Most people find disagreement unpleasant and try to avoid it. But sometimes it’s necessary and can lead to better solutions, or at least a more productive exchange of ideas. The question is: How to be receptive and avoid the pitfalls of anger and defensiveness?
Faculty, staff, students and administrators explored this predicament in three days of virtual and in-person lectures and workshops March 23-25 at a community and campus life forum, “Leading with Community.”
On the second day of the forum, Sherry Ann Charleston, chief community and campus life officer, said, “I want each of us to leave with at least one concrete practice that you will try to do differently in your corner of Harvard, in your own life, or in the world.” “You get a chance to lean in, hear from your peers, engage in conversation, try new approaches to connecting across differences.”
President Alan Gerber says building the skills to work through disagreements is about more than self-improvement. It also speaks to the university’s central mission, stating that “maintaining our academic excellence and nurturing our campus culture are not separate goals.”
“The truth is rarely found in an echo chamber,” he said. “Many of the profound advances in our understanding of the world and humanity have not come from consensus. They have come from individuals who have had the courage to challenge dogma… If we hope to continue to make profound advances, we must have a community culture that welcomes the expression of a truly wide range of perspectives, rooted in diverse contexts, diverse backgrounds, interests.”
Helping audiences develop practical strategies for dealing with diverse viewpoints was Julia Minson, a Harvard Kennedy School policy professor and a behavioral scientist whose first book, “How to Disagree Better,” was published the day she spoke.
Minson began his talk by indicating an inherent tension.
“There’s a huge behavioral science literature that says disagreement is good for us, right? When we really thoughtfully engage with opposing viewpoints, we make better decisions,” he said. When multiple perspectives are taken into account at once, companies are better at predicting future events and retaining employees. Conflicts are less likely to spiral out of control.
“When we really thoughtfully engage with opposing viewpoints, we make better decisions.”
Julia Minson
“On the other hand, we hate it and we try hard to avoid it,” Minson said. “Most regular people don’t want to engage with a view that is dramatically different from their own.”
Throughout his discussion, Minson debunks common notions about dissent.
For example, when we talk to someone who belongs to a group whose views are opposed to our own, we tend to believe that the person’s views are more extreme than they actually are. We believe that their view is more simplistic, and we overestimate the level of that person’s hatred towards us.
Minson offers some strategies for having more productive disagreements based on his research.
People put a lot of emphasis on their mindset or body language when entering a difficult conversation, but the person on the other side often fails to register — or misinterprets — these cues, he said.
Instead, her research found specific strategies that make the other person feel more respected and heard. A good way to remember them, he says, is to think Abbreviation HEAR.: Hedge your claims, emphasize agreement, acknowledge other points of view, and reframe in the positive.
When it comes to having better conversations, Minson encouraged attendees to focus less on projecting the right feelings or cues and more on implementing these concrete behaviors.
“It’s relatively easy to train, because we’re not talking about years of therapy,” he said. “We’re talking about: ‘Remember these words'”
He divided the listeners into groups of three, each assigned to be difficult, another asked to adapt without fail, and the third to keep track of how many auditory phrases they used in response to their disagreeable conversation.
At the end of the exercise, one participant said that as hard as he tried to provoke, his partner’s unyielding acceptance and search for common ground made it difficult to remain contentious.
This is not an uncommon finding, Minson said. With some practice, anyone can defuse heated conversations and create reasonable conversations instead.
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