Tips for navigating political divisions to find common ground at holiday...

Tips for navigating political divisions to find common ground at holiday gatherings

PBS NewsHour

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2,513 views  Dec 2, 2024

The presidential election laid bare political fault lines across the country, stark divisions that can be even more intense when they involve loved ones. William Brangham speaks with Jamil Zaki, a professor of psychology at Stanford University and author of “Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness,” for ways to handle post-election stress and find a little holiday season hope.

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John Yang: The presidential election laid bare  political fault lines across the country. Stark  

divisions that can be even more intense when  they involve loved ones. William Brangham  

looks at ways to handle this post-election  stress and find a little holiday season hope.

William Brangham: After an election, by  definition, there's a winner and there's  

a loser. Triumph one side, disappointment on  the other. When those two sides exist within  

one family, though, that can complicate  any Thanksgiving or holiday gathering.

My next guest has some ideas on how to navigate  these tricky waters and how to find the good in  

others. Jamil Zaki is a professor of psychology  at Stanford University and author of "Hope for  

Synics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness."  Jamil Zaki, so good to have you on the program.

This has obviously been a tumultuous year, a  very divisive election. How would you counsel  

someone who is potentially going to have a  meal or a visit with someone who they might  

see as having completely contrarian views to their  own? How would you counsel them to go about that?

Jamil Zaki, Stanford University: I think first  of all, let's acknowledge that this is a hard  

season. It's A hard season in general,  but when you add political division,  

it becomes even harder. So I think  it's natural to feel that apprehension.

But I think oftentimes we assume that  people we disagree with must be far more  

different from us than they really are. We  assume they're more extreme, more hateful,  

more anti-democratic. And I would say that  replacing some of those assumptions with  

curiosity about what the people in our lives  actually believe is a good place to start.

William Brangham: So let's say you  are a little bit more certain that  

the person across the table does have  starkly differing views. Do you think  

it's a good idea for people to try to  reach across the table metaphorically?

Jamil Zaki: I think it depends how they're  reaching across. Oftentimes we try to reach  

across the table with a sharp left jab, focusing  on trying to convince other people that we're  

right and they're wrong, or even that our  opinions are morally superior to theirs.

Well, when people see that you're  trying to browbeat or convince them,  

guess what? They can tell. And their defenses  go up. A much more powerful and connective  

way to reach across the table is not with  statistics or opinions, but with stories.

So for instance, if somebody holds an  opinion that's really different from yours,  

you might ask, hey, how did you come to feel  that way? Research finds that when we share  

stories with one another, we might not end  up agreeing, but we respect each other's  

positions more and often discover more  common ground than we would otherwise.

William Brangham: I mean, I hear everything that  you are saying, but I know, you know also that  

sometimes people hold on to these beliefs. They  will resist all of these entreaties to try to  

see goodness in the other, because if affirming  to their own sense of self that they believe X.

Jamil Zaki: I think that's right. And it's  easier, though, to do that with strangers  

or with people that we're not actually in contact  with. If you ask folks, Democrats or Republicans,  

what do you think people on the other  side are like, they hold on to their  

deep and often quite negative opinions  about that other side in the abstract.

When you present them with a real  human being who's interested in  

them and wants to have a conversation,  things often go differently. In my lab,  

we brought Republicans and Democrats together for  Zoom conversations. After these conversations,  

we asked how did it go? And they said it  was delightful and informative. They were  

shocked by how reasonable and open minded the  person on the other side really was. And that  

lowered the temperature on their own disdain  or even their own hatred for the other party.

William Brangham: Do you think  that there's some broader  

societal good if we as individuals do this  type of bridge building that you're describing?

Jamil Zaki: We have lost sight of so much common  ground that most Americans actually share,  

even ideologically. We imagine because  we've become so polarized and because the  

media often presents extreme versions of each  side, that these sides have nothing in common.

If you look at people's attitudes  on real political issues,  

it actually turns out that most Americans agree on  a lot, but we don't discover that agreement if we  

never talk, if we avoid one another. So those  conversations that we have over the holidays,  

they can help us build coalition, understand  that there's a lot that many Americans share  

and maybe start to figure out goals that we have  in common and how we can work towards those goals.

William Brangham: Are there other  things that you would suggest that  

people do to try to bridge these rockier divides?

Jamil Zaki: You know, the first thing that I would  say is to just be a little bit humble about what  

you know and what you don't know. You mentioned  that in some cases I might know that my uncle or  

aunt has an opinion that's really different  from mine. And that's true. Maybe I do know  

that about them, but I probably don't know that  much about how they came to have that opinion.

And I might not actually even be right. You  know, there was a study that occurred right  

after the 2016 presidential election  where researchers used geotagging  

to figure out where people were going for  Thanksgiving dinner. And when people crossed  

from a Republican area to a Democratic  one, or vice versa, they stayed at dinner  

for an hour less than if they were having  dinner with people who agreed with them.

We work so hard to avoid one another that we  often miss out on even knowing the people in  

our lives. So I guess I would just say that  it's important to know what we don't know,  

and oftentimes that's more than we want to admit.

William Brangham: All right. Jamil Zaki  of Stanford University, thank you so much.

Jamil Zaki: Thanks very much,  William. It was a pleasure.

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