463 - You're Not as Open-Minded As You Think
What does open-minded even mean?
A lot of people think they’re open-minded, but as pointed out by the American Psychological Association, factors like social desirability bias and our natural tendency to be unaware of our own biases make our self-assessment pretty unreliable. A better indicator of how open-mindedness is someone’s willingness to be challenged, which aligns with the principles of actively open-minded thinking (AOT). AOT research emphasizes:
Considering alternate perspectives.
Sensitivity to contradictory evidence.
Reflective thinking.
For example: being challenged by a partner’s feedback and genuinely evaluating how it might improve a situation you are working on together.
This willingness to be challenged has several benefits, both for oneself and one’s relationships, like the following:
Enhanced relationships: It promotes a deeper understanding and empathy for partners and friends, improves communication, and reduces conflict.
Personal growth: It helps us confront our own biases and evolve our thinking.
Reduced conflict: Actively moving away from defensiveness increases people’s capacity for win-win situations and collaborative problem-solving.
Common traps
There are a few common traps we can fall into as well, however. A few of these might include:
The Comfort-Zone Trap: We tend to stick to familiar patterns, because confronting opposing ideas can cause discomfort, which we tend to avoid. For example: Choosing friends, partners, and social media influencers who largely show our worldview.
Self-righteousness vs. Curiosity: When we focus on being right, it creates defensiveness and shuts down learning. Cultivating curiosity about opposing viewpoints helps us understand and potentially grow. For example: Rather than immediately dismissing a suggestion due to a gut reaction, take time to ask open-ended questions like, "Can you explain how that might work?" or "What makes you see it that way?"
Confirmation Bias: We gravitate towards information that confirms our existing beliefs, which hinders our ability to genuinely engage with dissenting views. This, in turn, reinforces echo chambers, especially on the internet, which create a very narrow version of the world. For example: Always going to the same person to vent to who you know will back you up and never question you.
Arguing vs. Engaging: Are we seeking validation for our own opinions, or is there true willingness to learn and be challenged? Real engagement means putting your own perspective aside for a moment and trying to fully grasp the other person’s viewpoint, practicing understanding before persuasion. Using phrases like “That’s illogical,” or “That makes no sense” tend to shut down conversations rather than open them up.
How to be actionably open-minded
A few tips we have for increasing open-mindedness and trying to see another person’s viewpoint are:
The 5-Minute Rule: When facing criticism or a strongly opposing view, take a 5-minute breather before responding to prevent knee-jerk defensiveness.
Seek the Strange: Once a week, intentionally dive into a viewpoint that feels strange and foreign to you. Notice your immediate reactions, but also try to find a common point of understanding.
Microscript it: Team up with a partner or friend and figure out a microscript to call out moments when either of you fall into argument or shutdown mode.
First, identify your triggers: Repetition overload, “You don’t get it” vibes, or the “emotional wall.”
Then choose a microscript. You can use pop culture references, quirky catchphrases, inside jokes, anything.
Remember:
Choose a microscript you’ll easily remember.
The goal is to break damaging communication patterns, not avoid disagreement.
Get creative with microscripts that fit you and your partner’s sense of humor.
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're talking about open-mindedness, what it really means, how it's misunderstood, and how we're likely much, much worse at it than we think we are. Most people out there identify open-mindedness as a positive trait, especially among younger generations, and most people that you meet will say that they're open-minded.
I remember years ago, I heard about this on job applications, that "open-minded" is a thing that gets put on there a lot. However, research struggles with actually measuring that for a couple of reasons. One is that open-mindedness is a difficult thing to measure because what does that really mean? What do we really mean when we say that?
Then the other thing that's interesting is when you do study it, you find out that most of us are not very open-minded at all, no matter where we fall on the political spectrum, for example. In this episode, we're going to unpack all of that and look at some ways that we can actually try to make ourselves more open-minded and why that's a really good thing for all of us to be doing.
If you're interested in learning more about our fundamental communication tools that we reference on this show, you can check out our book, Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships, which covers some of our most used communication tools for all types of relationships. You can find links to buy it at multiamory.com/book or wherever fine books are sold.
Dedeker: This whole premise is making me think of that poster that is on the wall of many classrooms and maybe office cubicles. The quote that's how your brain is like a parachute, it works best if it's open. Do you know the one I'm talking about?
Jase: Oh, yes.
Emily: Interesting.
Jase: I forgot about that one.
Emily: Are there a bunch of people in a circle with a big parachute or something?
Dedeker: In Kindergarten?
Emily: Yes, exactly.
Jase: Right. Love that.
Dedeker: All right. No, it's so funny because this quote, in particular, it looks like it's been attributed to 6 billion different people. The most common one is Frank Zappa, but it looks like Buzz Aldrin slipped in here as well, but then, of course, there's an English language stock exchange where a bunch of freaking English nerds are getting to the bottom of it. It seems like this concept of the mind being like a parachute actually comes from the '30s.
Emily: Oh, wow.
Dedeker: Some random journalist.
Emily: Person in the '30s.
Dedeker: Some random journalist in the '30s writing an article about drought. It seems like the concept has been recycled over and over many times. Maybe Frank Zappa did say those words at some point, but-
Emily: There we go.
Dedeker: -he wasn't the one to come up with it.
Jase: Right. I think that's interesting because it does speak to something in there, right, that there's something about that idea, something about that concept that feels profound, that feels meaningful, that feels like something we want to put in our children's classrooms. I do think it's interesting because if you think about it in a classroom setting, it's like, "Yes, be open-minded, I guess open to learning things," but that's different from what we mean when we say open-minded, I think, in most contexts. There's also a little question there of like, "What does open-minded even really mean?"
Emily: When we're looking at the current landscape of where we are at this moment in time, I believe a lot of people think that there are those of us who are very open-minded on one side of the spectrum and those of us who are not very open-minded on the other side of the spectrum. The middle ground has gone away, in essence, or at least it seems as though the media is portraying it that way, that the middle is not there as much as maybe it was when the three of us were kids.
I feel as though, at least from a political pundit standpoint, the more middle-of-the-road person that believes things on either side of the aisle, for instance, is less of a thing that is in vogue, as opposed to the, "I'm on one side of the spectrum, and I'm on the other." I think that that has torn us apart, in essence, this idea that we are on one side or the other, and neither the two shall meet.
I think that that can really cause a big divide in our friendships. It absolutely has in some friendships, in family relationships, and even potentially in romantic relationships. I'm really interested and curious in talking about that today because there is such a divide right now, and that idea and concept of open-mindedness, maybe if we tried to come towards the middle, then we could understand each other a little bit more.
Dedeker: It's just like the landscape is so just not set us up for that right now, right?
Emily: Not at all.
Dedeker: This is me, a purely armchair sociologist, shooting from the hip. I'd be willing to bet that there are more people who, at least on the inside, hold less extremist and less polarized views than maybe we think, right-
Emily: You're probably right.
Dedeker: -where I think there are more people who lean left of center or right of center or from the left towards center, right? All those things. Those people do exist. It's just a landscape that very much favors the more extreme polarized positions. To bring this into the microcosm of relationships, I do think that we can get polarized in relationships where, on a particularly charged topic, any step towards reconciliation or any step towards, "Okay, I think I can validate this part of what my partner thinks about this, but I can't validate this," any of that can start to be seen as like, "I can't sacrifice any ground."
This is how I see people get really locked in these recurring arguments or recurring battles where it's like no one's willing to essentially give up any ground to actually start to understand the other person.
Jase: Unfortunately, we're set up with a lot of role models of doing the opposite of this. We see this again with our public figures. Not only politicians but also other influential or famous public figures where there've even been some studies showing that we do a lot of this like, "Oh, well you said this thing however many years ago" and still holding people to stuff that they said before.
What they found is that if someone apologizes and is like, "Yes, I was wrong and changed my mind," that from a ratings and public opinion point of view, that's hurtful to them. There's no incentive to do it, so instead we see a lot of this doubling down because it's like that's the only way you can move forward. While that's public figures, I think in personal relationships, apologizing doesn't have that negative result in your relationships, but we're not set up with a lot of good role models of doing that.
A lot of us are subconsciously brought up with this idea that to ever admit that we've changed our mind or admit that we were wrong about a belief, not just like, "I did the wrong thing, but I actually believed a thing that I now think is wrong or I believe differently about" is a terrifying prospect to ever admit that or go there. I think we're just not set up with good role models for how to do that.
Emily: It almost seems like truly being open-minded is not looking at one specific thing and being like, "I believe, I guess, all of the in-vogue things or the more left-of-center things, for instance," but rather, "I'm open to the possibility of multiple viewpoints," and that is the definition more of being open-minded. I know we're going to talk about the definition, but first, we're going to get into some states and stats.
Jase: Right. To set the stage, I found a few studies that I thought were really interesting about this question of open-mindedness. Now, these are mostly looking at political questions, but I think that the principles and the idea behind it applies to all sorts of things, including the way we discuss different beliefs with our partners.
Even if those different beliefs are not like we're on opposite sides of some spectrum but just you think about being on time a little different than I do, or we think about decorating our home differently or cleaning or safer sex, whatever it is that's tied to a belief, not just how I'm executing it, that we can see how this could carry over into those that we might think that we're open-minded but might not be.
The first one of these is in 2017. This is a study by Frimer, Skitka, and Motyl published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, where they asked 2,400 people, so a pretty large sample, to look at arguments on hot social issues of the time that were contrary to their own beliefs. These were things like gun control, same-sex marriage, climate change, abortion, and others.
I guess they understood what their opinions were first and then presented them with these arguments on the opposite side. One of the parts of the study was they could have a chance to win some extra money, I think up to $5 or something like that, if they would just read an argument making some points that's the opposite of theirs on a particular issue.
They found that two-thirds of the participants passed up on a chance to win that extra money where all they would have had to do was just listen to the argument from the opposite side.
Dedeker: Wow.
Jase: Same-sex marriage was the one.
Dedeker: Okay. Was it only $5? Because here's the deal.
Jase: It was a low amount of money, so sure.
Dedeker: Everybody has their price. I will firmly say everybody has their price.
Emily: That's fascinating.
Jase: I guess what this study tells us is that for two-thirds of people, $5 is not enough to pay them to even just listen to the ideas, not to agree with them, not to engage with them, literally just to read them, I think in this case. What they found is that this was true no matter where they fell on their opinion, on same-sex marriage in this case, that no matter what, two-thirds of people, same statistics either side were just like, "I'd rather just not." Their reasons for it were things like, "I think this would actually make me hate those people more."
Dedeker: Wow. Interesting.
Jase: They didn't say quite like that. I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but basically that "It would make me feel more divided from the people on the other side of this argument," which-
Dedeker: That's interesting. I wasn't expecting that.
Jase: -was a surprising answer. I agree. Yes. Now there's another set of studies. These are two studies that did the same thing. One of these was from the Online Privacy Foundation. Oh, sorry, this is a British one. It's the Online Privacy Foundation.
Dedeker: Okay, good.
Jase: This was a study that they did during the lead-up to Brexit, actually. There were two groups, right? There was I guess a control group and then the test group. In the control group, they were presented with some statistics about skin cream, and they were asked to say, based on these numbers on this graph of statistics of using this skin cream to treat a skin rash, is it effective or not? That's the question.
It would be randomized. Some people got data that said it was not effective. Some got data that said it was effective, but they weren't told the conclusion. They were just told, "Based on this data, what do you think this says?" They found that 57% of people were able to correctly identify if it had a positive or negative effect. The first part of that is, 57% is a lot lower than I expected.
Dedeker: Yes, I was going to say that's like 43% of people can't read a graph. Is that what I'm supposed to glean from that?
Jase: Basically, yes.
Dedeker: Oh, no.
Jase: Interesting.
Speaker: Would have trouble understanding how those numbers correlate to each other to then draw a conclusions from it.
Dedeker: Okay. Sure.
Emily: Got it. Okay.
Jase: That's already interesting since we love talking about statistics and numbers and things on this show.
Emily: Maybe people need to learn how to read graphs better. Yes.
Jase: Now, in the test group, they did the same thing, the same graph, the same numbers, everything the same, but they told them that it was about the correlation between immigration and crime, instead of skin cream and treating a rash. In that group, they found that if the graph was supporting the opposite of what you believed on that topic, instead of 57% interpreting it correctly, only 35% did.
The likelihood that you would understand and correctly read the numbers of just what it's saying, not what your conclusion is, if they go against what you believe, that number dropped.
Emily: That's really interesting.
Jase: If it agreed what you believed, the number went up because you were more likely to assume the numbers are going to support what you believe to be true.
Dedeker: Yes. Okay, let's say I'm presented with this graph and I believe that there's zero correlation between gun violence or crime and immigration, and if that is what the graph is showing me, I guess my brain is already primed to be making the connections with those numbers with a particular relationship to each other and maybe I'm just more likely to get it "correct" versus if I--
Jase: Because you're looking for it.
Dedeker: Because I'm looking for it.
Emily: If you're not looking for it, or if you think the opposite is true, then you may look at that graph and just be like, "Oh, this isn't correct," or "This isn't a thing that's going to support my belief, so therefore I just believe that it's wrong."
Jase: But the part that's missing--
Dedeker: Or it's harder for your brain-
Emily: To understand.
Dedeker: - to understand.
Jase: Exactly. That's
Emily: That's fascinating. Wow.
Jase: That's It wasn't, "I understand what the numbers are saying and I disagree with them, so I think they're wrong." It was, "I think the numbers say the opposite of what they're saying." That's the interesting part. Literally, our ability to even interpret the data goes down when it's against what we already believe on something.
Emily: That makes sense because it's that idea that if you show someone like, "Okay, here's the facts, here it is in black and white," they still may say, "No, I don't believe that," or "No, I don't see it that way," or something along those lines. They're not going to be swayed regardless of what's in front of them.
Dedeker: The sad and scary part is I feel like I relate to this. This is such a human thing. Especially we end up reading so many research studies in the course of writing episodes for this show, and if I come across a research study that comes to a conclusion that I vehemently disagree with, there are things it's a lot easier for me to pick apart that study, right?
Emily: Or just not put it in the episode.
Dedeker: Or just not put it in the episode, right-
Jase: Yes, sure. That, too.
Dedeker: -or "This is where they really messed up in the way they prepared this," which is not something that my brain is likely to do if the study already supports what I inherently believe.
Emily: Can I ask, Jase, what was your interest in doing this episode because you said that you had been thinking about it for years, and why is that? At this particular moment in time, it is a really important subject, I think, but I would say one doesn't necessarily automatically think of romantic relationships when they're looking at a subject like this.
Jase: Yes, it's something that I wanted to do an episode about a while back, like years and years ago, that was more about "How can we find that open-mindedness is a positive quality specifically in workplaces, and then how can being open to different sexual orientations or relationship styles or whatever could be in support of that?"
That's what led me to not do that episode because it's like, "Oh, open-mindedness doesn't really mean anything, and there's no statistics to back that up because everyone thinks they are, and we're actually not." It wasn't until more recently, I don't remember where it came from that I wrote down the idea of like, "Oh, this could be a good episode topic."
I think that it was realizing that it's kind of all the same issue. It's like the scariness of challenging our beliefs is enough to stop us from doing it also on those day-to-day kinds of things that can become those-- like the Gottman's call them, the irreconcilable differences, these just fundamental different beliefs we might each have, and that you're always going to have some of those.
The question is, "Is this a difference that I can live with and learn to get along with, or is this one that I can't?" because you're not ever going to change their mind. All this together was realizing how interrelated it all is, where I think that open-mindedness, while changing your mind may come from that, I think that's not really the point.
It's not about adopting new ideas necessarily but this willingness to even entertain them, to even try to understand them, and more importantly, I would say, to understand the people who would believe something different from you. We've been talking about big things like immigration or same-sex marriage or things like that.
I think this applies even on those smaller-scale beliefs like we were talking about like cleanliness or minimalism versus maximalism, right? Like keeping stuff because it's important and you never know if you might need it versus valuing minimalism. That's something that could be a big source of tension in a romantic relationship, especially if you're going to live together or a roommate relationship or any number of things.
Just to close out this section on studies, there was another study that was done right around the same time from Yale University in the US that did the same thing where there were statistics about a skin cream and then statistics about gun control and the same results as the one in the UK that was about immigration and crime, just that this is not specific to that one point in time in this one place,but actually, this is a more reproducible effect that we're just bad. We're worse at interpreting data if it goes against what we already believe.
Now, I will say in our defense, I do think we try to also poke some holes in studies, even if we do agree with them, not poke holes but just to say, "Well, this part of their study's not great," like, "Oh, not a lot of participants," or "Well, they were only undergrads at this one university," or things like that. I think we do try to do that, but that bias is hard to escape completely.
Dedeker: Yes, for sure. For sure.
Jase: I think that's more the point. It's that no matter what research there is, there's going to be some amount of bias, not only from the people who made it but also from yourself reading it. That's a good place to start thinking about, "Yes, how can we get better at being open to different conclusions, to better explore the space and hopefully make better decisions and be better people?"
Dedeker: Well, let's talk about the concept of open-mindedness in general because I think we're laying out the argument that people are probably not as open-minded as they think that they are, but open-mindedness does exist as a trait or as maybe an ability. I don't know what we would even call it necessarily, but it is a thing that exists. It's not just like, "Oh, that's impossible. Just literally no one on the planet is open-minded at all."
Again, a lot of people believe that they are open-minded, but that's based on people's self-assessment and self-judgment. That's really hard to measure or to find to be reliable, at least from a research perspective because there's a lot of factors that influence that. It is socially desirable to be considered to be open-minded. Also, we just tend to gloss over our own cognitive biases as it is.
For example, I think that it is incentivized for you to describe yourself as someone who is open-minded to maybe different views or different opinions, or sometimes this is maybe even masked with the phrase of like, "I don't need everyone to agree with me," right, or "I am fine with people disagreeing with me." Then you might look at their social circles or their news sources, and that may suggest otherwise.
Jase: Yes, I think the funny irony is that the fact we view open-mindedness as a desirable trait makes us less likely to accurately evaluate whether we ourselves are open-minded based on exactly the same thing we just talked about in the study.
Emily: We must be because it's desirable.
Jase: Right. Yes, that it biases us already to see evidence for it in ourselves and maybe against it in people we don't like when that might not actually be true. Maybe they actually have a more diverse social media network. Maybe they're reading more diverse opinions in their news or in their relationships. You don't really know that, but it's easy to make that quick assumption because we think it's a desirable trait and that good people must be open-minded.
Emily: What is a good person?
Jase: Well, usually, a person I agree with. That's, I feel like, often how it comes out. In this, like Dedeker was saying, there is open-mindedness. There is a such thing as that, but I think part of the problem is the term "open-minded." What I came up with for this episode is this concept of a willingness to be challenged rather than thinking about open-mindedness, to try to get to the heart of what it is we're talking about here.
The idea is that rather than an abstract concept like open-mindedness, this lines up with something in psychology called actively open-minded thinking, or AOT, which basically is this willingness to be challenged. It's like I'm not only saying I'm open-minded, but I'm actively seeking out and encouraging, trying to better understand other points of view, actually trying to understand those.
AOT research emphasizes considering alternate perspectives. It's about how sensitive we are to seeing evidence that contradicts what we already believe, how accurately can we assess it, and then also reflective thinking, like examining, "Why do I believe this thing? What is that based on?" Not to say you necessarily have to change your mind but actually considering it and reflecting on why you believe the things you believe.
Emily: I've heard on a lot of the podcasts that I listened to that the best presidents or the best CEOs are people that put those in their cabinet or on their board that don't necessarily have the same political beliefs or just general beliefs as they do because it's best to be challenged and to hear those opposing opinions and beliefs in order to be able to see all sides and make an informed decision from that.
That's exactly what you're talking about, Jase, this willingness to be challenged and to be I guess "open-minded," enough to say, "Yes, there's a lot of different viewpoints out there in the rest of the country, or my constituents, whoever, I need to be able to think in a way that they might be thinking. I need to be open to that, so I'm going to have multiple people that are close to me to be able to advise me in various ways, not just be a yes man and say yes that everything that you say and think and do is 100% correct."
Jase: Yes. The book Team of Rivals from 2005 was about Abraham Lincoln doing that, of putting all his opponents into his cabinet. I haven't read the book. I just have heard some people tell me about it. I was just looking that up. That's what first introduced me to that concept as well, was hearing about people talk about this book.
Emily: Yes, if you're genuinely challenged by a partner's feedback and then really evaluating how it might improve a situation that you're working on together, I think that's really great and something that not many of us are potentially very good at. Again, if you're able to sit and be with a person and really listen to them and realize, "Hey, maybe we both have different viewpoints, but let's work together to come to some sort of solution as opposed to just being at this impasse, this roadblock where we can't ever move forward because we both are at odds with each other about something that we just like can't come to a meeting of the minds on."
To summarize all of this, there are a lot of benefits of willingness to be challenged, what Jase came up with, that great phrase, one of them we just talked about, which is enhanced relationships. You can promote a deeper understanding and empathy for partners and friends, which improves communication and reduces conflict.
Also, this helps with personal growth. A willingness to be challenged helps us confront our own biases and evolve our thinking over time. Then ideally, it's going to help reduce conflict so you can move away from things like defensiveness, which is one of those Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse with the Gottman Institute. If you move away from that defensiveness, it can increase our capacity for finding those win-win solutions and collaborative problem-solving.
Dedeker: I want to expand the definition of being challenged because, I don't know, when I hear willingness to be challenged, I am like, "Nope, I'm going to go crawl into a cave."
Emily: That's interesting.
Dedeker: "I'm not interested. No, thank you." I don't want this to just seem like, "Yes, you need to be open to your partner just straight up criticizing you" because no one wants that, right? That can get into some really unhealthy behavior, maybe even abusive behavior. I want to expand it into I think that being open to being "challenged" can be on a spectrum.
I think it can be everything from "I had my particular story of how my partner and I totally messed up planning for this date night or for this trip, right? I have my experience of that and then my partner has a very different experience of that, and I can be open to my partner having a different experience of that." Maybe it can be challenging to think about, "Oh, my narrative isn't the only one that exists right now."
It can also go all the way up to, I think, relatively low-stakes stuff like, I don't know, my partner is suggesting that I get off the computer and we go for a walk together, and that's not normally what I like to do. Instead of just being like, "No, I don't want to do that, you go do that by yourself,"
maybe I'm open to being like, "Okay, sure, I'll take your bid. I'll go for a walk. I'll see how it is," or going to see a movie that I know my partner's going to like, maybe I don't like necessarily.
I think that it can fall under this big umbrella that isn't just "Open yourself to being attacked at your most vulnerable places." I worry about people hearing it that way.
Jase: That's a great point. When I was working on this episode, willingness to be challenged is the core seed I was looking for in terms of challenging your own beliefs, but I agree it's not a perfect label for it. It just got me started down that path of a different way to look at the question of open-mindedness because, yes, it's not like I want to be attacked or criticized, right? That's no fun.
Dedeker: Oh, yes. On a job application, I'm never going to describe myself as open to criticism and feedback. Honestly, I'll just say it. I'll just say it. I don't like it.
Emily: This is why you work for yourself, Dedeker.
Dedeker: Exactly. That is why I'm not a team player.
Emily: That's okay. I think you are.
Jase: I do want to clarify a little bit that, yes, this is related to another concept we talk about fairly often, which the Gottman's talk about as accepting influence, which a little bit, it's partly related to what we're talking about and partly different from that, the same with taking bids or turning toward, which is another Gottman thing, this idea of like, "Oh, my partner wants to go see this movie."
I'm like, "If I were on my own, I might not," but there's a benefit to accepting an offer from my partner and going to do something with them. Overall, that's good. I should try to do more of those things. I think that they all bleed into each other. What we're talking about here is a little bit more of this being willing to challenge yourself in a way, being willing to entertain that a different thing might be true, or understanding where they're coming from.
Not just, "I'll go to see this movie that I don't normally like because my partner wants to see it" but almost trying to better understand why they might like it. What would someone need to believe or feel in order to like that? Maybe it leads you to actually like it more. Weirdly enough, this happened to me with techno music a long, long time ago.
Emily: Oh, wow. Okay.
Jase: I always thought it was total crap. I thought it was nothing. I had a friend who was really into it, and one day we sat down, and he was explaining to me how he listens to it and what he's listening for as he listens to it. It was like overnight, I learned to appreciate it. Now I actually listen to a lot of electronic music.
Dedeker: I will say I want to give you credit for that, that I do think surprisingly for someone who went to conservatory, to study music, you are a music man. That person, you're the music man, and yet I do think you are very open-minded when it comes to finding the good parts, like all types of music. I don't think there's any music I've heard you just trash talk just by virtue of it being just a genre you've completely written off.
Jase: Yes, yes. There might be songs I trash talk but not whole genres, right, not whole styles because, yes, I do value that. I guess my hope is that this is an example of, "This doesn't all have to be super high stakes, life or death, civil liberties of other humans-type level disagreements," right? It doesn't have to be that. It can also just be music taste, movies, timeliness, cleanliness, whatever it is, right?
Just opening up to understanding those things, even if you don't change your belief but better understanding where other people are coming from. Okay, we're going to get into, "What are the challenges, though, right?" Because this is all well and good to say, "Yes, we should do this, let's do it. Great." It's actually hard, and there is some common traps that we can fall into.
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Dedeker: We are back from our break, and we're going to be talking about the primary obstacles that get in the way of people being able to be more open-minded, whether it's on bigger issues or these smaller, more day-to-day issues. The first one is just the comfort zone trap. It's just so much more comfortable to not be challenged at all.
It's so much more comfortable to stick with familiar patterns, familiar stories, familiar talking points. Having to sit with an opposing idea, whether that is an opposing political idea or again, your partner just having a different version of the story, it creates discomfort. Sometimes it can ping this cognitive dissonance, which research shows literally does cause us pain and discomfort.
It lights up those areas of our brain whenever we're having to engage in some kind of cognitive dissonance, so we tend to avoid it. It's a lot easier to choose friends, to choose partners, to choose who you follow on social media as being people who largely share your existing opinions and your existing worldview.
Jase: That's not to say you should jump into only surround yourself by people who believe the opposite of you all the time, but more, let's move the needle a little bit. Let's start to open that up, explore that a little bit. The next pitfall that we run into is this self-righteousness or defensiveness about needing to be right and that if you're wrong about something, you're also bad and those things competing with that curiosity and that open-mindedness about what's going on.
When we focus on being right, it shuts down the part of us that can learn something because we're already right, so what do we need to learn about this topic? Instead, cultivating curiosity about the opposing viewpoints can open doors to understanding. This could be like someone gives you a suggestion or a criticism.
You might jump to immediately shutting that down because it's too uncomfortable to take that or like, "Oh, but that would mean I'm wrong, and therefore, what else might I be wrong about? Therefore, I'm a bad person." We can easily go down that way of thinking, not that we're doing it consciously, but that it can have that feeling of threat, and that's what leads us to be defensive.
Whatever we can do to remove some of that personalness from it and also come at it from a place of asking for more information so it's not about saying, "No, you're wrong," or "Yes, you're right" because people can fall into that opposite one, right, as any kind of criticism or suggestion, that immediate, "Oh, no, you're right. I was totally wrong. I've done it horrible. I'm such a bad person. Oh my God, you're so right."
That's not good either. Instead, it's that question of, "Tell me more about it. Why is it? Help me understand why you see it that way so that then I can go think about it and make a decision" rather than I have to either just say yes or no. Moving away from that sense of right or wrong absolutes and moving into curiosity is hard but worth doing.
Emily: The next very common trap is confirmation bias. I think most of us tend to gravitate towards information or people or even areas of the country that confirm our existing beliefs and also potentially hinder our ability to really engage with dissenting views or people who might think differently than us.
That creates this echo chamber or this bubble and this same space of people that are very similar to us and that we may think are all as open-minded as we are but really all just think similar things to us. That can create this really skewed and narrow perception of the world. This also happens a lot online, just people who will perpetuate the same idea over and over and then have similar friends or people online who also continue to say, "Yes, that is the viewpoint that is the correct one in the world."
Similarly, if you have an idea or you have something that you want to vent about or you have something that's challenging or going on in your life and you want to talk to someone about it, if you continually go to the same person that you know "That's my hype man, that's my yes man, that's the person who's going to say, 'Yes, you have been wronged in this moment,' or 'Yes, I totally agree with what you're saying,'" it never really allows you to see a different viewpoint.
I think it's really great if you get the opportunity to go to a therapist or go to a friend who you know is going to challenge you in that moment. Do something along those lines so that you're not constantly just being fed, "Yes, you are right." Maybe also think of "What's another way that I could see this situation?"
Dedeker: Or you could also literally bring that to a therapist or to a friend.
Emily: Totally.
Dedeker: Be very specific about, "I'm going to tell you this situation that I'm struggling with, with my partner, and I specifically, actually genuinely want you to tell me, do you think that I'm off base here? Do you think I am being closed-minded here? Can you help me scan for maybe seeing my partner's point of view or seeing where I might be the one in the wrong here?"
Jase: Yes. I think just, again, to come in with this little caveat here that I think the beauty of the discoverability of communities on the internet is both a blessing and a curse. There's one thing to say, "I feel like maybe I'm the only person in the world that feels this way, and I feel alone and something's wrong with me," and the internet can lead us to realizing, "Oh, there's actually communities of people who feel the same way, and I can feel validated there."
It's like we can get seduced by how easy that is then to have everyone just agree with us all the time, which pushes us to a lot of the bad behavior we see, which is ostracizing anyone who expresses a different opinion from an online community or just trying to find the right one where everyone agrees as closely with me as I can find, right?
It's those kinds of negative things as well. Again, this doesn't mean you should just always be uncomfortable, always challenging yourself, but trying to find some of that balance.
Dedeker: Another trap that we can fall into is leaning more on the side of arguing against a challenge rather than engaging with a challenge or a new idea or a different opinion. You really do have to ask the question of, "Am I just seeking validation for my own opinions, or do I actually have a true willingness to learn and to be challenged here?" because sometimes we can be like, "Oh, yes, I'm totally open to hearing the other side of this. Oh, yes, I'm totally open to hearing my partner's opinion on this.
"Oh, yes, I definitely want to learn so that then I can strike down every piece that I disagree with or I can prove how wrong they are or how they totally misremembered that night. They need to get on board with what my story is."
That's a very slippery slope, especially if you're talking with someone about a topic or trying to iron something out with your partner where it's a little bit emotionally triggering, that adds another layer onto it where it's really hard to have that sense of openness.
Jase: Yes. This reminds me of the meme of the table outside with the paper on it, the "Prove me wrong" meme, where it's like, "Pop-Tarts are ravioli. Prove me wrong" kind of a thing, where it's like--
Emily: What? Oh, I guess it kind of is
Dedeker: I agree. That took me very little consideration. No, I think it's right.
Jase: Right, but something like that.
Emily: You don't put it in a sauce, and it's generally not savory, but okay, sure, fine.
Jase: See, that's a great discussion. The point is that that sign is, sure, a willingness to be challenged, but it's for the purpose of "I want to argue with you and in that case, for fun, hopefully." Hopefully, no one's taking that too seriously. We do that a lot in a more negative way of that like, "No, I'm totally open to other ideas so I can learn to better defend myself and shoot them down." That's a different spirit than actually engaging.
Dedeker: Yes, and I see this play out all the time when I'm working with couples where if they're both sharing a narrative of how the last fight went down or how each completely just like made a misstep and missed each other or in some particular way that there can be this pattern of, "I'm going to sit and listen to my partner tell their side of the story." Every 30 seconds I'm going to be like, "No, that's not how it went," or, "Well, I said that because this thing happened," or, "Well, you shouldn't have felt hurt by this, because what I was actually trying to do was this."
Is just like at every single turn, trying to invalidate and argue and push against what their partner's perspective is, and which is something that is 99% of the time, it's going to shut down the conversation rather than open them up. It's going to shut down, not just the conversation, it's probably going to shut down your partner and it's also going to shut down you. When that's your mode, it shuts you down from being able to consider anything else whatsoever.
Emily: I think listening is very important to, actually, truly be able to sit. If you can actually sit there and listen to what a partner has to say, genuinely, and truly think about it. We're going to get into some actionable takeaways in a moment here. I think that that's so important to listen to someone before getting defensive, before getting upset and angry and telling a person that they're wrong.
Dedeker: Literally, what I have my couples do is, if they're unpacking a fight, I will have them take turns sharing their story with each other. While one person is sharing, the other person has to be writing down almost a transcript of what the other person is saying.
Emily: Oh, I love that.
Dedeker: It can be a little intense. It's like a lot of furious note-taking. What it does is that it gets people's brains into truly this much more neutral listening mode where they're like, "I need to be listening with accuracy to truly understand what is my partner saying, and then I'll have to write it down," instead of," I'm going to listen. I'm going to store that one for later. How I'm going to argue against that?"
Jase: Totally.
Dedeker: "I'm going to push back on that for later. I'm already formulating my argument. I'm not really listening to everything that you're saying." It's not a perfect solution, but that is something for people to maybe consider. It may feel a little weird, but it will put you into a different listening mode with your partner.
Jase: We have various sayings about this like the seek first to understand before being understood, or God gave you two ears and one mouth, use them proportionately, things like that. There's various little sayings to this, but it's so easy to not focus on that because so much else in our society encourages the opposite. The fact that in school we might have a debate class, but we don't have to earnestly consider the other person's opinion class.
Emily: Debate is all about how you're wrong or how the other person is wrong.
Jase: We teach you to listen.
Emily: Listen for the weak points. Exactly.
Jase: To tell them why they're wrong. That's-
Emily: Good point.
Jase: -something to do about there. All right, so before we go on to our actionable takeaways, we want to take another quick break to talk about supporting this show. Our patrons are amazing. If you don't like listening to ad breaks, well, I have good news for you, and that is that subscribers to our $7 tier hire on Patreon get their own separate feed for the show where they get episodes a couple of days early, as well as getting them without any ads in them.
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Dedeker: We're back from our break, and we're going to be talking about, "What the heck do we do about all of this?" How do we actually open ourselves up a little bit more? How do we dodge or sidestep some of these really common pitfalls and traps? The first one is, we're going to call it, the five-minute rule, which is that, when you're facing a strongly opposing view, maybe even a mildly opposing view, honestly, let's say it's a social media post.
Let's say it's an email you got from someone, it's a text. This tends to work a little bit easier when it's an asynchronous situation. Hit pause. Literally, let yourself take a five-minute breather before responding to prevent yourself from having that knee-jerk defensiveness. When it comes to the case of social media posts that you feel super fired up and ready to comment on, chances are, if you, literally, take a five-minute breather, you're going to get distracted by something else.
Jase: Your life will be better for it.
Dedeker: Your life is going to be better for it, for sure. When it comes to relationship conflict, I keep coming back to the narrative thing. I know that that's not the only way that people get triggered by this or can feel closed-minded. I think that that's top of mind because I see so many couples struggle with this, this idea that if you're not on board with 100% with the way I saw things go down, that can be really emotionally threatening and challenging.
I think if your partner is presenting you with a different opinion about how a situation went down, and that's bringing up feelings for you, you may want to consider a longer break. We've done plenty of episodes on that, so give it 25 minutes, 30 minutes to go take a walk or go distract yourself or go read a book that you're enjoying or whatever, that's going to be the thing.
You need to get your body into a more physiological state of calm before you're going to be able to come back because if you don't, it's just going to be harder. You're going to be fighting against these very natural threat responses that are not telling you to take in any new information. Your threat responses are telling you," No, you know everything that you need to know, you need to get out of here, or you need to fly, or you need to fight, or whatever."
Jase: This is one that I think part of the skill here is developing the ability to identify when you're feeling that way and to have it like, "Oh, I'm feeling fired up as I'm writing this. I'm hearing the voice in my head is yelling while it's writing this, or maybe I'm just feeling in my body. I'm more frustrated."
Whatever it is, identifying that for you so that you can see that when it's happening, instead of pressing send, and then five minutes later after you regulate, realizing, "Ooff, maybe I've just started a worse fight here. Maybe I've made this situation worse. Maybe I've now stated something that I feel like I can't back down on, even if maybe I would start to change my beliefs on this. Now, I feel like I can't because I was such a jerk about how I said that."
Learning to identify that earlier is really important. This is something that I'm not always perfect on, but I feel like is something I've improved a lot in my life when it comes to responding to messages or responding to emails. This happens to me at work every now and then, where it's like I get upset about something. I'm angry about something either thinking, "Oh, someone didn't do their job here," or "No, that's not how we should be doing this thing."
Whatever it is that I'll start writing the reply and I'll identify that feeling and I'll go, "Maybe, I write a little more of the reply, but I don't press send." That's where I walk away for a second, come back, reread the whole thread leading up to it, then reread my response. I would say, 75% of the time I end up just deleting my response and being like, "You know what? I learned what I needed to learn here. I don't think this is going to help the discussion at all."
Most of the time, that's where I land. Then sometimes, it's like, "No, I do want to say this, but let me focus on what it is I really want to communicate, not just how I'm feeling about this thing." It's like, but I couldn't do that if I was right in the moment.
I have to notice when I'm feeling amped up and defensive or self-righteous or angry or whatever it is, to then, I guess, get distance from it to then even be able to come back and see it and go, "Is this really the right choice for me? Is this going to benefit me? Is this going to benefit the person I'm saying it to?" Like I said, 75% of the time, I'm like actually, the answer to those is, no, so I just don't.
Emily: If you're looking to truly have a more of a willingness to be challenged, a thing that you can do is practice, seeking the strange. That means that once a week you can intentionally dive into a viewpoint that feels really foreign to you, really strange, maybe something that is not at all what you believe, but just look at it.
Just take maybe 10 minutes, take 15 minutes, and check out something that's totally opposite of what it is that you believe and notice what's going on there and notice your immediate reactions. Then try to find maybe a tiny point of connection or understanding to that different viewpoint, to that different way of thinking. Can the two of you ever think of a time when you did this?
I think for myself, sometimes I do, intentionally, try to find different news articles, for example, on something that comes up that I'm like, "Yes, I really believe this thing, but I want to see what the other side says." For instance, there was an Ezra Klein podcast recently, that was very much an opinion about a specific topic. Then after I listened to it, I went and tried to find other opinions that were refuting that thing that he had done that podcast episode on, for instance.
Dedeker: I've been on a kick recently. I've started listening to a couple of podcasts where it is a really interesting exercise in tracking my own responses. There's a couple of podcasts in my feed right now where there are things that I definitely disagree with. Some opinions that some of the hosts hold where I'm like, "We're totally not on the same page about this." Then other issues where I'm like, "I'm definitely on the same page with this person about this."
That's been a really interesting, I guess, experiment just to see how that feels for me because there are some days where I actually really enjoy it. Then there's some days where I'm just like, "I don't know. This is a little too uncomfortable to have to listen to this."Most days I would say, I've been able to hear an opinion that I disagree with, and give it an eye roll, as opposed to getting so upset that I'm like, "I can't listen to this show anymore." It's so hard to talk about these things because we live on such a polarized internet. That it's like, literally, I could be like, "Okay, I listen to a show, where one of the hosts thinks that you should use baking powder in your chocolate chip cookies, and I really don't agree with that," and someone will be like, "I can't believe that you would even give the time of day to someone who thinks that." It's really hard to share specifically because everyone has a very strongly vehement reaction to these things. I guess, this is why we're trying to make a show about this.
I do think this is a good exercise. It doesn't have to be if you're a big lefty, it doesn't mean you need to dive into the world of super alt-right content and just power through it and force yourself to listen to it. Don't do that. That's not going to be good for anybody involved. It might be just stepping a little bit more central as far as a particular news source, let's say, or the particular opinion writer that you're reading, and then just seeing what that's like for you to take that in.
Jase: I think it's a really interesting thing when you can get to that point of, "Okay, I can understand part of why a person might feel this way." You can find some part of what they believe, where you're like, "Okay, now I get that. I can relate to that feeling." I may not agree with, then, all the other stuff you're willing to do to get that thing. Or maybe I'm not going to get on board with the fact that that outweighs all the harm it would cause to get that thing that you want, but at least, it's like, I can understand why you might feel the way you do about something.
I'm thinking politically right now, like, "Okay, trying to understand that." I find if you have someone in your life who does believe this, that can be a good starting point for yourself. Again, it doesn't even have to be engaging with them necessarily, but trying to understand, "How might I feel like I could understand them?" If I can't feel like I can understand them, "How might I feel like I might be able to understand them?" It's taking whatever little steps that you can.
Again, it's not necessarily about changing your mind, but at least about understanding, yes, there's something, where us as humans have this in common. Then to take this to relationships, it's those values about those fundamental things. It's like when you see a relationship where one person's very religiously Christian and the other is an atheist, that's I think a relatively rare relationship.
It can be a hard one to do because, I think, those can be so tied to our identity and show up in the way we make a lot of other value-based decisions in our lives, but there are couples that do it. I just think that's interesting to think about that, like, "How can we better understand those things?" Again, that's not to say we have to be okay with anyone else's belief for everything, but whatever we can do to move that needle a little bit. I love Emily's example of going like, "Let me look for some things that argue the opposite of this thing that I think I agree with."
Or I try to do this with studies sometimes, too, where it's like, "I think this is how it should work. Let me try to look up some studies. Okay, let me try to do the Google search for the opposite now of numbers that don't support it." That can also be a hard thing to confront, but then go, "Okay, maybe this isn't as ubiquitous as I thought. It doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to change my belief, but maybe I might change why I believe it, or what I think I should do about it."
The third one, and this one actually ties back to what Dedeker was talking about earlier, and that is, in those cases where you're actually in a discussion with somebody else, or you're in an argument with your partner or with a friend, is to come up with a microscript that can help you on your own, without having to just be in a coaching session to do what Dedeker was talking about and switch from arguing mode to listening mode. Whether that's writing things down in a notebook, or just agreeing to take some time, where all you're going to do is listen and really earnestly try to understand each other.
Dedeker: We actually dedicated an entire chapter of our book to creating microscripts. If you go to multiamory.com/book, you can get much more in-depth information about that there.
Jase: The basic gist of it is, you identify a trigger. Like I talked about before with cooling off when you're writing an email or something, is learning how to identify, "What's the thing happening that's going to trigger me to do this microscript?" In this case, it's when we realize we're going back and forth, or maybe when we're starting to say things like, "You don't understand," or, "You're not listening."
Or if we hear our partner say that to us, that can be a cue. Or if you notice yourself starting to shut down, or stonewall, or emotionally disengage, or whatever it is for you and for your partner, or your friend or whoever, identify that. Then come up with something that you can say, and agree on this together so you both understand the cue, something you can say ideally that's a little bit silly to like record-scratch, change the mood, to keep you from going down that path you were going down, and then take that time to try to understand each other.
I tried to come up with some examples. I'm curious if you two have any better ones. I'm sure you at home might have some. It could be something like saying, "Stop. Collaborate and listen," could be a cue that you're right because it derails you as a little bit rhythmic, and then you go, "Okay, yes. Let's maybe take a few moments to chill," and then come back and say, "Let's try to understand each other first before we keep having this discussion." Maybe have them listen to this episode first, so they understand why that's important.
Or your cue could be something like, "I'm just getting upset here, or our voices are being raised. If you are someone who watched a lot of Saved by the Bell, you could say, "Time out." Turn to the side as if you're talking to the camera, and be like, "Time out."
Dedeker: My goodness, Jase.
Jase: Then you can--
Dedeker: Oh my goodness, Jase. No one alive-
Jase: I'm very Gen X right now.
Dedeker: -knows what Saved by the Bell is anymore.
Emily: I don't recall that. I don't think I saw it, ever.
Jase: All right. See, this is me being on the cusp of Gen X and millennials.
Emily: There go.
Jase: Right. It could be, "Houston, we have a problem," or whatever it could be. Maybe it's a hand gesture you do. Maybe it is just holding up the timeout symbol to be like, "Hold on, we need to take a moment here." I think Dedeker you were talking about this concept of like, "I can't take any more input?"
Dedeker: Yes, I think something I am trying to be more cognizant of is that there's definitely a certain point where if I'm getting emotionally activated or getting upset, that I'm trying to get better at catching when that switch flips into okay, mind is officially closed right now. I cannot sit and listen. I can't listen to what my partner's emotional experience is, or listen with compassion or empathy. Or I don't have the capacity to sit and listen to their side of the story. I'm upset enough that it's just closed.
First of all, it's I think that that's the first cue that I've been trying to work with and try to find a way to even microscript myself around that. Then, I think the second skill there is, after becoming aware of that, then not just being like, "Okay, but I'm going to keep arguing anyway." Then using that as a cue of like, "Okay, I can tell that my mind and heart are really closed right now, and so I need to go take a break from this conversation. I need to go take a walk. I need to go do something else, so that I can come back feeling a little bit more open."
Emily: What about, "Stop, in the name of love?"
Dedeker: Good.
Emily: You have to sing it.
Dedeker: That's good, but you have to sing it.
Jase: Well, that's good to do. I like that.
Emily: Yes. Exactly.
Jase: You have to sing it. Yes, yes.
Emily: I thought it might be fun and silly in the moment, and stop the conversation from getting derailed.
Jase: Yes, it's really important that if you both agree this is something that you want to work on, the beauty of microscripts is that they're so out of left field, so jarring, that assuming you're both on the same page that, "This is a value we hold in common, that we want to have better discussions and not just argue," that it can be enough that, even if you're a little bit like, "Wait, no, you can't--" Like, "Okay. Yes, fine. All right, we'll take a moment." It's just weird enough to stop that pathway.
All right. This was an exciting episode for an exciting topic because clearly, you can get heated when talking about these things. It is challenging, and we're talking about willingness to be challenged, or, at least, willingness to challenge yourself is maybe a way to re-examine what we mean by open-mindedness, or when we think about the quality of having an open mind like a parachute, or seeking first to understand before being understood, things like that.
I'm really interested with all of this to see, "How could this change your life in just a little bit? How could this improve your relationships, even just a little bit?" You may find that that opens the door to improving a lot of different relationships in your life, not just with your partner. It may also be certain friends you haven't talked to as much recently. It might be people in your online communities that you've struggled with in the past or coworkers. Again, it doesn't mean you have to say, "Oh yes, you're totally right. Your opinion is super valid," but, "Maybe I understand it just a little bit better." I think even that can make a huge difference.