here's one on the moral roots of liberals and conservatives. This one totally helped me see where my dad was coming from on many political issues. And it's all about our psychology!

I hope you enjoy this example of psychology in the world. Our own Dr. Grobman already knows about this example because one of his students, Lauren Tuosto, completed her capstone last year on moral reasoning and political position.

I'd love to hear about examples that you have seen of psychology in the world. Leave a comment down below.

Have a great week!

Dr. Dyer