Want to persuade an opponent? Try listening, Berkeley scholar says
LINK
In a polarized climate, on issues of existential importance, it can be difficult even to hear opinions that contradict our own on issues such as same-sex marriage, for example, or climate change, or Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump. It seems offensive that someone doesnt see the world as we do, and theres a tendency to correct them, to tell them theyre not just wrong, but deplorable.
Expressing such frustration may provide emotional relief, but its not likely to persuade. In fact, it can make people harden their existing views.
For a 2016 study published in Science, Broockman and Kalla worked with the Los Angeles LGBT Center and SAVE, a South Florida LGBT organization, on a field assessment of voter attitudes toward a new Miami-area law protecting transgender people. One group of door-to-door canvassers, a control group, said nothing to residents about transphobia.
But another group engaged in deep canvassing, a process based on asking sensitive questions, listening to the answers with sincere interest and then asking more questions. If residents expressed bias toward transgender people, the canvasser might ask them to recall a time when they were treated unfairly for being different and what that felt like.
The outcome? These conversations substantially reduced transphobia, with decreases greater than Americans average decrease in homophobia from 1998 to 2012, the research found. In effect, about 10% of the deep canvassing respondents shifted toward a more sympathetic view of transgender rights, with effects lasting for at least three months.