Alexander Heffner: I'm Alexander Heffner, your host on The Open Mind.

I'm delighted to welcome our guest today, author of Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides.

Geoffrey Cohen is a professor at Stanford.

Thank you so much for joining me today, Geoff.

Geoffrey Cohen: Thank you, Alexander.

I'm delighted to be here.

Alexander Heffner: Your book is so seminal, central, salient for our times today.

Um, and the thing that I love about your book, Geoff, is that you have studies and facts to back up your assertions and the basic premise you want to make about how we can bridge divides more effectively.

Geoffrey Cohen: After having studied these topics for many decades, I really wanted to create a book that gave away psychology to the wider world because I think there's so much useful that my colleagues and I and social psychology in general can share with the world.

Then the second answer is the world at large.

I do think that there is what Pete Buttigieg called a crisis of belonging.

The defining feature of our era is in part the feeling that most people have of not fully feeling that they belong.

And this crisis of belonging that Pete Buttigieg talks about, I think does so much mischief.

It's as if it's an underlying cause of so many of the symptomatic problems that we're trying to address.

Alexander Heffner: Belonging is a critical self-affirmation.

It gives us the empowerment that we're making meaningful and constructive contributions.

I think a lot about Lady Gaga in, in her anthem, uh, Born This Way, and how much of this question of bridging divides is, is fundamentally about understanding how we were born and how we formed our convictions.

Geoffrey Cohen: The lesson of a lot of psychology and a lot of the social sciences is the power of context.

Yes, we are born a certain way, but we're also shaped by the situations that we've experienced at our community and our family, with our friends, our social networks, and to a large degree, who we are is entangled with where we are.

The situation really matters in shaping who we are, and we tend in this culture to underestimate that fact.

We kind of think, and we also think that we alone are really objective and isolated and autonomous actors uninfluenced by our, by our social context, or if we are influenced, it's like a source of enrichment.

So I do think that what Lady Gaga is referring to is kind of a beautiful idea, uh, which is we should create situations where we are relatively free to be and express who we are because we are each of us a sort of beautiful creature and creating situations that allow who we are to come out more fully, our potentials, uh, positive potentials to come out more fully is is one of the, one of the endeavors that social psychology and social sciences have kind of have tried to address.

How do we create situations where people truly feel that they can be who they are, where they feel that they belong, where we can all be ourselves, yet at the same time respect the selves of others, which is a kind of dilemma, an American dilemma of how do we be ourselves while respecting the selves of others?

And the answer, I think, is by creating situations that foster better conversation and communication.

Alexander Heffner: Right.

When I refer to that feeling of causation or correlation in our convictions, I, I do mean it Born This Way in the genetic respect, but also in the circumstantial respect, especially socioeconomically born in a certain environment and having a certain set of experiences that causes or can correlate with how we evolve in our viewpoints.

So we know that that public opinion surveys don't get at the correlation and causation, right, the underlying feelings.

Would you agree that those feelings do stem from personal experience?

That, that it is, it is an intellectually honest, um, conviction that was born out of feeling something, an anecdote or a set of experiences that leads folks to have certain convictions?

Geoffrey Cohen: Yeah, I, we inherit our beliefs by and large, from the groups of which we are part, and that includes our family, but our cultural and, and community groups.

And that to feel as if we belong in a group in part means sharing the convictions of the group.

And I do think we come by it honestly, in some studies that I did, uh, many years, actually, two decades ago, we looked at, for example, liberals and conservatives.

And to make a long story short, we were interested in their views of welfare policy, and we presented them with one or two welfare policies.

One was a very austere, the other was very generous.

And as you might imagine, Republicans like the austere policy better than the generous policy.

But then for another group of participants, we, we switched it around or we kept the policy content constant, but we told people that the Democrats favored the austere policy and the Republicans favored the generous policy.

And then the question was, well, what mattered more in terms of what people believed was good welfare policy, the policy content or the views of my party?

And the answer was the views of my party.

People shifted their beliefs to bring them in alignment with the judgments of their group.

And in addition, when we asked people, when we probed them in depth about who, what influenced you in formulating your opinions of this welfare policy, they were oblivious to the influence of their group of being of Democrats and Republicans.

They asserted instead that their views were kind of bottom up formed by an impression of the evidence and the policy details, and they were kind of blind to the influence of their group.

So I think we do come by it, honestly, and it is a kind of human pension to, to go with our group.

At least that's where we begin.

And it is a very adaptive thing, evolutionarily, we can't really go it alone as a human species.

So we've evolved to be a social species and that that need to belong to fit in is a powerful one that can be channeled both for good or for bad.

Alexander Heffner: I asked the question, which may seem obvious on its face, Geoff, because I think we've reached a point of cynicism, um, or pessimism about our, our political future and specifically about, about our fellow human beings, our fellow Americans, that some of us don't accept any longer that there is a genuine connection between our condition, our experiences, our stories, and how we form those views.

And rather we will align with tribe, um, because it is, it is what is being fed to us, whether it's information or disinformation.

But I just want you to understand where I'm coming from and asking the question, because there, I think there is a cohort of America, and I do think it's a minority, but I I fear it's a growing number who don't want to take that genuine understanding that, you know, how people are shaped by their communities is going to inform their convictions and, and their real life experiences is what leads them to support reproductive health or abortion or not.

Geoffrey Cohen: I see.

Alexander Heffner: That's where the question's coming from.

Geoffrey Cohen: And so you feel like there's a, a group of individuals who are just kind of unaware of how they're people are socially shaped, and that's a big problem.

Alexander Heffner: I'm talking about the cynicism of folks saying, I don't even believe that people form their political convictions or worldview on the basis of what they experience, what their families experience.

You know what I mean now?

Geoffrey Cohen: Yeah.

Instead, I believe that they're holding views to based- Alexander Heffner: On tribe or based on some sense of allegiance, uh, or just some particular urban versus suburban, red versus blue patchwork that's ingrained in them.

Geoffrey Cohen: I see what you're saying.

Uh, I mean, let's play with that a little bit.

To a large degree, our personal experience is a little confounded, don't you think with the groups that we're a part of urban, suburban, like I have a different sort of suite of experiences as a result of living in a rural setting, for example, where the jobs have disappeared and, and I'm kind of dealing with the uncertainty of the modern economy, and then also around me are people who share my predicament, and that is a group that helps me to understand my situation.

So it is kind of a little bit of both.

Like I often share a personal, my personal experiences are shared with my group, uh, Democrats, Republicans, urban suburban men, women ethnic groups, right?

There is a kind of shared experience that goes with being part of a, a group.

And so it makes sense for us in trying to understand the experience of us to look at people like us who, and how they're dealing it, how they're understanding it.

And I think that's, that's a basic pension.

So, uh, I, I see what you're saying.

I think that the two are, are really conflated that we share an experience with the groups of which we're apart.

Now, the problem comes when the groups, you know, as in modern times in our, our diverse society, uh, have a different social reality, and they kind of, and worlds collide.

And so how do we deal with that where people who have been socialized have different worldviews because of their experiences with their group, uh, or shared experiences?

How do we create a common understanding and empathy?

Alexander Heffner: Three facts from your book, and this is when I say your book is imperative and folks have to pick it up, who are concerned with the practical steps to improving our political life.

So a 10- these are three facts from your book: a 10 minute conversation that establish connection across the political divides, soften the attitudes of political partisans and open them up to lasting attitude change on controversial topics.

Second, a simple change in how Democrats and Republicans were led to express their opinions.

Subjective opinions, I think, rather than statements of fact led their opponents to be more interested in learning about their position and less hateful in their views of each other.

Then, finally, virtually no social emotional learning programs conducted in schools have much of any benefit despite their price tag and labor intensiveness.

On the other hand, science backed activities that give students a growth mindset for understanding their peers as works in progress rather than fixed products, improve their relationships with peers.

So, take us through those, those three facts.

I see the them as interconnected in how we can improve the status quo today.

Geoffrey Cohen: I think they all swirl around this idea of wise practices.

Wise is a term that Erving Goffman, the famous sociologist who, who I love coined, uh, in his research on stigmatized groups, and he borrowed the term from the gay subculture.

The 1950s in brief wise, refers to people who are not dealing with a social stigma, who are recognized as able to see the full humanity of the people that they're dealing with.

So in the gay subculture of the 1950s, that was sort of straight people that gays could trust would kind of see them as, as individuals.

It's like the wise convey, I see you.

And so the suite of what's been called wise practices, wise interventions by Greg Walton and Claude Steele and others, uh, refers to a kind of body of practices in which we are interacting with one another in a way that projects dignity.

I see you in spite of our differences, in spite of our disagreement, I still see you and I appreciate you and everything I talk about in the book, all the research boils down to that idea.

And there are ways to do that from just simply being polite.

Politeness is such an important way in which we convey we respect the other person.

And research suggests when we start to see people as an outgroup, we stop being as polite as we are to members of the ingroup.

Politeness.

Every culture has a politeness protocol, and that is a kind of wise intervention.

We are polite, we say please and thank you when we know that there's something to be honored in the self of the other person.

The 10 minute conversation that you're referring to, I'll just kind of go through briefly, I, that's by, um, uh, research, wonderful research by David Broockman and Josh Kalla, where they find that having a 10 minute conversation across the political divide brings people together in their research.

They're looking at conservatives changing their attitudes to be more empathic towards transgender rights.

Uh, but what they are showing is the power of civil conversations, civil discourse, which we need so sorely.

Now, there is a science and an art to civil conversations Broockman and Kalla find, and what they do is they, uh, actually what the conversations are most noteworthy for is what they don't do when they have, for example, uh, canvasser go door-to-door in a conservative district in Florida to talk about trans transgender rights.

The canvasser doesn't bombard the voter with facts and information.

Instead, they just have a sort of non-judgmental conversation about the topic with, uh, a lot of interesting little touches that they embed in it, such as empathy and perspective sharing.

Both sides share stories.

Uh, the canvasser talks about transgender individuals and their struggles, not facts, but sharing the experiences of a harm group.

And then there's also this really interesting part of the conversation where the, the two people connect at an emotional level.

For example, uh, the canvasser will ask the conservative voter, have you ever, have you ever experienced a time when you felt the pain of exclusion, of being treated unfairly for who you are?

And people open up.

The voters.

One voter described how he was, uh, he had PTSD as a result of the Iraq war.

He was a veteran, and he couldn't find a job as a result of his medical condition.

And that helped to give him insight into the emotional dimension of what it must be like to be a transgender individual who's continually facing these indignities, uh, in our institutions and in societies.

And he became more, more empathic.

So these conversations are very important, but they need to be structured through empathy, through not unjudgmental listening.

And as you talked about through the language that we choose to use, I mean, I feel my blood boiling when someone, um, I have a lot of friends across the political aisle, and I do feel that sort of threat response when someone says, Well, the fact of the matter is objectively speaking.

These kinds of linguistic tropes where we're saying we're speaking from a point of complete objectivity, are really harmful and actually undermine our ability to get our message across.

Wonderful work by Michael Schwalbe at Stanford University shows that you, it's, you're more likely to reach the other side and come to more agreement when you simply proceed your opinion with two words, I think, from my point of view.

And he shows that in a number of studies, just saying that is more likely to reach the other side, bring them closer to you, make them at least more curious about your point of view.

And also for the person talking, it makes them a little more curious about the other side.

So that's the, the, the, the, the second example.

And then the third example with social emotional learning is in a different arena, uh, of a school context.

But there is a large body of research now that shows that, wow, we really have it wrong when we're in terms of trying to teach children empathy and social skills.

I mean, so some social emotional learning programs when they're implemented well, can work.

But the key idea here is to create learning situations where students feel I am seen in spite of being different, in spite of my background, in spite of feeling awkward or on, on the outside, I am seen here.

And little practices can go a long way to, uh, encouraging that experience of dignity in students.

For example, in some work by David Jaeger, uh, Claude Steele and, uh, Lee Ross and me, we simply looked at how teachers give feedback, and we found that making one little change to how teachers give critical feedback to their minority youth across the racial lines had these huge effects.

If the teacher proceeded the criticism with this statement, the children were more likely to revise their work.

And that statement was, I'm giving you this critical feedback because I have high standards and I believe in your potential to reach them.

After receiving that kind of, uh, message, the percentage of students who revise their feedback after getting the criticism jumped from 17% to 71%, and even years later, those children were more likely to make it to college as a result of just one sentence feeling being seen at a critical, critical juncture in their development.

So these are all examples in the political realm, in the school realm, in our day-to-day encounters of how little things we do can have a big effect.

And that's kind of, that's, that's why I just love this work that my colleagues and other social psychologists are doing, is because it shows the power of the situation right here, right now and our ability to mold it to at least make it a little bit better, and we can all make it a little bit better.

Alexander Heffner: If you read Belonging, you'll find these studies and facts, and when you hear one, like the 10 minute conversation establishing rapport, you'll think, well, okay, maybe that's a micro, you know, micro step, not a macro solution.

But cumulatively, I think the, you're making a lot of suggestions based on the science that in sum could make a difference.

You know, our collective footprint would be, would be quite potent if everyone adopted some of these practices.

But here's one contradiction.

Help me understand.

You're expressing how the science of kindness is real.

The, or even the, the science of intuiting kindness in conversation, uh, understanding and empathy and not being domineering or authoritarian in your presentation, if you want to call that civility or decency or kindness, you can choose the language yourself.

You, you're saying that you can put a qualitative scientific value on that.

So help me understand when you say no emotional or social emotional learning programs are having the benefit they're intending to, isn't social and emotional learning fundamentally about kindness?

So if the science is indicating that if we are more, more kind or more decent or more civil in our political interactions, um, that will benefit in the school setting, what, what do you mean by social emotional learning?

Geoffrey Cohen: It is a difference between interpreting a problem as resulting from a deficit in the person, some deficit in skill or ability, versus interpreting the problem as a result of the situation that the person is contending with.

So for example, in that wise criticism study I mentioned where the teacher says, I have high standards, I believe in your potential, and that sort of unleashing the potential of the students, uh, nothing is being taught in terms of the child, nothing, no, no instruction is being given to the, to the, the child in terms of their, uh, to kind of help improve their social emotional skills, though that sometimes I I that sometimes may be necessary.

Instead, what you're changing is the situation.

You're assuming that much of the motivation to improve and the ability to do so already resides there in the kid and simply changing the situation in a way that makes them feel seen, dignified enables them to show what they know and act on what's already there inside of them.

So these are just two different approaches.

I'm not really saying, I'm not really saying one's, I feel I'm not really saying one's wrong or one's right.

Uh, I am saying that I think that the pervasive way in which we address our problems is through this deficit model.

If there's a problem, we need some sort of curriculum to kind of fill the deficit.

And yes, that may be true sometimes, but what I'm saying as a social psychologist is sometimes we can just change the situations as kids are experiencing them to bring it out, the better angels of their nature.

And there's some wonderful research, for instance, Betsy Paluck at Princeton University, where she finds that simply bringing kids together in cooperative possess in which they kind of work together to figure out how to improve their school, improve relations among their peers, cut down on what they call the drama that works really well in improving the, uh, problematic behavior among students at the middle school middle, she looked at middle schools, lecturing at them, giving them social emotional learning does not work as well, but you change the situation, make them a, empower them to be agents in their own transformation.

That kind of thing really works out well help them to navigate their situation better.

Alexander Heffner: I think the posse example is so great because we need to create those situations as adults now.

I mean, if you talk to electeds, they used to have backyard barbecues with children of Democrats, republicans, independents.

So we need the platforms or mechanisms through which to be kind and show that receptiveness to new ideas and compromise and consensus decision making.

Geoffrey Cohen: I would give two answers.

There's many that I could get, but two, one is to blame situations, not people really kind of try to get what's called perspective getting.

If someone disagrees with you or has a, um, is coming from a different place.

There is great value in what Nick Epley calls perspective getting, asking questions, Hey, what is going on there?

And Nick finds in a lot of studies, we don't take the time to ask people about the situations that they're experiencing and how they're looking at the issue.

We overestimate our empathic abilities, so we don't think to ask.

And so he shows in a, a number of marvelous studies that just taking the time to ask questions and listen to the answers works wonders in terms of helping us to understand each other better.

What are you listening for though?

What are you listening for?

You're not just listening for the facts of their situation.

You're listening to for the feelings, the emotions.

What is it like for this person, say an immigrant, to experience the harm of prejudice?

What is the emotional, uh, human experience of that and how can I perhaps relate to that from my own experience?

So you saw on the Broockman and Kalla study, so I think really digging in and trying to understand people's perspectives hanging in there is really key.

We are way too quick to judge and we are way too overconfident in our ability to understand each other when we actually don't.

I saw this bumper sticker really kind of stuck with me.

Don't believe everything you think because these thoughts and judgements float through our head.

They're not necessarily, we need to kind of ask people for their point of view.

And that is hard work.

That is work, that is something to practice at every day.

The second answer is more of a practice.

It is, uh, I would say to use Claude Steel's terminology: Affirm, affirm create affirming situations and by a affirming, I mean situations that firm up the self of the other person.

Now, you don't do that, the research suggests, through flattery and praise, oh, you're such a great person.

You're such a wonderful human being.

You do that by creating opportunities for the other person to express who they are and to feel valued for it.

And there is a large body of research now showing that the small act of reflecting on your most important values, for example, you know, what would I fight for?

What would I die for?

What is my higher purpose?

has a large range of benefits helping to tamp down a lot of the threat people feel in conflict, but also, uh, promoting achievement in stressful performance situations, bettering wellbeing and health, helping creating these moments, these, these openings and situations for people to express their values and to feel valued, uh, is another answer to your question about little things that we can do every day that make, make a big difference.

And yes, I don't want to kind of downplay the importance of systemic and policy change.

I think that is absolutely necessary.

Yet, nevertheless, down on the ground every day through our words and in our actions, we can have sometimes a bigger effect than we imagine.

Alexander Heffner: Geoffrey Cohen, thank you.

I want to encourage all of our viewers and listeners to check out your book, Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides.

Seldom do I endorse a book or person, uh, more fervently than I do today.

Geoff, thank you.

Geoffrey Cohen: Thank you, Alexander.

It's an honor and, and a pleasure to have had this conversation with you today.

Thank you.

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