Ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
Stephen Goforth
Looking to ‘own’ someone in argument has the wrong orientation, that of domination not only during the exchange but afterwards. Instead, we should approach our particular and individual exchanges with the hope that we can set the stage for a more respectful and honest culture of reasoning together. For sure, this is but a hope, but it’s better to serve as an example of that aspiration than as an example of how argument can go wrong.
Scott Aikinis writing in Psyche
People who have high emotional intelligence understand that if you want to be more persuasive and even win most arguments, it's important to do two things:
· Avoid distracting, emotional mini controversies.
· Offer easy ways for people to overcome emotional objections, and more easily follow the path you want them to take.
I call this whole concept the "Emergency Exit Rule." It's about planting seeds that allow people to save face and maintain their pride--while ultimately agreeing with you.
Imagine a police detective arrests a suspect. During interrogation, he or she uses a common but controversial strategy called the Reid technique. It involves questioning frameworks that can be summarized by example, like this:
· "We know that you walked out of the store with the jewelry, but you don't seem like a bad person. Maybe you didn't realize how expensive it really was?"
· "It's clear you were intoxicated when the police pulled you over. Am I right in thinking you'd probably had only a couple of drinks, and didn't realize you might have been over the limit?"
The Emergency Exit Rule is all about giving them the easiest, most attractive way possible to back down and agree with your position.
Bill Murphy Jr. writing in Inc.
1. Maintain a healthy fear of conflict.
2. Be vague and general when you state your concerns.
3. Assume you know all the facts and you are totally right. (Do most of the talking)
4. With a touch of defiance, announce your willingness to discuss the matter with anyone but avoid any constructive conversations about it.
5. Latch tenaciously onto whatever evidence suggests the other person is jealous of you.
6. Judge the motivations of the other party based on previous experience, keeping track of failures and angry words.
7. Avoid possible solutions and go for total victory and unconditional surrender.
8. Pass the buck!
Ray Kraybill
(adopted from) Repairing the Breach
According to David Perkins of Harvard University, the brighter people are, the more deftly they can conjure up post-hoc justifications for arguments that back their own side. Brainboxes are as likely as anyone else to ignore facts which support their foes. John Maynard Keynes, a (famously intelligent) British economist, is said to have asked someone: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” If they were honest, most would reply: “I stick to my guns.”
from The Economist
For some people, the less likely an explanation, the more likely they are to believe it. Take flat-Earth believers. Their claim rests on the idea that all the pilots, astronomers, geologists, physicists, and GPS engineers in the world are intentionally coordinating to mislead the public about the shape of the planet. From a prior odds perspective, the likelihood of a plot so enormous and intricate coming together out of all other conceivable possibilities is vanishingly small. But bizarrely, any demonstration of counterevidence, no matter how strong, just seems to cement their worldview further.
Liv Boeree writing in Vox
Pascal’s argument (written in the 1600’s) went like this: Suppose you concede that you don’t know whether or not God exists and therefore assign a 50 percent chance to either proposition How should you weight these odds when decided whether to lead a pious life? If you act piously and God exists, Pascal argued, your gain – eternal happiness - is infinite. If, on the other hand, God does not exist, your loss, or negative return, is small – the sacrifices of piety. To weigh these possible gains and losses, Pascal proposed, you multiply the probability of each possible outcomes by its payoff and add them all up, forming a kind of average or expected payoff.
In other words, the mathematical expectation of your return on piety is one-half infinity (your gain if God exists) minus one-half a small number (your loss if he does not exist). Pascal knew enough about infinity to know that the answer to this calculation is infinite, and thus the expected return on piety is infinitely positive. Every reasonable person, Pascal concluded, should therefore follow the laws of God. Today this argument is know as Pascal’s wager.
Pascal’s wager is often considered the founding of the mathematical discipline of game theory, the quantitative study of optimal decision strategies in games.
Leonard Mlodinow, The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives
In 1973, America watched as then President Richard Nixon vehemently declared on national television, “I am not a crook” in regards to the Watergate scandal.
Not many people believed him.
In fact, as soon as he uttered the word “crook,” most people immediately envisioned a crook.
The major mistake Nixon made was in his framing. By saying the word “crook,” he evoked an image, experience, or knowledge associated with crook in the minds of everyone watching.
George Lakoff, a professor in cognitive science and linguistics at University of California, Berkeley, makes the point in his book Don’t Think of an Elephant! that when trying to get your point across, refrain from using the other side’s language. Doing so will activate and strengthen their frames and undermine your own views. Instead, successfully arguing a point requires you to establish your own frames and use language that evokes images and ideas that fit the worldview you want.
Think about it this way: Something that has a “95% effective rate” will sell better than something with a “5% failure rate.” It’s all in how you frame it.
Vivian Giange, writing in Fast Company
Parents who browbeat their kids into being obedient and agreeable may not be giving them the best preparation for the real world. A new study shows that encouraging teens to argue calmly and effectively against parental orders makes them much more likely to resist peer pressure.
University of Virginia researchers observed more than 150 13-year-olds as they disputed issues like grades, chores, and friends with their mothers. When researchers checked back in with the teens two and three years later, they found that those who had argued the longest and most convincingly—without yelling, whining, or throwing insults—were also 40 percent less likely to have accepted offers of drugs and alcohol than the teens who had caved quickly.
“We found that what a teen learned in handling these kinds of disagreements with their parents was exactly what they took into their peer world,” study author Joseph P. Allen tells NPR.org. The key to having a constructive debate with your kids, experts say, is listening to them attentively and rewarding them when they make a good point—even if you don’t end up reaching a mutual agreement. “Think of those arguments not as a nuisance,” Allen says, “but as a critical training ground” for wise, independent decision-making.
Parents who browbeat their kids into being obedient and agreeable may not be giving them the best preparation for the real world. A new study shows that encouraging teens to argue calmly and effectively against parental orders makes them much more likely to resist peer pressure.
University of Virginia researchers observed more than 150 13-year-olds as they disputed issues like grades, chores, and friends with their mothers. When researchers checked back in with the teens two and three years later, they found that those who had argued the longest and most convincingly—without yelling, whining, or throwing insults—were also 40 percent less likely to have accepted offers of drugs and alcohol than the teens who had caved quickly.
“We found that what a teen learned in handling these kinds of disagreements with their parents was exactly what they took into their peer world,” study author Joseph P. Allen tells NPR.org. The key to having a constructive debate with your kids, experts say, is listening to them attentively and rewarding them when they make a good point—even if you don’t end up reaching a mutual agreement. “Think of those arguments not as a nuisance,” Allen says, “but as a critical training ground” for wise, independent decision-making.
Sibling rivalry can be a year-round tradition for some families. University of Missouri researchers followed more nearly 150 pairs of siblings for a year and found the conflict fell into two overall categories:
1. Conflicts about shared resources and responsibilities which focused on equality and fairness, like whose turn it was to empty the dishwasher or use the computer or ride in the front seat of the car. These siblings were more likely to become depressed.
2. Meanwhile, those who argued over privacy and personal space, such as borrowing clothes without asking or entering a room without permission, were more likely to be anxious and have low self-esteem. The most vulnerable for this twist were younger siblings.
The researchers say the way preteens and teens react to the conflict with siblings to the has to do with what they perceive is at stake. You'll find details about the study in the journal Child Development.
Stephen Goforth
Arguments between married couples boil down to two things: Someone either feels unfairly controlled or neglected. That’s the finding of Baylor University psychologists. They gave questionnaires to more than 3500 married couples. Researches say the tension that sparked arguments between them nearly always had to do with whether the partners felt valued or understood. The lead professor in the study says figuring out whether the message is “You’re ignoring me!” or “You’re controlling me!” goes a long way toward developing a healthy relationship.
Stephen Goforth
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