When communicating with others it is important to:
- Establish common ground first. What do you agree on? If nothing else, maybe you agree that the conversation you are having is important. Or maybe you agree on a goal—even if you disagree on the facts in question.
- Make sure you understand the other person’s position (and validate their feelings if it seems like like this would be helpful). A recommended practice in philosophical discourse is to “steelman” the other person’s position, rather than “strawman” it. Strawmanning is a logical fallacy where a weak, easily defeated version (a strawman) of the other person’s argument is created and knocked down. Steelmanning is helpful because in many cases individuals have good reasons for their position or their beliefs, but they aren’t always able to articulate these well.
Example: Jim and Alex are arguing about if it’s healthy to eat fast food. Jim says some fast food isn’t that unhealthy. Alex then says, “Oh, so you’re saying you can just eat a Big Mac every day and not have any issues?!” In this example Alex seems to be strawmanning Jim’s position. Jim did not say which foods he would consider acceptably healthy (or “healthy enough”) and how often he would recommend eating said foods. Helping Jim clarify his position would have been much more productive. - Avoid reactance by not attacking the other person’s identity. Although this should generally be avoided, many people base their entire identity on some of their beliefs or opinions. If one’s identity is based on a certain belief or opinion, and we attack that belief, it seems—to that person—that we are attacking who they are. This triggers reactance, or the psychological phenomenon where individuals become more entrenched in their belief and less accepting of counter-arguments or counter-evidence.
To counter this tendency we should model holding beliefs tentatively—that is, being open to changing our beliefs if we encounter convincing arguments or evidence to the contrary of our beliefs. We should also model discussing things dispassionately—which signals that we are not emotionally invested in a particular position. We have to be strategic in instances where people are emotionally invested in a belief. We may have to retreat from a debate and come back to it later when emotions are not heightened, and our goal may look more like asking questions and “planting seeds,” rather than “winning” an argument. People are not likely to be convinced or change their minds based on one exchange, unless they are trained in philosophical discourse. - We should be open to drawing attention to our own thinking errors or mistakes when we spot them. This models good self-criticism and humility, which fosters insight, and which encourages the other person to do the same. For example, we might say something like: “I think I was engaging in mind reading, or assuming I knew what you were thinking, and that is why I got upset. I will try not to make those kinds of assumptions again.”
- Consider the fact that reinforcing behavior we like to see is much more effective than punishing behavior we don’t like. If we praise or otherwise reward people for doing things like admitting their mistakes or arguing civilly, then we are more likely to see them continue to behave like this. If we punish them by treating them harshly, we are probably won’t see their behavior change, and we may be acting in a way that is actually counter-productive.