The Rebound Effect is why I don’t engage in political arguments on social media.

But… could there be a way to engage that doesn’t just end with everybody more entrenched in their existing opinion?

Originally shared by Rick Wayne (Author)

Yeeeeeesssss

I’m sure you’re all tired of me saying it, but this is why arguing with someone doesn’t change their mind — or, to put it another way, why you never change your mind when arguing with someone. It isn’t just my opinion. There are scads of studies now that demonstrate all creatures defend themselves when attacked, or when they perceive an attack. In fact, there are several foundational studies that show presenting people with evidence contrary to their views actually makes them double-down on their own rectitude.

We all do it. I do, I’m ashamed to say. If your goal is to pursue some mythical perfectly open mind, you’re going to fail. In fact, I’d suggest you will get worse rather than better because you’ll be enamored of your own open mind. (We all know people on G+ like that, I think.)

Instead, the goal is simply to be mindful of your real-time reactions, which is not as easy as it sounds. I fail at this routinely, and I’ve had both training and practice! Our responses are either “me-focused” or “other-focused.” If our point is to win an argument, to show the other person they are wrong, we’re “me-focused,” we’re engaged for the purposes of our own ego.

If our goal is actually to see change in the world, and not simply take out our aggressions, then we will try to remain “other-focused.” From the article:

Today, interrogations still get framed as accusatory moral dramas, and not just on TV. American police officers are trained in the Reid Technique, developed in the 1950s by John Reid, a former Chicago cop. In a pre-interrogation interview, the detective assesses a suspect’s credibility by observing his body language, such as fidgeting or eye movements. (There is no evidence these are reliable cues to deceit.) Once he decides that a suspect is lying, the interrogator moves into confrontational mode, in an effort to break the suspect’s resistance. The technique has been consistently associated with false confessions. It survives, at least in part, because it makes the interrogator feel in control, positioning him as a heroic protagonist.

… Around two decades ago, the practice of addiction counselling was transformed by the application of a simple principle: patients should feel responsible for their choices. …

Miller argued that counsellors were having precisely the wrong kind of conversation with their clients. Addicts were caught between a desire to change and a desire to maintain their habit. As soon as they felt themselves being judged or instructed, they produced all the reasons they did not want to change. That isn’t a pathology, Miller argued, it’s human nature: the more we feel someone trying to persuade us to do something, the more we dwell on the reasons we should not. By insisting on change, the counsellor was making himself feel better, while reinforcing the addict’s determination to carry on.

Miller argued that rather than instigating confrontation, counsellors should focus on building a relationship of trust and mutual understanding, enabling the patient to talk through his experiences without feeling the need to defend himself. Eventually, the part of the patient that wanted to get better would overcome the part that did not, and he would make the arguments for change himself. Having done so, he would be motivated to follow through on them.

Implicit in Miller and Rollnick’s critique of traditional counselling was the uncomfortable suggestion that counsellors should turn their professional gaze upon themselves and question their own instinct to dominate. Instead of thinking of himself as an expert sitting in judgment, the counsellor needed to adopt the more humble position of co-investigator. As Miller put it to me, “The premise is not ‘I have you what you need, let me give it to you.’

… A father who opens the door to his daughter when she comes home late might adopt a confrontational style, implicitly inviting a contrite response. But his daughter, feeling her agency being denied, pushes back, which provokes her father’s anger. A power struggle ensues, until the conversation terminates with one or both stomping off to their bedroom. If the father had emphasised his love for his daughter, a conversation about acceptable norms might have developed. But doing so isn’t easy, partly because children know exactly which buttons to press.

… An interview fails when it becomes a struggle for dominance, in which the interviewee’s way of asserting himself is to tell his interviewer nothing. “In a tug of war, the harder you pull, the harder they pull,” says Laurence. “My suggestion is, let go of the rope.”

Just talking to political adversaries, openly and without judgment, doesn’t feel like fighting for social change. But that’s exactly why we’re at each other’s throats. We think in terms of “fighting” and “adversaries.” You can’t force people to change their minds. You can’t argue them into it with facts either. The best possible scenario is to have a discussion where you remain mindful of your own thoughts and reactions. That’s it. That’s as good as it gets. And anything less than that is a failure.