Supercommunicators, page 28
“beginning of a conversation”: The researchers in this paper were studying conversational receptiveness, of which techniques like looping for understanding can be considered a component, but not the totality of this approach. The full quote from this paper reads: “Using field data from a setting where conflict management is endemic to productivity, we show that conversational receptiveness at the beginning of a conversation forestalls conflict escalation at the end. Specifically, Wikipedia editors who write more receptive posts are less prone to receiving personal attacks from disagreeing editors.” Michael Yeomans et al., “Conversational Receptiveness: Improving Engagement with Opposing Views,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 160 (2020): 131–48.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
Heen teaches approaches: Heen wrote, “I think that there are really three purposes for looping (or skillful active listening). 1. To help the talker better understand themselves(!). In a complicated conflict, I explain my perspective to you, but when you summarize it back to me, I often think, ‘Well, yeah, but there’s more to it for me…. It’s also that…’ So as the talker, my listener is helping me sort out a bunch of layers of why this matters to me and what my own interests and concerns and feelings are about it; 2. To help the listener better and more fully understand. (I sometimes ask each side, ‘What do you think the other side doesn’t “get” about your perspective?’ and once explained, the listener actually says, ‘Oh, gosh, yeah, I didn’t get that part of it’); and 3. To let the talker know that the listener understands more fully—which also SHOWS the talker that the listener cares enough about the issue, and about the relationship, to work hard to get what’s most important to them. So looping is doing all of this work, which is why it can so dramatically change the dynamic when it is done—and reciprocated—with sincerity.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
began in a curious way: Sarrouf wrote, “What is described here is the first of three questions that were asked and responded to in the dialogue experience: 1. Could you tell us about a life experience you’ve had that has shaped your perspective or beliefs about firearms? 2. What’s at the heart of the matter when you think about the role of firearms in our nation? 3. In what ways do you experience mixed feelings or feel pulled in different directions on the issue? Where do you find some of your values bumping up against other values as you think about this issue? We have people go around the circle answering these questions and then we open up the conversation to have them ask people questions of genuine curiosity. The purpose of the questions of genuine curiosity is to deepen understanding, follow curiosity, invite nuance and complexity, not just clarity.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
about 8 percent: “How and Why Do American Couples Argue?,” YouGovAmerica, June 1, 2022.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
when it finally occurred: In response to fact-checking questions, Benjamin Karney wrote that “it is accurate that the associations between marital conflict, as observed in the lab, and concurrent marital satisfaction, change in marital satisfaction, and divorce, is significant but not that strong. That means that, on average, couples who experience more conflict are at higher risk for poorer marital outcomes, but that still leaves plenty of couples who fight a lot and are perfectly fine for long periods of time. Why? Because the quality of couples’ conflict is not the only thing that matters to their feelings about the relationship. It is just one element in an array of variables (including personality, family background, external stress, financial status) that also contribute to understanding how marriages succeed and fail.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
fought about similar issues: Though it is generally true that couples argue about similar issues across demographics, there is research indicating that impoverished couples argue more about the stressors that accompany poverty, and that couples with specific problems—including medical or addiction issues—argue with greater frequency about those issues. Moreover, Karney emphasized that “a lot (virtually all) of this early work was conducted on relatively affluent, white couples. We are learning lots about conflict in recent years by expanding our focus beyond these samples, studying couples from lower-income neighborhoods. One finding: The way couples handle conflict is powerfully affected by factors that partners cannot control. Couples often cannot choose the sources of their disagreements, or the severity of them. It takes a lot of privilege to be able to choose the timing of your conflicts, and to have the time to process conflicts at all. We have also learned that teaching couples to have better conflicts is very hard to do, and that getting better…does not always improve relationships, especially when those relationships are challenged in other ways that the interventions do not touch. The wisdom of Integrative Behavioral Couples Therapy is not that it teaches self-control but that it encourages accepting your partner as a whole person with a history and limits.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
Benjamin Karney, who: Karney wrote, “My understanding of this literature is that there were significant differences between satisfied and distressed couples in how they approached [discussions about disagreements]. For one thing, distressed couples exchanged more negative behaviors with each other than satisfied couples did. For another thing, some research using a ‘talk table’ approach that separated the intent of each partner’s behavior from its impact found that satisfied and distressed couples did not differ in the intent behind their behaviors, but differed a lot in the impact of those behaviors. That is, in satisfied couples, intentions matched impact, but in distressed couples, intentions did not predict impact.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
more in control: It is important to note that control is just one factor that influences couples’ conflict. Karney wrote, “There is a whole lot going on in couples’ conflicts, and struggles over control are one slice…. It’s not just one thing that is going on when couples disagree…. Conflict arises when each partner wants something different, so whenever there is conflict, each partner is trying to get the other person to change or compromise. You can call that control, or you can call that trying to get what you want.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
session taped by researchers: Transcripts were shared with me on the condition that the identities of participants, as well as other specifics that might reveal identities such as the location of the conversations, remain confidential.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“when everyone feels in control”: Stanley wrote, “If I get a couple to structure a bit, slow down, and get pretty behavioral about how they are talking with turn-taking and listening (and cutting out the swipes), people calm down fast and the good stuff comes out. A couple can get to enacting all the great good stuff.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
plenty of ugliness: Quotes from the Facebook discussion throughout this chapter include both posts made on the private Facebook page devoted to this group, as well as direct messages that were shared with me by participants.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
called each other idiots: Sarrouf wrote, “One of the flaws of the design was that we brought six times more people into the group who were never really trained or oriented to our work…. I think it became harder when people who did not have the experience came in. The people we did train used some of their skills to help others, but it was not the same.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“models of curiosity”: “Dialogue Journalism: The Method,” Spaceship Media; “Dialogue Journalism Toolkit,” Spaceship Media.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
speak with civility: Sarrouf wrote that moderators also worked to “re-emphasize the purpose of the engagement. So purpose is very important to us. We would remind people that purpose is to help understand one another, and to learn from each other, rather than to try to convince each other. That’s a huge element of the work, so you’d step in to reemphasize purpose. You’d step in to reemphasize some of the communication agreements that were laid out which are also there to support people and their purpose. And maybe some of the skills that we learn like, you know, listening to understand, speaking to be understood, asking what is a genuinely curious question. Let’s remember to ask genuinely curious questions, rather than gotcha questions or rhetorical questions.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
struggles for control: As this chapter notes, there were multiple dynamics, beyond struggles over control, that disrupted the online conversations. As Sarrouf wrote in response to fact-checking inquiries, these other factors included marginalization of some participants; instances when participants did not adhere to communication agreements the group had struck; and other patterns that prevented an open and diverse conversation. He wrote: “The purpose is to create an equality of speaking, invite people to speak to the point, help people who are listening hang in there.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“hard to metabolize”: Heen added that this process can take a long time, because “our own views shift over time, and as we integrate how the other person sees it into our own perspective, our own perspective changes.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“I am beginning to lose interest”: This is an edited version of the entire quote, which reads, in its entirety: “I am beginning to lose interest in this group. There is nothing to talk about. Nobody is interested in changing their mind. You either believe in the most fundamental human right there is—the right to defend one’s self, family, community, and country—or you believe in the denial of that most fundamental right and the concentration of arms and monopolization of force in the hands of the political elite and their minions. I know that my mind is set on the issue, and that yours probably is too. That’s OK. I appreciate the civility here, but I guess in the end I will see you at the ballot box.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“I’ve used these skills”: These quotes come from multiple polls conducted by Essential Partners.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“used to be intolerant”: Sarrouf wrote, “I think the thing to understand here is that it is less about some people rising above and others not, and more about building patterns and tendencies that make it more likely to choose to listen openly and ask honest questions than not…. I think we know and have known for a long time that we have tools and structures to help people talk about very difficult topics…. We learned that as people move to an online space with some good grounding training and awareness, communication agreements, good moderation, supportive journalists who contribute some balanced reporting, [and] a few people like Melanie and Jon who are really bought in, [then] you can make a better conversation.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
A GUIDE TO USING THESE IDEAS, PART III: EMOTIONAL CONVERSATIONS, IN LIFE AND ONLINE
Numerous studies have shown: Tim Althoff, Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, and Dan Jurafsky, “How to Ask for a Favor: A Case Study on the Success of Altruistic Requests,” Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media 8, no. 1 (2014): 12–21; Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil et al., “How Opinions Are Received by Online Communities: A Case Study on Amazon.com Helpfulness Votes,” Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on World Wide Web, April 2009, 141–50; Justine Zhang et al., “Conversations Gone Awry: Detecting Early Signs of Conversational Failure,” Proceedings of the 56th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics 1 (July 2018): 1350–61.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
When we criticize: Zhang et al., “Conversations Gone Awry”; Justin Cheng, Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, and Jure Leskovec, “Antisocial Behavior in Online Discussion Communities,” Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media 9, no. 1 (2015): 61–70; Justin Cheng, Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, and Jure Leskovec, “How Community Feedback Shapes User Behavior,” Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media 8, no. 1 (2014): 41–50.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
CHAPTER SIX: OUR SOCIAL IDENTITIES SHAPE OUR WORLDS
these drugs without question: Dewesh Kumar et al., “Understanding the Phases of Vaccine Hesitancy During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Israel Journal of Health Policy Research 11, no. 1 (2022): 1–5; Robert M. Jacobson, Jennifer L. St. Sauver, and Lila J. Finney Rutten, “Vaccine Hesitancy,” Mayo Clinic Proceedings 90, no. 11 (2015): 1562–68. Charles Shey Wiysonge et al., “Vaccine Hesitancy in the Era of COVID-19: Could Lessons from the Past Help in Divining the Future?” Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics 18, no. 1 (2022): 1–3; Pru Hobson-West, “Understanding Vaccination Resistance: Moving Beyond Risk,” Health, Risk and Society 5, no. 3 (2003): 273–83; Jacquelyn H. Flaskerud, “Vaccine Hesitancy and Intransigence,” Issues in Mental Health Nursing 42, no. 12 (2021): 1147–50; Daniel L. Rosenfeld and A. Janet Tomiyama, “Jab My Arm, Not My Morality: Perceived Moral Reproach as a Barrier to COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake,” Social Science and Medicine 294 (2022): 114699.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“social identities”: References to social identity as a monolithic concept sometimes overlook the impact various identities can have. For instance, someone’s race might have a much greater impact on their life than their gender, and so it is important to recognize that, while social identity is a useful term for capturing this concept, it, alone, is often not sufficient. Similarly, the concept of intersectionality, or “the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage,” is an important component of understanding social identities, as further endnotes explain. For help in understanding these concepts, I am indebted to Kali D. Cyrus, MD MPH, an ABPN-certified psychiatrist and assistant professor at Johns Hopkins Medicine, who reviewed these chapters and offered suggestions to make them more robust and inclusive.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“our membership in social groups”: Joshua L. Miller and Ann Marie Garran, Racism in the United States: Implications for the Helping Professions (New York: Springer Publishing, 2017).
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
All of us have a personal identity: Michael Kalin and Nicholas Sambanis, “How to Think About Social Identity,” Annual Review of Political Science 21 (2018): 239–57; Russell Spears, “Social Influence and Group Identity,” Annual Review of Psychology 72 (2021): 367–90.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
influence our thoughts: Jim A. C. Everett, Nadira S. Faber, and Molly Crockett, “Preferences and Beliefs in Ingroup Favoritism,” Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 9 (2015): 15; Matthew D. Lieberman, “Birds of a Feather Synchronize Together,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 22, no. 5 (2018): 371–72; Mina Cikara and Jay J. Van Bavel, “The Neuroscience of Intergroup Relations: An Integrative Review,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 9, no. 3 (2014): 245–74; Thomas Mussweiler and Galen V. Bodenhausen, “I Know You Are, but What Am I? Self-Evaluative Consequences of Judging In-Group and Out-Group Members,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 82, no. 1 (2002): 19.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
One famous experiment: Muzafer Sherif, University of Oklahoma, and Institute of Group Relations, Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation: The Robbers Cave Experiment, vol. 10 (Norman, Okla.: University Book Exchange, 1961).
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
Other experiments have demonstrated: Jellie Sierksma, Mandy Spaltman, and Tessa A. M. Lansu, “Children Tell More Prosocial Lies in Favor of In-Group Than Out-Group Peers,” Developmental Psychology 55, no. 7 (2019): 1428; Sima Jannati et al., “In-Group Bias in Financial Markets” (2023), available at https://ssrn.com/abstract=2884218; David M. Bersoff, “Why Good People Sometimes Do Bad Things: Motivated Reasoning and Unethical Behavior,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 25, no. 1 (1999): 28–39; Alexis C. Carpenter and Anne C. Krendl, “Are Eyewitness Accounts Biased? Evaluating False Memories for Crimes Involving In-Group or Out-Group Conflict,” Social Neuroscience 13, no. 1 (2018): 74–93; Torun Lindholm and Sven-Åke Christianson, “Intergroup Biases and Eyewitness Testimony,” The Journal of Social Psychology 138, no. 6 (1998): 710–23.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
that intersect in complicated ways: It is important to note that intersectionality—how someone is impacted by numerous identities that transcend binary pairings, and how those intersecting identities can expose people to increased discrimination and disadvantage—is an important component in understanding the power of social identities. For more on this, please see the work of Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Patricia Hill Collins, Sirma Bilge, Arica L. Coleman, Lisa Bowleg, Nira Yuval-Davis, Devon Carbado, and other scholars. I would particularly suggest the following works, which I found helpful: Sumi Cho, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, and Leslie McCall, “Toward a Field of Intersectionality Studies: Theory, Applications, and Praxis,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 38, no. 4 (2013): 785–810; Ange-Marie Hancock, Intersectionality: An Intellectual History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016); Edna A. Viruell-Fuentes, Patricia Y. Miranda, and Sawsan Abdulrahim, “More Than Culture: Structural Racism, Intersectionality Theory, and Immigrant Health,” Social Science and Medicine 75, no. 12 (2012): 2099–106; Devon W. Carbado et al., “Intersectionality: Mapping the Movements of a Theory,” Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race 10, no. 2 (2013): 303–12.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
Heen teaches approaches: Heen wrote, “I think that there are really three purposes for looping (or skillful active listening). 1. To help the talker better understand themselves(!). In a complicated conflict, I explain my perspective to you, but when you summarize it back to me, I often think, ‘Well, yeah, but there’s more to it for me…. It’s also that…’ So as the talker, my listener is helping me sort out a bunch of layers of why this matters to me and what my own interests and concerns and feelings are about it; 2. To help the listener better and more fully understand. (I sometimes ask each side, ‘What do you think the other side doesn’t “get” about your perspective?’ and once explained, the listener actually says, ‘Oh, gosh, yeah, I didn’t get that part of it’); and 3. To let the talker know that the listener understands more fully—which also SHOWS the talker that the listener cares enough about the issue, and about the relationship, to work hard to get what’s most important to them. So looping is doing all of this work, which is why it can so dramatically change the dynamic when it is done—and reciprocated—with sincerity.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
began in a curious way: Sarrouf wrote, “What is described here is the first of three questions that were asked and responded to in the dialogue experience: 1. Could you tell us about a life experience you’ve had that has shaped your perspective or beliefs about firearms? 2. What’s at the heart of the matter when you think about the role of firearms in our nation? 3. In what ways do you experience mixed feelings or feel pulled in different directions on the issue? Where do you find some of your values bumping up against other values as you think about this issue? We have people go around the circle answering these questions and then we open up the conversation to have them ask people questions of genuine curiosity. The purpose of the questions of genuine curiosity is to deepen understanding, follow curiosity, invite nuance and complexity, not just clarity.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
about 8 percent: “How and Why Do American Couples Argue?,” YouGovAmerica, June 1, 2022.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
when it finally occurred: In response to fact-checking questions, Benjamin Karney wrote that “it is accurate that the associations between marital conflict, as observed in the lab, and concurrent marital satisfaction, change in marital satisfaction, and divorce, is significant but not that strong. That means that, on average, couples who experience more conflict are at higher risk for poorer marital outcomes, but that still leaves plenty of couples who fight a lot and are perfectly fine for long periods of time. Why? Because the quality of couples’ conflict is not the only thing that matters to their feelings about the relationship. It is just one element in an array of variables (including personality, family background, external stress, financial status) that also contribute to understanding how marriages succeed and fail.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
fought about similar issues: Though it is generally true that couples argue about similar issues across demographics, there is research indicating that impoverished couples argue more about the stressors that accompany poverty, and that couples with specific problems—including medical or addiction issues—argue with greater frequency about those issues. Moreover, Karney emphasized that “a lot (virtually all) of this early work was conducted on relatively affluent, white couples. We are learning lots about conflict in recent years by expanding our focus beyond these samples, studying couples from lower-income neighborhoods. One finding: The way couples handle conflict is powerfully affected by factors that partners cannot control. Couples often cannot choose the sources of their disagreements, or the severity of them. It takes a lot of privilege to be able to choose the timing of your conflicts, and to have the time to process conflicts at all. We have also learned that teaching couples to have better conflicts is very hard to do, and that getting better…does not always improve relationships, especially when those relationships are challenged in other ways that the interventions do not touch. The wisdom of Integrative Behavioral Couples Therapy is not that it teaches self-control but that it encourages accepting your partner as a whole person with a history and limits.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
Benjamin Karney, who: Karney wrote, “My understanding of this literature is that there were significant differences between satisfied and distressed couples in how they approached [discussions about disagreements]. For one thing, distressed couples exchanged more negative behaviors with each other than satisfied couples did. For another thing, some research using a ‘talk table’ approach that separated the intent of each partner’s behavior from its impact found that satisfied and distressed couples did not differ in the intent behind their behaviors, but differed a lot in the impact of those behaviors. That is, in satisfied couples, intentions matched impact, but in distressed couples, intentions did not predict impact.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
more in control: It is important to note that control is just one factor that influences couples’ conflict. Karney wrote, “There is a whole lot going on in couples’ conflicts, and struggles over control are one slice…. It’s not just one thing that is going on when couples disagree…. Conflict arises when each partner wants something different, so whenever there is conflict, each partner is trying to get the other person to change or compromise. You can call that control, or you can call that trying to get what you want.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
session taped by researchers: Transcripts were shared with me on the condition that the identities of participants, as well as other specifics that might reveal identities such as the location of the conversations, remain confidential.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“when everyone feels in control”: Stanley wrote, “If I get a couple to structure a bit, slow down, and get pretty behavioral about how they are talking with turn-taking and listening (and cutting out the swipes), people calm down fast and the good stuff comes out. A couple can get to enacting all the great good stuff.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
plenty of ugliness: Quotes from the Facebook discussion throughout this chapter include both posts made on the private Facebook page devoted to this group, as well as direct messages that were shared with me by participants.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
called each other idiots: Sarrouf wrote, “One of the flaws of the design was that we brought six times more people into the group who were never really trained or oriented to our work…. I think it became harder when people who did not have the experience came in. The people we did train used some of their skills to help others, but it was not the same.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“models of curiosity”: “Dialogue Journalism: The Method,” Spaceship Media; “Dialogue Journalism Toolkit,” Spaceship Media.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
speak with civility: Sarrouf wrote that moderators also worked to “re-emphasize the purpose of the engagement. So purpose is very important to us. We would remind people that purpose is to help understand one another, and to learn from each other, rather than to try to convince each other. That’s a huge element of the work, so you’d step in to reemphasize purpose. You’d step in to reemphasize some of the communication agreements that were laid out which are also there to support people and their purpose. And maybe some of the skills that we learn like, you know, listening to understand, speaking to be understood, asking what is a genuinely curious question. Let’s remember to ask genuinely curious questions, rather than gotcha questions or rhetorical questions.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
struggles for control: As this chapter notes, there were multiple dynamics, beyond struggles over control, that disrupted the online conversations. As Sarrouf wrote in response to fact-checking inquiries, these other factors included marginalization of some participants; instances when participants did not adhere to communication agreements the group had struck; and other patterns that prevented an open and diverse conversation. He wrote: “The purpose is to create an equality of speaking, invite people to speak to the point, help people who are listening hang in there.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“hard to metabolize”: Heen added that this process can take a long time, because “our own views shift over time, and as we integrate how the other person sees it into our own perspective, our own perspective changes.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“I am beginning to lose interest”: This is an edited version of the entire quote, which reads, in its entirety: “I am beginning to lose interest in this group. There is nothing to talk about. Nobody is interested in changing their mind. You either believe in the most fundamental human right there is—the right to defend one’s self, family, community, and country—or you believe in the denial of that most fundamental right and the concentration of arms and monopolization of force in the hands of the political elite and their minions. I know that my mind is set on the issue, and that yours probably is too. That’s OK. I appreciate the civility here, but I guess in the end I will see you at the ballot box.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“I’ve used these skills”: These quotes come from multiple polls conducted by Essential Partners.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“used to be intolerant”: Sarrouf wrote, “I think the thing to understand here is that it is less about some people rising above and others not, and more about building patterns and tendencies that make it more likely to choose to listen openly and ask honest questions than not…. I think we know and have known for a long time that we have tools and structures to help people talk about very difficult topics…. We learned that as people move to an online space with some good grounding training and awareness, communication agreements, good moderation, supportive journalists who contribute some balanced reporting, [and] a few people like Melanie and Jon who are really bought in, [then] you can make a better conversation.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
A GUIDE TO USING THESE IDEAS, PART III: EMOTIONAL CONVERSATIONS, IN LIFE AND ONLINE
Numerous studies have shown: Tim Althoff, Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, and Dan Jurafsky, “How to Ask for a Favor: A Case Study on the Success of Altruistic Requests,” Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media 8, no. 1 (2014): 12–21; Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil et al., “How Opinions Are Received by Online Communities: A Case Study on Amazon.com Helpfulness Votes,” Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on World Wide Web, April 2009, 141–50; Justine Zhang et al., “Conversations Gone Awry: Detecting Early Signs of Conversational Failure,” Proceedings of the 56th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics 1 (July 2018): 1350–61.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
When we criticize: Zhang et al., “Conversations Gone Awry”; Justin Cheng, Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, and Jure Leskovec, “Antisocial Behavior in Online Discussion Communities,” Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media 9, no. 1 (2015): 61–70; Justin Cheng, Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, and Jure Leskovec, “How Community Feedback Shapes User Behavior,” Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media 8, no. 1 (2014): 41–50.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
CHAPTER SIX: OUR SOCIAL IDENTITIES SHAPE OUR WORLDS
these drugs without question: Dewesh Kumar et al., “Understanding the Phases of Vaccine Hesitancy During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Israel Journal of Health Policy Research 11, no. 1 (2022): 1–5; Robert M. Jacobson, Jennifer L. St. Sauver, and Lila J. Finney Rutten, “Vaccine Hesitancy,” Mayo Clinic Proceedings 90, no. 11 (2015): 1562–68. Charles Shey Wiysonge et al., “Vaccine Hesitancy in the Era of COVID-19: Could Lessons from the Past Help in Divining the Future?” Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics 18, no. 1 (2022): 1–3; Pru Hobson-West, “Understanding Vaccination Resistance: Moving Beyond Risk,” Health, Risk and Society 5, no. 3 (2003): 273–83; Jacquelyn H. Flaskerud, “Vaccine Hesitancy and Intransigence,” Issues in Mental Health Nursing 42, no. 12 (2021): 1147–50; Daniel L. Rosenfeld and A. Janet Tomiyama, “Jab My Arm, Not My Morality: Perceived Moral Reproach as a Barrier to COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake,” Social Science and Medicine 294 (2022): 114699.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“social identities”: References to social identity as a monolithic concept sometimes overlook the impact various identities can have. For instance, someone’s race might have a much greater impact on their life than their gender, and so it is important to recognize that, while social identity is a useful term for capturing this concept, it, alone, is often not sufficient. Similarly, the concept of intersectionality, or “the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage,” is an important component of understanding social identities, as further endnotes explain. For help in understanding these concepts, I am indebted to Kali D. Cyrus, MD MPH, an ABPN-certified psychiatrist and assistant professor at Johns Hopkins Medicine, who reviewed these chapters and offered suggestions to make them more robust and inclusive.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“our membership in social groups”: Joshua L. Miller and Ann Marie Garran, Racism in the United States: Implications for the Helping Professions (New York: Springer Publishing, 2017).
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
All of us have a personal identity: Michael Kalin and Nicholas Sambanis, “How to Think About Social Identity,” Annual Review of Political Science 21 (2018): 239–57; Russell Spears, “Social Influence and Group Identity,” Annual Review of Psychology 72 (2021): 367–90.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
influence our thoughts: Jim A. C. Everett, Nadira S. Faber, and Molly Crockett, “Preferences and Beliefs in Ingroup Favoritism,” Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 9 (2015): 15; Matthew D. Lieberman, “Birds of a Feather Synchronize Together,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 22, no. 5 (2018): 371–72; Mina Cikara and Jay J. Van Bavel, “The Neuroscience of Intergroup Relations: An Integrative Review,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 9, no. 3 (2014): 245–74; Thomas Mussweiler and Galen V. Bodenhausen, “I Know You Are, but What Am I? Self-Evaluative Consequences of Judging In-Group and Out-Group Members,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 82, no. 1 (2002): 19.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
One famous experiment: Muzafer Sherif, University of Oklahoma, and Institute of Group Relations, Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation: The Robbers Cave Experiment, vol. 10 (Norman, Okla.: University Book Exchange, 1961).
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
Other experiments have demonstrated: Jellie Sierksma, Mandy Spaltman, and Tessa A. M. Lansu, “Children Tell More Prosocial Lies in Favor of In-Group Than Out-Group Peers,” Developmental Psychology 55, no. 7 (2019): 1428; Sima Jannati et al., “In-Group Bias in Financial Markets” (2023), available at https://ssrn.com/abstract=2884218; David M. Bersoff, “Why Good People Sometimes Do Bad Things: Motivated Reasoning and Unethical Behavior,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 25, no. 1 (1999): 28–39; Alexis C. Carpenter and Anne C. Krendl, “Are Eyewitness Accounts Biased? Evaluating False Memories for Crimes Involving In-Group or Out-Group Conflict,” Social Neuroscience 13, no. 1 (2018): 74–93; Torun Lindholm and Sven-Åke Christianson, “Intergroup Biases and Eyewitness Testimony,” The Journal of Social Psychology 138, no. 6 (1998): 710–23.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
that intersect in complicated ways: It is important to note that intersectionality—how someone is impacted by numerous identities that transcend binary pairings, and how those intersecting identities can expose people to increased discrimination and disadvantage—is an important component in understanding the power of social identities. For more on this, please see the work of Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Patricia Hill Collins, Sirma Bilge, Arica L. Coleman, Lisa Bowleg, Nira Yuval-Davis, Devon Carbado, and other scholars. I would particularly suggest the following works, which I found helpful: Sumi Cho, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, and Leslie McCall, “Toward a Field of Intersectionality Studies: Theory, Applications, and Praxis,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 38, no. 4 (2013): 785–810; Ange-Marie Hancock, Intersectionality: An Intellectual History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016); Edna A. Viruell-Fuentes, Patricia Y. Miranda, and Sawsan Abdulrahim, “More Than Culture: Structural Racism, Intersectionality Theory, and Immigrant Health,” Social Science and Medicine 75, no. 12 (2012): 2099–106; Devon W. Carbado et al., “Intersectionality: Mapping the Movements of a Theory,” Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race 10, no. 2 (2013): 303–12.
