Win Hearts, Then Minds

Summary

Hidden Brain: “Win Hearts, Then Minds” Release Date: June 23, 2025

In this thought-provoking episode of Hidden Brain, host Shankar Vedantam delves deep into the complexities of persuasion, particularly within the polarized landscape of political discourse. Titled “Win Hearts, Then Minds,” the episode explores why genuine understanding often eludes interactions with political opponents and offers insights into fostering meaningful dialogue.

I. Introduction to Persuasion and Political Discourse

Shankar opens the episode by painting a vivid contrast between resolving a neighborhood dispute face-to-face versus engaging in a heated exchange on social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter). He highlights how online “shouting matches” often lead to mutual disdain rather than constructive engagement, setting the stage for a discussion on effective persuasion strategies.

II. Rob Wheeler’s Journey: From Conflict to Understanding

A. Personal Stories of Conflict Resolution Rob Wheeler, a sociologist at Stanford University, shares personal anecdotes illustrating his evolution in handling disagreements. Reflecting on his college years, Rob recounts intense conflicts with roommates over seemingly trivial issues like noise:

“I just came rushing out of my room, like immediately inflamed, you know, dropping epithets and, you know, cursing... This is just completely out of control.”
— Rob Wheeler [05:49]

B. Transformative Academic Assignment Rob describes a pivotal assignment from his social science professor, Michael Lavallia, which required him to write about a conflict from both his perspective and that of his roommate. This exercise was revelatory:

“I had really deeply and authentically taken the perspective of somebody else... I saw that they were right, you know, and I was wrong.”
— Rob Wheeler [07:26]

This experience underscored the power of empathy and perspective-taking, fundamentally altering Rob’s approach to conflicts.

III. The Psychology of Persuasion

A. Challenges in Political Conversations Rob explains that traditional debate strategies, focused on winning arguments through logic and passion, often fail in real-world political discourse. Instead of persuading opponents, these tactics can reinforce divisions:

“When we have debates with people and we argue with people, we're not actually just trying to have them come over to our side... We want them to come over for our reasons.”
— Rob Wheeler [25:22]

B. Emotional Barriers The episode delves into how strong emotions like anger can impede our ability to see things from others’ perspectives, making effective persuasion even more challenging.

IV. Rob Wheeler’s Research on Activism and Persuasion

A. The Activist Dilemma Rob discusses his research on activist tactics, revealing that extreme protest methods—such as property destruction or violent disruptions—often backfire by alienating potential supporters:

“People tend to have negative reactions to what we describe as extreme protest tactics... They see the protesters as less moral.”
— Rob Wheeler [37:28]

B. Moral Reframing as a Solution To bridge ideological divides, Rob introduces the concept of moral reframing—tailoring arguments to align with the audience’s core moral values. He provides compelling examples:

Same-Sex Marriage:

• Traditional Frame: Fairness and equality
• Reframed for Conservatives: Loyalty and patriotism
     “Same-sex couples are proud and patriotic Americans... They contribute to the American economy and society.”

— Rob Wheeler [42:40]

Military Spending:

• Traditional Frame: Protection and security
• Reframed for Liberals: Equality and social justice
     “Through the military, the disadvantaged and the poor can achieve equal standing.”

— Rob Wheeler [44:25]

These reframed messages proved more effective in garnering support across ideological lines, reducing polarization.

V. Overcoming Emotional Barriers

Rob emphasizes the need to manage emotional reactions to engage in productive conversations. He shares a personal story where, faced with frustration over an impounded car, he chose calm and understanding over anger:

“I asked him, what percentage of people, like, freak out right now in this conversation? And he said, like, 70% of people. And I was like, cool. Alright. I was doing my best to not be in that group.”
— Rob Wheeler [49:19]

This anecdote illustrates the practical application of his research, highlighting the importance of emotional regulation in persuasion.

VI. Your Questions Answered with Kenji Yoshino

Following the main interview, the episode transitions to the recurring “Your Questions Answered” segment featuring legal scholar Kenji Yoshino. Kenji addresses several listener questions related to identity, covering, and authenticity.

A. Understanding Covering and Passing Kenji differentiates between covering (downplaying aspects of one’s identity to fit in) and passing (concealing group membership entirely):

“Passing is when people literally do not know that you belong to the group. Covering is when people know you belong to the group but pressure you to downplay it.”
— Kenji Yoshino [57:22]

B. Covering in Everyday Life He discusses how covering is a universal phenomenon affecting various groups, including those who are typically perceived as privileged. Kenji emphasizes the importance of fostering environments that encourage authenticity:

“Covering demands... modifying how we present ourselves so others can feel more comfortable.”
— Kenji Yoshino [56:29]

C. Imposter Syndrome and Covering Kenji explores the overlap between imposter syndrome and covering, advocating for environments where individuals feel safe to express vulnerabilities:

“To be human is to sometimes feel like you're an imposter... and to sometimes feel the need to cover.”
— Kenji Yoshino [61:07]

D. Strategies for Authenticity He provides practical advice on creating psychological safety, encouraging allies to support others in expressing their true selves without judgment.

VII. Conclusion: Bridging Hearts and Minds

“Win Hearts, Then Minds” offers a comprehensive exploration of the psychological underpinnings of persuasion and conflict resolution. Rob Wheeler’s insights, combined with Kenji Yoshino’s expertise on identity and authenticity, underscore the importance of empathy, moral alignment, and emotional intelligence in bridging ideological divides. The episode challenges listeners to move beyond combative debates, advocating for strategies that align with the audience’s values and foster genuine understanding.

Notable Quotes

• Rob Wheeler [07:35]: “I had gotten over that for the purposes of getting an A on this assignment in college and embraced the other person's perspective.”

• Rob Wheeler [26:33]: “I wasn't going to convince the English graduate student to not embrace critical Marxist theory. I wasn't going to convince the math graduate student to be less analytical... I was meeting them where they were and paying them that respect.”

• Kenji Yoshino [60:47]: “Covering is modifying the demand for how you present yourself, rather than modifying your performance.”

• Kenji Yoshino [68:02]: “Covering can be used as an empathetic strategy to help others feel safer within a certain kind of environment.”

Key Takeaways

1. Empathy and Perspective-Taking: Understanding others' viewpoints is crucial for effective persuasion and conflict resolution.
2. Moral Reframing: Tailoring arguments to resonate with the audience’s core values enhances persuasive impact.
3. Emotional Regulation: Managing emotions during disagreements fosters more constructive dialogues.
4. Authenticity vs. Covering: Encouraging environments where individuals feel safe to express their true selves reduces the need for covering.
5. Activist Strategies: Non-violent, respectful activism is more likely to garner support than extreme tactics.

“Win Hearts, Then Minds” is a compelling exploration of how psychological principles can be applied to foster better understanding and cooperation in a divided world. Whether dealing with personal disputes or large-scale political debates, the episode provides valuable insights into winning hearts before seeking to win minds.

Transcript

[Shankar Vedantam]

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Imagine you had a dispute with a neighbor. It could be something trivial. Maybe he's playing music too loudly late at night and your kids cannot get to sleep. The way we usually resolve these problems in daily life is to knock on our neighbor's door, explain the problem and try to find an amicable solution. If all goes well, you discover you have similar tastes in music you swap playlists with while getting him to keep the volume down at night. Maybe you take over soup when he's unwell and he helps you on a cold morning when your car needs a jump. Now imagine that this dispute takes place on a platform like X, formerly Twitter. Instead of talking to your neighbor, you throw open your window and tell all the people on your side of the street that your neighbor is a jerk, upset and offended. He throws open his window, which opens onto a different set of neighbors and tells those people that you're crazy. Soon you're yelling at each other, but really talking to completely different sets of people. Every escalation is met with reprisal. Each of you is certain the other must be dim witted, malevolent or unhinged. On social media, especially when it comes to political disagreements, this is often what passes for discourse. Platforms like X have called these shouting matches engagement, but common sense suggests that they are really a prescription for disengagement. Today we bring you a favorite episode about why we are often unable to get through to our political opponents and how we can learn to do so. Breaking through the echo chamber this week on Hidden Brain. Support for Hidden Brain comes from Intuit QuickBooks, an all in one business solution that can help with day to day tasks like invoicing and expenses. Manage and grow your business all in one place. Intuit QuickBooks your way to money get 90% off for 3 months limited time. Only terms and conditions apply. Money Movement services are provided by Intuit Payment, Inc. Licensed as a money transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Support for Hidden brain comes from WhatsApp. On WhatsApp, no one can see or hear your personal messages. So the calls with your mom, chats about the latest work drama, late night voice messages and and all those photos and videos of your dog. Every personal message stays private because no one, not even WhatsApp, can see or hear your personal messages. WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Support for Hidden Brain comes from Meta AI. Meta AI is the personal AI that's tailored to you now with its very own app. It's built to get to Know you offering helpful answers and inspiration. Just start typing or speaking to get the answers you need wherever and whenever. Because Meta AI is your personal AI. Download the Meta AI app now available on the Apple App Store and Google Play. There's a saying that's attributed to the Dalai Lama. In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher. It's a nice idea, but in reality, when people don't share our values, it's hard for us to tolerate theirs. We tell ourselves they must be close minded, illogical, immoral. They are different from us on a fundamental level. We belong to one group, they belong to another. At Stanford University, Rob Wheeler studies how most of us go about persuading our opponents and why our favorite techni is strikingly ineffective. Rob Wheeler, welcome to Hidden Brain.

[Rob Wheeler]

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Rob, you were the prototypical angry young man in your college days. I want you to tell me about a conflict you once had with your roommate, Russ.

[Rob Wheeler]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I actually have a couple stories along these lines. So in this time in my life, maybe from like 19 to 21, the central axis of conflict for me was around sleep. And I remember one morning my friend Russ was waking up, he had a job at a copy center and he was just doing what somebody does in the morning, talking to another one of our roommates and hanging out, drinking coffee, getting the day going. It's like 9:30 in the morning or something. But I've been up late working at a restaurant, second shift, and I'm sleeping in and I can't sleep because of this noise coming from the living room at this unacceptable time of the morning. And I just came rushing out of my room, like immediately inflamed, you know, dropping epithets and, you know, cursing. And I remember like, Russ was so caught off guard. He's like the sweetest guy, my roommate, and he just was like you. And I remember I got so mad that I took this whiteboard that we would use to write messages to each other and I like slammed it against a wall. I mean, this is just completely out of control.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Sometime later, Rob had another run in with a different roommate. This one changed the course of his life.

[Rob Wheeler]

I was a junior in college. I was sharing a house with my friend Jim, my roommate, and he was up in the morning making eggs for breakfast, as one does. It's like 10 in the morning or something. It's not even that early. But I was a night owl. I would work late, hang out with people late at night, sleep in in the morning. And he's making a lot of noise, right. With the frying pan and so on. My bedroom is just off the kitchen. My first approach to this, to conflict resolution here or to resolving the situation was to throw a shoe against the door, which I think is. It's considered an international signal of please be quieter, you know, and wait, you.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Were inside your own bedroom and you threw a shoe at your own bedroom door to tell him to pipe down?

[Rob Wheeler]

Yeah, that's right. So. So that didn't work because it couldn't be decoded as I intended it. So then I came out of the bedroom, you know, just immediately angry, already turned all the way up to 11.

[Kenji Yoshino]

And.

[Rob Wheeler]

And like, you know, you need to not make all this noise so early in the morning, you know, and, you know, probably cursing and whatnot. And he's totally taken aback and himself upset about this. And now we're in this heated argument. And I slammed the door behind me. Can't go back to sleep. Cause I'm all worked up now. And the whole exercise is self defeating at every level.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Rob thought back to this altercation with Jim when one of his social science professors gave him an interesting assignment. It was to mark a turning point in his life.

[Rob Wheeler]

Yeah, yeah. So it was this great assignment. And my professor, Professor Michael Lavallia at University of Iowa, he had us first write an essay, a short essay about a recent conflict we'd been in. And to just go off on the person we were in a conflict with, you know, just render our perspective as vividly as possible. So I did that, you know, defending all of my choices in this situation as one does. And then the catch was, after we turned this in, he said, okay, the second short essay assignment is for you to now write the exact same essay about the same conflict, however you're supposed to write it from the perspective of the person who you were in the conflict with. And that the best version of this, you would actually simulate as accurately as you can, what they would have written if they had gotten this assignment. So you're totally in their first person perspective. And so I did that. And for me, honestly, it was a pretty revelatory experience. So I sit down to write this essay, and now I'm writing an essay from my roommate's perspective. And it's coming out, of course, completely differently. So now I'm talking about how I woke up one morning, I was hungry for breakfast, and so I went and started to make some eggs on my stove. And halfway through making them, there's a loud noise on the Wall from apparently inside my roommate Rob's bedroom. I don't know what this is. I ignore it and continue. And I am about done making my tasty, healthy breakfast, when all of a sudden this mad person, you know, comes storming out of Rob's bedroom, you know, ranting at me about how I'm being too loud when I'm really just making eggs and maybe whistling or something. And I start engaging back, you know. Next thing I know, I'm in an argument out of nowhere with little to no provocation on my end. And so that's the essay I wrote, the second essay, the one from my roommate Jim's perspective. And this might seem silly for people who take the perspective of other people more readily or have in their lives, but for me, this was like a pretty revelatory experience because I, for perhaps the very first time in my entire life, had really, really deeply and authentically taken the perspective of somebody else when it was hard, you know, when I was sure I was right, when I had a bunch of emotion and righteousness invested in my side. And I had gotten over that for the purposes of getting an A on this assignment in college, and embraced the other person's perspective. And then I saw that they were right, you know, and I was wrong. Or at least it was at least 80, 20, that they were right. And that was a first. You know, I was a kind of angry young man type around that time, as you can guess from the story. And that was a needed and revelatory lesson for me.

[Shankar Vedantam]

You know, there's an emotional power to this exercise which I'm not sure people might anticipate experiencing. But when you do this, it's not just that you start to see things from another person's point of view, but the story itself feels like an entirely different story.

[Rob Wheeler]

That's exactly right. Yeah. It's not just that you're getting out of your head into somebody else's, but you're accessing entirely different information. Maybe. So as I'm simulating what it must be like to make breakfast, I'm in a completely different world now. I'm guessing at the experience that Jim's having, but I'm now seeing and hearing and thinking things that I couldn't have known when I was locked in my own perspective.

[Shankar Vedantam]

When someone believes the world revolves around them, we think they are selfish, unkind, or oblivious. Yet all of us are born with a subjective view of the world. It's only natural to see things from our own perspective. When we come back, the effects this has on our political conversations and how understanding what happens inside our own minds is the first step to changing someone else's mind. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. Support for Hidden Brain comes from Intuit QuickBooks, an all in one business solution that can help with day to day tasks like invoicing and expenses. Manage and grow your business all in one place. Intuit QuickBooks your way to money get 90% off for 3 months limited time only. Terms and conditions apply. Money Movement services are provided by Intuit Payment, Inc. Licensed as a money transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Support for Hidden Brain comes from Wealthfront. When markets feel unpredictable, finding a safe place for your money can be hard. Wealthfront's cash account offers 4% annual percentage yield on your uninvested cash through program banks with no minimum balance or account fees. Plus you get free instant withdrawals to eligible accounts every day, so your money is always accessible when you need it. No matter your goals, Wealthfront gives you flexibility and security. Right now, open your First Cash account with a $500 deposit and get a $50 bonus at wealthfront.com brain bonus terms and conditions apply. Cash account offered by Wealthfront Brokerage, LLC. Member FINRA SIPC on deposits as of December 27, 2024 is representative, subject to change and requires no minimum funds are swept to program banks where they earn the variable apy this is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Think back to the last disagreement you had with someone. Maybe it was a fight with your partner or a co worker over the thermostat setting, or a more serious argument with a relative over politics. Did the disagreement go well, or did it end with both sides feeling frustrated and misunderstood? Chances are it's the latter. Rob Wheeler used to have many experiences like this. When he was a kid, his family moved from Kansas to South Carolina. It was something of a culture shock, and Rob was pretty sure that everyone around him had the world completely wrong.

[Rob Wheeler]

I had grown up in Lawrence, Kansas, and my parents were super progressive secular folks and I was living in this very progressive college town in Kansas and then got splashed down in South Carolina in 1988 in Columbia, South Carolina. It was a real shock to be suddenly, you know, in a middle school that had only been integrated less than 20 years earlier and in a place where the, you know, the scars of the Civil War, they're right on the surface, they're not far away.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Did you find yourself getting into arguments and conversations with people around you?

[Rob Wheeler]

Yeah, for sure. For sure. Including with history teachers, with peers. I mean, to me, it was totally shocking to be taught a history of the Civil War that was just strikingly at odds with the one I was, you know, raised to understand.

[Shankar Vedantam]

In high school, you had a friend named Andy, and you would often get into arguments with him about the Confederate flag. How do these go? What did you try and do in these discussions with Andy?

[Rob Wheeler]

Yeah, so the meaning of the Confederate flag was a topic of some debate in Columbia, South Carolina, at this time, because the Confederate flag was flying above our state capitol in Colombia. People would debate a lot. What did this mean? Was this. Okay? And I was inclined to debate just about anyone on this topic and wound up debating with my friend Andy, who we were actually on the debate team together. And I would advocate for how the flag needed to come down, that regardless of what people might associate with it, that it was a symbol of racism, of racial domination. And if it ever had a time, that time was certainly gone. And Andy would say the opposite. He'd say, that's not what it means to me, and that's not what it means to the people I know and people in my family. It's a symbol of our history, and we lost the Civil War, and it's this kind of sad thing deep in our history, and this is a way for us to maintain some pride around that. And then I would come back and say, well, but the flag went up there during racial integration battles in the 1960s. It didn't go up in, you know, the 18th, in the 19th century. And we would go back and forth in this way. And the thing is that I never convinced Andy even a little bit, or probably anyone else I ever debated on this subject.

[Shankar Vedantam]

I mean, it's almost like you were imagining that this was an actual debate where there was a judge, a neutral judge, who would listen to both arguments and then decide which person had the better argument.

[Rob Wheeler]

Exactly. A godlike figure that just simply wasn't there. And I got this idea in part because I was on the debate team and was, you know, every other weekend, I was engaging in, you know, many, many debate rounds with people from all across the state. And so it wasn't ridiculous for me to think that a way to debate effectively would be to win on the facts, on the logic of your argument, and to destroy the other person's argument, because in the culture and structure of high school debate, that was pretty much rewarded.

[Shankar Vedantam]

The other thing that I think is worth pointing out is that in a debate, you could get points for how passionate you are. So in other words, the more fervently you argue your point of view, that could tell a neutral judge, this person really cares about the argument, put in a lot of time and heart into the argument. I'm gonna give a few more points for the passion that this person is demonstra. Of course, this passion doesn't go very far when it comes to convincing our opponents as opposed to some neutral judge.

[Rob Wheeler]

Yeah, in a way, I think that while I really, really value the experience I had in debate of having to think really, really hard about holes in my opponent's argument, and then passionately and as logically as I could expose those holes and make a stronger argument in response, I also was just like weekend after weekend, year after year, getting my reps in on my perspective, you know, and how to prosecute it, passionately and intensely. And I wasn't getting really any reps in on understanding someone else's perspective. So I was, you know, coming out of high school, I was still on the ground floor on that journey.

[Shankar Vedantam]

When you get to Cornell University and you're in graduate school, you decide to try and organize students into a union, graduate students into a union, and you start to recruit people to the cause. I'm wondering if you can tell me how you went about doing this and whether you learned something different than your exploits as a high school debater.

[Rob Wheeler]

Yeah. So this was a fascinating experience at a number of levels. So I was working as a union organizer trying to organize graduate students on campus into a union for teaching assistants and research assistants. And my position involved striking up conversations with graduate students and trying to get them involved and interested in the union. And sometimes I'd be going to the English department, sometimes I'd be going to the math department. I remember on one occasion, I, you know, I go to the English department, and I strike up a conversation with a woman who's a PhD student in English, and she was a Marxist theorist.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Rob quickly assumed that he would have no trouble persuading the young woman to join the union. She was a Marxist, and Karl Marx was surely the patron saint of the working class. But to his surprise, the conversation wasn't going well.

[Rob Wheeler]

I'm explaining what we're trying to do, the benefits that it could offer graduate students, in my view, and the evidence for unionization. And I'm just making my case, but I can tell it's not connecting. She seems sort of distant, maybe about halfway through this kind of boilerplate spiel. And I was like, what do you think? What do you think about all this? And she was like, well, I'm trying to think of this from a Marxist perspective. I'm kind of curious how Marx would think about this. And I was like, okay, that was not the conversation I thought I'd be in, but I can do this. Okay. So there's different Marxist views on union organizing. One is that it is just a band aid you slap onto the status quo that only makes things look superficially better, but pushes off the inevitable communist revolution that's going to bring a utopian workers collective to power. There's another version of Marxian thinking that says, no, this is consistent with reforming capitalism and addressing the harms of unregulated market economies. And unions are actually really helpful, you know, and consistent with the Marxist critiques of the status quo. And I was like, I'm a little more of the latter persuasion, but I can understand either perspective. What do you think? And now we're talking about whether one should take a more extreme or more moderate version of a Marxist perspective on the union. And we get there. You know, she winds up being a supporter of the union. But for me, it was, you know, one of these initial experiences of figuring out like, you're gonna have to get into potentially a very different headspace, you know, in each conversation that might be an entirely different headspace in order to have productive conversations.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Rob managed to win over the Marxist, but it was an early signal to him that ultimately she didn't join the union for his reasons. She joined the union for her reasons. Sometime later, Rob met another graduate student, this time in the math department.

[Rob Wheeler]

We were losing math, you know, like we were doing badly in math and it was becoming a pretty anti union department. And I was even hesitant to go back there just because I'd had bad experiences. And this really nice advanced graduate student was like, hey, you want to go for a walk and we can talk about this? And I was like, yes, I would love to get out of this space and into another one. That'd be great because it was sort of intimidating because I had this sense that people maybe didn't want me there. So we go for a walk and we just very, very carefully go through all of the different reasons for and against unionization, the main ones. And one thing he's emphasizing is uncertainty and how whenever he's seen uncertainty left over, that he kind of has a conservative response of not changing things too much because things aren't going that badly for him. And so where he's not sure what would happen from unionization, that's kind of points on the board for the status quo.

[Shankar Vedantam]

But when he initially said that the status quo might be better, didn't you feel inclined to argue with him to sort of say, no, no, no, no, of course not. You're wrong.

[Rob Wheeler]

Oh, definitely. So I would come back and say, yes, but there's pretty consistent empirical evidence that you're going to get gains in wages and benefits here. Look at campuses X, Y and Z. And he would come back like, okay, but we also got a 3% raise last year. We just got health insurance a couple years ago. So I kind of feel like in this case, the status quo is giving me what I need, and I don't know where all this extra money is going to come from on campus. And at the end of the conversation, we basically agreed that we did disagree, but that we disagreed less than when we started, that he was a little more positive towards unionization, and that I was more respectful and understanding of why somebody wouldn't support it. In particular, based on this sort of risk calculation, we came to see each other's perspectives. And a key part of it was that I changed my mind a little bit. In the conversation.

[Shankar Vedantam]

As a union organizer, Rob learned his goal wasn't to win a debate. It was to actually change someone's behavior.

[Rob Wheeler]

It was definitely different from the kind of persuasion that I had been taught to embrace through high school debate, but it was way more effective. It was way more interested in the other person, and it was just really inclusive. And you can't afford, when you're organizing a union to write somebody off or write off their perspective or not try to have a productive conversation. You're trying to get everybody on board. And so there's a pragmatism to organize labor circles that I hadn't really encountered in my political background, which was more about debating for that mythical godlike neutral third party that just wasn't there.

[Shankar Vedantam]

One of the things that I'm observing from what you just said is that when we have debates with people and we argue with people, we're not actually just trying to have them come over to our side to our point of view. We want them to come over to our point of view for our reasons. And one of the things I'm picking up from your conversations with various people is that as you were talking to people, you were almost indifferent. If someone says, I'm going to weigh Marxist theory and figure out a path to join the union, great. If someone in the math department says, I'm going to do a cost benefit analysis, and that's how I'm going to join the union, you're fine with that as well. So in some ways you're less interested in the motivations and the reasons that people have, and as you said, much more pragmatic about the end goal.

[Rob Wheeler]

Yeah, that's exactly right. I wasn't going to convince the English graduate student to not embrace critical Marxist theory. I wasn't going to convince the math graduate student to be less analytical. Those were givens. I had maybe 30 minutes to go from where they're at to them seeing my perspective on this issue or at least considering agreeing with me. And that meant meeting them where they were and paying them that respect.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Rob realized his first job in trying to persuade someone was not to marshal all the arguments at his disposal. It was to find some way to make a connection with the other person.

[Rob Wheeler]

I think that for me, these conversations would go better if I had something I could tap into from my own background, my own personal experience that would allow me to sort of build that bridge to their perspective. The way I often think about this is that, you know, that empathy or perspective taking, it's like a bridge you build between people. And the blocks that you're using to build it are pieces of your own experience. You can say, oh, you know, I know about Marxist theory too. Let's talk about this, you know, or, oh, I've actually engaged in a cost benefit analysis on this too. You know, let me know what you think of what I did. Here's what I came up with. And when you've got those blocks, it goes a lot easier once you figure out where you need to be building towards.

[Shankar Vedantam]

That wasn't the hardest part, though. Rob realized that when he was trying to persuade people he needed to have conversations with them, conversations where he wasn't doing all the talking.

[Rob Wheeler]

It really is helpful to establish some sort of basic respect, a basic emotional connection of like, I'm respecting your perspective and I have enough intellectual humility to be also listening to you, and also that I'm open to persuasion in this conversation as well. Because if you signal really early in the conversation that you're not open to changing their mind, you're asking a lot for the other person to be open to it. And if there isn't a power imbalance that dictates that they have to, they're going to withhold that openness if you're not showing it as well.

[Shankar Vedantam]

There are many reasons it's hard to come across as open. When we care passionately about something, it becomes hard to see things from other points of view. The More we care, the harder it becomes to see that our perspective is just our perspective, not the only perspective. Second, many of us unconsciously assume that others know the same facts and information that inform our views. We forget other people have been exposed to different information, sometimes radically different information. To make things even more complicated, what our opponents believe is not just about the information they've received. Their beliefs are also shaped by their unconscious drives and motivations. If we don't know how they came to their positions, we might never understand why they believe what they believe.

[Rob Wheeler]

That's right, yeah. And so if you're debating with somebody about an issue you disagree with them on, where you'd like them to come over to your side. But your arguments are entirely in terms of your moral worldview, you know, your background, your ideology or cultural perspective. And you're making those kinds of arguments, and they have a different background, a different ideology, you know, a different worldview. You're essentially asking them to really be someone they're not. To not just agree with you on the thing in question, but also to change their deeply held moral values, for example. But asking somebody to give up their moral values. People are willing to fight and die for their values. People really, really are invested in not changing their minds about that. So if the argument you're presenting to them requires them to change their values, you are taking on a much bigger task than just changing somebody's mind on minimum wage law. And you could prosecute your case better if you made an argument that could fit with their values rather than challenge them.

[Shankar Vedantam]

So there's something of a dilemma here, Rob, which is when we feel really passionately about something, when we're really upset about something, or we're in disagreement with someone, and that could be a romantic partner or a co worker or even a political opponent, the angrier and more upset we get, the harder it becomes for us to see things from another person's point of view. And you're saying that's precisely the point at which we need to see things from another person's point of view if we're going to have any effectiveness. There seems to be a real dilemma here, a paradox.

[Rob Wheeler]

Yeah, I think there is, and it's a very difficult thing because it's exactly those people who are motivated to change the views of others, who then have this motivation that can get in the way. Why? Because they can become angry at the person they're talking with, they can become impatient. And these are all understandable reactions. There's nothing wrong with feeling strongly about something. It's a good thing, I think. I feel strongly about a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff makes me angry, too. It's kind of, what do you do then? And what goal are you trying to pursue? And if the goal is persuading somebody, you may need to down regulate that emotional reaction and focus on getting into that person's head in order to construct an argument that would be persuasive to them.

[Shankar Vedantam]

You know, we ran an episode featuring the research of the psychologist and neuroscientist Kurt Gray, and he talked about the importance of moral humility. We talk a lot about intellectual humility, the idea that we may not know everything and that we might be wrong about the things that we think we know. But moral humility is about emotionally accepting that the feelings of the people who think differently from us are valid. You talk about this idea too. Tell me about your notion of moral empathy.

[Rob Wheeler]

Yeah. So one thing that we find in our research is that people whose political worldviews are rooted in their moral values, who really deeply moralize their perspective on some political issue, they. They are the ones that especially struggle to understand the perspective of people who disagree with them and to understand that the most persuasive appeal would be one that might not be persuasive to them. That doesn't mean you're wrong if you have that kind of moral investment, but it does mean that it's gonna be hard to connect.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Can you talk about sort of the role of our own emotions here? In some ways, partly. We're so angry and so upset and so outraged about things that it becomes very difficult for us to say, what do I have in common with these people on the other side of the barricades.

[Rob Wheeler]

Yeah. So once you have a strong connection to your political identity, it becomes very easy for you to trigger this, for you to experience this emotionally laden frustration, even contempt for the people on the other side of the political divide, people that have a rival political identity. And when you realize you're in an interaction that is connected to those identities, you now import, and they may too, all of this baggage from all the thinking you've been doing about how frustrated you are with these other folks. And so you're not just having a conversation about school, zoning, or whatever you think you're discussing, you're bringing all this other stuff into it, too. You're also thinking about gay rights, and you're also thinking about race in America and maybe economic inequality and immigration and what you saw last night on MSNBC or Fox News and what they probably saw and Once all that stuff is brought into the debate, things get really, really difficult to resolve in a constructive way.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Connection and moral empathy are prerequisites for persuasion. If you want to change hearts and minds, you have to understand what's in those hearts and minds to begin with. With most of us try to bypass this requirement, focusing only on what's inside our own heart and our own mind. When we come back, strategies we can all learn to become more persuasive. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Support for Hidden brain comes from US Bank. With the US Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card, you earn an unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase that's earning more smartly. Visit usbank.com smartlycard to learn more. The creditor and issuer of this card is U.S. bank National Association. Pursuant to a license from Visa USA Inc. Some restrictions may apply. Support for Hidden Brain comes from Abbott let's talk about a small thing that can make a big difference if you have diabetes, the Freestyle Libre 3 sensor. The sensor gives you real time glucose readings so you can see the impact of every meal and activity. To make better choices, this is progress, you can try the sensor at FreestyleLibre US terms and conditions apply for prescription only safety info found @freestylelibre us. This is hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. The popular Christian prayer, The Prayer of St. Francis offers the following it is more important to understand others than to be understood by others. That's good advice, and not just from a spiritual point of view. It turns out to be psychologically insightful when it comes to our ability to influence others. At Stanford University, Rob Wheeler studies the psychology of persuasion. Rob we've looked at how we're often ineffective when we try to ram our ideas down other people's throats. But you run experiments where you measure what effects forceful arguments have in helping us to recruit allies. Can you tell me about this work?

[Rob Wheeler]

Yeah. So some of the work that we've done on this has focused on the tactics used by activists that are agitating for social change on some kind of a cause. And what we found in our experiments is that people tend to have negative reactions to what we describe as extreme protest tactics. So this would be like the destruction of property, extreme disruption of the flow of everyday life for people, and certainly the use of violence. So when activists engage in even a relatively small amount of this form of activist behavior, it tends to put people off. So observers who are kind of watching protesters trying to figure out how should they position Themselves on this issue, Will they be persuaded by the protesters or not? When they see those kinds of tactics, they tend to view the protesters as less moral. They disidentify with them, and they not only are not influenced by them, they can exhibit a sort of negative influence pattern where they turn away from the positions and policy platforms of protesters.

[Shankar Vedantam]

So in one study, you posed a scenario about animal rights protesters. Volunteers read an excerpt that said activists had broken into a cosmetics testing lab, drugged a security guard, ransacked the place, and spray painted messages on the walls of the building. They also freed hundreds of animals. How did volunteers respond to this story?

[Rob Wheeler]

So volunteers were turned off by activists who engaged in these extreme. I mean, this is in some ways just about the most extreme activist tactics we've ever presented to participants in studies. They were turned off, saw these activists as more extreme and turned away from animal rights as a cause that they supported. However, if those same activists were portrayed in another condition of the experiment as not engaging in these sort of violent tactics, but instead engaging in peaceful, nonviolent resistance, the reaction was very different. They were not seen as extreme, and it didn't lead to this negative influence effect.

[Shankar Vedantam]

So in other words, people were not rejecting the activists because they necessarily disagreed with the cause, but because they disagreed with the methods.

[Rob Wheeler]

That's right. And we've tried really hard in this research to, whenever possible, control for the message, control for what policies are being advocated for by activists, and only experimentally study and vary how they're making their case, what sorts of tactics they're engaging in, because that's the thing that we were interested in.

[Shankar Vedantam]

So in another study, you had some volunteers read about a Black Lives Matter protest. Some volunteers heard activists protesting against racism. Others heard about activists who used a chant in an actual protest. I want to play you a little clip. The protesters are saying, pigs in a blanket, fry him like bacon. A derogatory reference to police as pigs. Now, saying angry things about the police doesn't seem as extreme as drugging a security guard, but what effect did this language have on potential allies?

[Rob Wheeler]

So in this research, we found that that kind of language had a similar effect, just in terms of also creating this negative influence effect. It wasn't as large of an effect, if I recall correctly, but it did tend to turn observers away from the cause of police reform.

[Shankar Vedantam]

It seems that there's a dilemma here in some ways, which is that I think protesters feel, just like we often feel in interpersonal arguments, that the more passionately we make our argument, the more likely we are to Persuade someone else. I think at the level of groups, we also believe that the more passionately we pursue our cause, the more likely we are not just to convince our opponents, but to attract allies to our cause. And I think your research is suggesting that that might not always be the case.

[Rob Wheeler]

Yeah, that's right. We call it the activist dilemma. To really describe these many dilemmas that activists face in trying to take effective action in the world, we found that when we surveyed a small sample of self identified activists that they tended to think that the more extreme protest tactics would be more persuasive to bystanders, not less persuasive as our research had found it. Why did they think that? Well, perhaps because those protest tactics match their own viscerally felt motivations better. And so for them that was maybe a more relatable set of protest actions. So you say, oh yeah, that'll be more persuasive that that reaction makes sense. That's how you should protest this issue. That's totally outrageous. And that's not to say they're wrong. They may be very right about the flaws of the status quo. I tend to agree with many, many activists on these things. But the challenge is that certain tactics do turn off potential supporters in a way that can be, on the whole, counterproductive for a cause.

[Shankar Vedantam]

You say that one way to become more effective at persuasion is to employ something that you call moral reframing. And you've run studies where you test the effect effectiveness of messages that use moral reframing. Can you explain what it is and what the studies have found?

[Rob Wheeler]

Sure, yeah. So moral reframing involves recasting an argument for a political position that you're advocating for in terms of the moral values of the people that you're talking with. And so this might seem incredibly intuitive. Like of course you should frame your argument in terms of the values of the person you're trying to persuade. After all, if you were trying to sell a car, let's say you would talk about the value of the car for the person you're trying to sell the car to. You talk about its reliability, you talk about its good features. You wouldn't talk about how excited you were to get their money and all the stuff you wanted to spend it on. You would easily transcend your perspective to get into the perspective of the recipient. But with politics and religion, these things that we have deep moral investment in, we really struggle to do this.

[Shankar Vedantam]

I'm wondering if you can give me some examples of ways that people on different sides of the political Spectrum, pick a couple of hot button issues. What are ways in which people can speak to someone from the other side using the moral frameworks of their opponents rather than their own moral frameworks?

[Rob Wheeler]

Sure, yeah. So one of the first issues that we took on with this research was same sex marriage. And we were interested in whether the typical arguments for same sex marriage that are made that are in terms of values like social justice, fairness, equality, that maybe they're not as persuasive as they could be with conservatives because they don't target deeply held conservative values. And maybe you could make more persuasive arguments that tapped into things like loyalty and patriotism, these more like uniquely conservative values. And so we tested this by presenting conservatives with either fairness and equality based arguments on, you know, in support of same sex marriage, or these, these very different arguments in terms of patriotism. So this argument said things like, same sex couples are proud and patriotic Americans. They share the same basic hopes and desires as all Americans. Like other proud Americans, gay couples peacefully build lives together, buy homes, and contribute to the American economy and society. And what we found was that conservatives who heard that patriotism and loyalty based argument were more supportive of same sex marriage afterwards. It reduced polarization on same sex marriage and in favor of the liberals position on it.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Rob also tested his strategy of moral reframing on the other side of the aisle. He gave liberals an argument about increased military spending. But this argument wasn't a traditional one about patriotism and protecting our borders. Rob and his colleagues presented an argument that focused on more stereotypically liberal values like equality and social justice.

[Rob Wheeler]

And it said things like, through the military, the disadvantaged and the poor can achieve equal standing. And being in the military means having a reliable salary and a future apart from the challenges of extreme poverty and inequality. And so this argument really tried to say that you could see the military as a vehicle for upward mobility for people that struggle to access the kinds of resources and experience that they can gain through the military. It's the kind of argument that might persuade a liberal. And we found that when liberals heard this argument, they supported high levels of military spending more.

[Shankar Vedantam]

I'm wondering whether you ever get pushback on this, Rob. Do people who feel very passionately say, Rob Wheeler is telling me that I need to. To down what it is that I'm saying, that I need to actually look at things from the point of view of my opponents. And these are people whom I not only disagree with, these are people who might despise, Right?

[Rob Wheeler]

Yeah, no, we've definitely gotten pushback on this research. I think sometimes people mistake my motivation as one that's critical of your average protester or activist or is interested in doing tone policing. And it's really not the motivation that brings me to the research. Instead, I am very interested in what kinds of tactics and strategies for achieving social change are more or less effective. And I'm also really interested in ways in which it can be really complicated and more complicated than you might think. From just reading our first paper on extreme protest tactics.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Some years ago, Rob had the chance to put his own research to the test. He was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and had parked his car on campus while he went on a trip to the East Coast. The morning after he flew back to California, Rob went to retrieve his car from the parking lot. There was just one problem. He couldn't find it.

[Rob Wheeler]

And I could not remember if I had even driven it the day before because I was kind of tired and running errands, and I just wasn't sure where my car was and whether it had been stolen or whether I had just left it somewhere. And the car was so old and, you know, just run down that it seemed unlikely it was stolen. You know, it seemed more likely I had left it somewhere, even though that's a very spacey thing to do. And I remember I went to, like, the local grocery store and I was like, hey, did you guys tow a car from this parking lot by any chance? And the person was like, you're telling me you don't remember if you parked your car here yesterday?

[Shankar Vedantam]

The absent minded professor here?

[Rob Wheeler]

Yeah, I used that crutch, you know, of like, yeah, oh, yeah. You know, absent minded, you know, they're like, oh, yeah. I had a roommate that was like, you. And I was like, could you just tell me if you towed the car?

[Shankar Vedantam]

You know, they hadn't towed the car. Rob had no idea where it had gone, and he had little time to think about it. He was scheduled to teach a class in Germany for a week and a half. Rob went on his trip and reported the car stolen, planning to take care of it when he got back. But when he returned home, he discovered that the police had been trying to contact him. The stolen car had been found and had been dropped off at an impound lot in Oakland. Rob hitched a ride with a friend and went to the lot.

[Rob Wheeler]

Ed, it's just this kind of Mad Max dystopian scene, you know, like, all these cars are like falling apart and it's all barbed wire and it's Very razor wire is very intense. And I go in. There's behind, like, two inches of bulletproof glass is this person that's working at the impound lot. And I ask him, you know, about my car? He's like, yeah, we've got your car.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Rob's car was in terrible shape. It was falling apart, missing a catalytic converter. And for some reason, there was an empty bucket in the back seat. Rob had no time to ask questions. He was ready to leave the automotive purgatory. But when he went to fill out his paperwork, the clerk delivered some bad News. Rob owed $600, the fee for holding his decrepit car at the lot for days on end.

[Rob Wheeler]

It just doesn't seem fair, you know, Like, I was out of the country. I don't know if this helps at all. And he's like, yeah, it's gonna be $600. And I was like, you could keep the car. Would you keep the car? Would that be. Would that neutralize my debt? Because it's. To me, it's not worth $600, especially in this condition. I remember the guy was like, yeah, we'll keep your car, but you would still owe US$600.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Rob's blood was boiling. He felt the way he did all those years ago. An exhausted young restaurant worker angry at his roommate for intruding on his sleep. But this time, instead of throwing a shoe, Rob stopped. He thought for a moment. He considered what it might be like on the other side of that bulletproof glass.

[Rob Wheeler]

And so I asked him, I was like, what percentage of people, like, freak out right now in this conversation? And he said, like, 70% of people. And I was like, cool. All right. You know, the reason I was interested in that was because at this time, I was teaching Introduction to Social Psychology, and I was giving this essay assignment to, you know, hundreds of students every year. But it also made me very interested in, you know, what. At what rate do people make the right choice here? You know, And. And when he said 70%, I was like, okay, I'm gonna do my best to not be in that group, you know? And I turned to my friend, and we started trying to strategize. What are we going to do? You know, like, is my car drivable? If it's not drivable, could we sell it from the parking lot of the impound lot? You know, like, what are we going to do to solve this dilemma? And the guy behind the glass starts looking up, like, the blue book value for the car and quoting us, you know, what we could expect and giving advice on Towers and is like really helping us. And I was like oh wow. Like some of this is because we connected when I didn't do the easy thing that I was so emotionally tempted to do of unfairly going off on this guy and down regulated that and was a decent person instead and he reciprocated it and was really decent back and it was me learning this lesson even a little bit more.

[Shankar Vedantam]

And what happened to the car?

[Rob Wheeler]

Eventually yeah, I donated it to charity but but yeah, it was so easy to break into. It was surprising that it had taken that long to be actually stolen. And also they had left my San Francisco Giants foam finger in the car. I guess they were A's fans.

[Kenji Yoshino]

When.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Rob Wheeler is not negotiating with people about impounded cars. He's a sociologist at Stanford University. Rob, thanks so much for joining me today on Hidden Brain.

[Rob Wheeler]

Absolutely.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Do you have follow up questions about strategies for working through difficult conversations or engaging with people who disagree with you? Have you discovered techniques that help you get across to folks on the other side of the political spectrum? If you'd be willing to share your thoughts, comments or questions with the Hidden Brain audience, please record a voice memo on your phone and email it to [e-mail] use the subject line. Engaging that email address again is ideashiddenbrain.org when we come back, a brand new installment of youf Questions answered our recurring segment where we pass the mic to listeners. This week, legal scholar Kenji Yoshino responds to your questions about identity and the parts of ourselves that we cover from the people around us. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Support for Hidden Brain comes from Abbott. Let's talk about a small thing that can make a big difference if you have diabetes the Freestyle Libre 3 sensor. The sensor gives you real time glucose readings so you can see the impact of every meal and activity to make better choices. This is progress. You can try the sensor at FreestyleLibre US terms and conditions apply for prescription only Safety info found @freestylelibre US support for hidden Brain comes from Goodrx. When everything else keeps getting pricier. GoodRx can keep your prescription costs low, from diabetes to allergy relief to heart health. Save up to 80% on prescriptions for you and your family pets too. Check GoodRx before every trip to the pharmacy for big savings on both brand and generic medications. GoodRx is free and easy to use. Just search for your prescription on the website or the app, compare prices and get a free coupon to show your pharmacist. Use Goodrx to save at over 70,000 local pharmacies nationwide. Remember, GoodRx is not insurance but works whether you have insurance or not and could beat your insurance copay price. Beat high prices at the pharmacy and save up to 80% with GoodRx. Go to goodrx.com hiddenbrain that's goodrx.com hiddenbrain this is hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. Have you ever been out with a new group of friends enjoying a meal together? When someone starts talking about music, suddenly all your friends get very excited. It turns out their musical tastes are very different from yours. They like rock music and in particular, a band you've never heard of. Everyone seems to be naming their favorite song or telling a story about a time they got to see the group live in concert. You, by contrast, have a deep and abiding love of Broadway show tunes. And so you sit there quietly wondering, should I tell them how much my musical tastes differ from theirs? Or should I just nod and smile along, hoping this topic passes by quickly? We've all been in situations like this where we have to decide whether to be transparent or keep our cards close to the vest. Sometimes these moments are trivial. It's very unlikely your friends will stop talking to you because of your passion for the Phantom of the Opera or Wicked. But other times we have to decide whether to reveal more sensitive parts of who we are. In a recent episode, we talked to Kenji Yoshino, a legal scholar at New York University. He studies how our decisions to soften or edit how we present ourselves to others can impact us and those around us. That episode was called Dropping the Mask. In this edition of our recurring segment yout Questions Answered, Kenji returns to the show to answer your questions on how to tap into our most authentic selves, even when doing so feels difficult. Kenji Yoshino welcome back to Hidden Brain.

[Kenji Yoshino]

Thank you so much for having me back, Shankar.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Kenji, you use the sociological term covering to describe the behavior of hiding parts of ourselves from those around us. Can you remind us what covering means and how it can present itself in our day to day lives?

[Kenji Yoshino]

Of course, covering is a phenomenon of downplaying outside our attributes to make sure that the people around us can be more comfortable with us. So that could be modulating or editing or downplaying aspects of your identity that are outside of the mainstream in some way so that others can be more comfortable around you. It can range from the example that you gave of just social manners of Feeling like I'm a total outlier here, and my musical taste, should I reveal that or not? But it could also touch on issues that are kind of what we think of as civil rights type identities. So a woman who doesn't talk about having children or African American who straightens her hair, that kind of activity as well.

[Shankar Vedantam]

How is covering different from what is sometimes called passing?

[Kenji Yoshino]

I'm so glad that you asked that, Shankar, because this is something that comes up over and over again as a misconception or confusion between the two terms. And I totally understand why the two terms might seem like they would merge into each other. But the big difference between passing and covering is that when you're passing, people literally do not know that you belong to the group. Whereas when you're covering, people know you belong to the group, but nonetheless ask you or pressure you to downplay or edit or mute it. And the reason I think this is so important is that only certain groups in our society have the capacity to pass, but everyone has a capacity to cover. So even the groups that are not able to pass with regard to that identity can often experience enormous pressure to mute or downplay or edit their identity so that they're more acceptable to the people around them.

[Shankar Vedantam]

In our last conversation, Kenji, you told me that everyone covers, and that precisely because all of us cover to some extent, this is an idea that can help to unify us, that we can look at the decisions that other people make to cover with compassion rather than criticism. What do you mean by this?

[Kenji Yoshino]

We did a study with Deloitte, and we found that 45% of straight white men reported covering. And on the one hand, I want to contrast that with the 79% of Black respondents or the 83% of LGBTQIA individuals who reported covering. But this 45% statistic has always remained with me, Shankar, because it suggests how universal the covering demand is. So when I looked at that data point, I thought, well, how on earth do straight white men, ostensibly the most privileged cohort in our society, have to manage or modulate their identity? And the data was there, so we had answers. So among the top ways in which those individuals reported covering were things like age, religion, mental or physical disability or illness, socioeconomic status, and even veteran status. Once you see that, it really becomes a universal project of human flourishing. This is not an us versus them dynamic where my capacity to be more open, authentic about myself diminishes anyone else's capacity to be open and authentic about themselves. Oftentimes, when I frame this, people hear it as A inclusion project or an us versus them project. And they respond by saying, well, I'm a straight white man, but I had to cover the fact that I came from a very straightened socioeconomic background, so why aren't I included in this paradigm or this idea? And I always say to them, of course you are included in this idea. There's nothing that would bar you from being included in this. In fact, a pure rigorous analysis of what covering is, which is again, asking people to downplay an outsider identity so that others around them can feel more comfortable around them, would exactly apply to the person who, you know, could be an investment banker today as a straight white man, but grew up in a trailer park and feels like he has to manage that in his day to day interactions with others.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Let's turn to the listener questions. A few listeners wrote in to ask about how covering relates to to imposter syndrome. Have you noticed an overlap in these psychological experiences, either anecdotally or in your research? Kenji?

[Kenji Yoshino]

Absolutely. I think that these ideas are very allied to the idea of covering. So I think of imposter syndrome. As you know, I feel like I am an imposter in my job. So let's say I'm a law professor and I feel like I don't deserve to be one. I feel like everybody else around me is unbelievably competent and good at what they do and I'm simply not up to scratch and so I have to fake it till I make it. And that sort of gets at exactly the same concern that I'm trying to get at with covering. Because I think we have to ask the question of which is a more healthy community. Is it one where I feel like an imposter and I keep that to myself, or is it the environment in which I say I do feel like an imposter and I share my concerns with others and they, more often than not, in my experience, share back to me, oh, that's how I feel as well, or that's not how I feel now, but that's how I felt when I was just starting out, you know, as you were just starting out, if I'm, you know, new to the scene. So I think it's pretty obvious, at least to me, that it's a much healthier organization or society in which we can all be candid about who we are and the vulnerabilities that we have, because that is just part of the human condition. To be human is to be vulnerable. To be human is to sometimes feel like you're an imposter to be human is to sometimes feel the need to cover.

[Shankar Vedantam]

So the United States is facing a lot of governmental upheaval and political tensions at the moment, and this has led families and friends to sometimes find themselves on opposite sides of the political dividend. Quite a few listeners wrote in about that experience, including listener Claudia, who finds herself avoiding the topic of politics with friends who do not share her views.

[Kenji Yoshino]

But I feel very strongly about politics and what is happening in the United States right now. In fact, I feel it's really a major part of my identity.

[Rob Wheeler]

And.

[Kenji Yoshino]

And even though those friends kind of know, because they know me, that I must be liberal, I never talk about that. I never bring it up, because.

[Shankar Vedantam]

I.

[Kenji Yoshino]

Just can't face upsetting people. And I feel badly about that. I feel inauthentic because of that. I really appreciate the honesty and the obvious passion that Claudia is bringing to this. So I first want to thank you, Claudia, for that question and note that you're certainly not alone. I get this over and over again. In some ways, it has pushed me to try to think more deeply about this, because my original answer was, if you're dealing with this at the organizational level, that organizations have a very legitimate interest in asking people to tamp down their identities with regard to politics. So just to elaborate, I came down to that conclusion by asking myself this question of are there forms of covering that are actually beneficial or good? And my thought was, well, of course there are. Like if I showed up at your organization tomorrow, Shankar, and was rabidly obnoxious to everybody, and you said, kenji, you got to knock it off. You're driving everyone to distraction. And I said, well, I just happen to be an incredibly obnoxious person, and you told me that I could uncover my authentic self, so what's the problem? And so obviously, some forms of covering are not only neutral, but actually beneficial to the smooth functioning of an organization or a society. So then the million dooll question becomes, if I'm admitting that some forms of covering are good and some forms are bad, then how do we winnow out the good from the bad? What is the touchstone that we would use? And my touchstone has always been community or organizational values. As we get more and more polarized as a society, could we find a way, even if it's not my workplace, if it's my social group, to find a way to speak to each other across these divides? Because, as Claudia was saying, it is a core part of many of our identities. We feel inauthentic when we leave that aside, and we rub elbows or engage with people without divulging that about ourselves. And ultimately it really prevents us from seeing the common humanity that we all share, despite really sometimes acrimonious disputes about our politics. So I'm all for this idea that, you know, covering your politics is a form of covering. And I'm increasingly of the view that we should find ways to uncover with regard to our politics so that we can actually have a bit of a detente in the polarized environment that we're seeing now.

[Shankar Vedantam]

We've talked a lot about how covering can be used to minimize the parts of our identities that may reveal our lack of power. A listener named Louise wrote in to ask about that idea. Louise works in a job in which she interacts with people from very different socioeconomic backgrounds, from high government officials to citizens who are struggling to make ends meet. And I think in every conversation I have, I kind of put forward different aspects of my identity as a way of trying to like, narrow the power differential to create a connection with someone. Even if it means masking something that I feel is my authentic self, I still may do it because I want the other person to feel comfortable in that situation. So I'm just wondering about the nuances of how you use identities and what where the covering is about the kind of really trying to mask marginalized identities only or can be about just differential power in relationships. What do you think, Kenji? Can covering be used as an empathetic strategy to help others feel safer within a certain kind of environment?

[Kenji Yoshino]

Absolutely. And this goes back to the not all forms of covering are bad or even if. And this will take the previous analysis one step further. Even if it is a harm and I experience it as a privation to my identity to have to cover, It's a competing goods analysis. So being my authentic self is a good. And I heard Louise saying that, but, you know, empathizing with others and creating a welcoming environment for others is also a good. So there may be times where she would feel, oh, I'm actually modulating my own identity in ways that I'm not perfectly comfortable with. But I understand why I'm doing it. I'm doing it in order to increase the comfort of the person that I'm speaking to, particularly if there is a power differential between me and that other individual.

[Shankar Vedantam]

I mean, I think especially when it comes to dealing with small children, all of us do this almost automatically, right? We don't speak to a three year old, you know, as if you were an adult. You actually try and speak to the three year old in a way that makes the three year old feel, you know, maybe, you know, this other person, this very large human being actually understands me. We sometimes, you know, get down on our hands and knees to get down to the level of the three year old. And all of those are in some ways forms of covering. Right. We're covering the fact that I am basically four times as big as you are and eight times as old as you are, and I have very different interests and I'm suppressing all of that in order to make a connection with you. And I think at an intuitive level, all of us understand that's exactly the way to behave.

[Kenji Yoshino]

Exactly. And I think that when we sort of analyze covering, we want to take ourselves through a series of questions. So the first one is, am I covering at all? And we talked about many different ways in which we can cover a long appearance or affiliation or advocacy or association. Even if we are covering, we might not experience it to be harmful. So the second question is, if I am covering, does it hurt? And we talked last time, I think, a little bit about Margaret Thatcher and how she seemed to cover her gender and her socioeconomic status, but didn't experience it as a harm. So big deal, right? You're just one of the lucky ones if it's a no harm, no foul kind of situation. But even if you are covering and it's hurtful, there might be situations where it's warranted. So you can ask, is there some other overriding good other than my own authenticity that's relevant here? And then if you get to the very bottom, the last question of yes, I am covering, yes, it hurts me. No, there's no reason to justify this covering, then you're really at the bottom, which is to say, when and how am I going to challenge myself or my society to allow me to bring more of my authenticity to the table? So I want to be really careful here in saying, again, I'm not saying that all forms of covering are bad. What I am saying is that oftentimes people say, well, this is just part of being a human being. What's the big deal? Kenji? We all have to adjust in order to fit into society. So this is universal. And I'm saying, what could the potential be if we could flip the script on that and say, because it's universal, it has the capacity to unify us around a culture of greater authenticity so that no matter what our background is, we've all had this experience where at the very bottom of that flowchart, that I just, just described. We're covering where it hurts, where we think that there isn't a justification on the other side. And we often just grin and bear it. What would the world look like if we didn't do that? And pushed again against the idea that we need to engage in this witless conformity simply for the sake of assimilation itself.

[Shankar Vedantam]

This is your questions Answered our segment in which we bring back researchers we featured on the show to answer listener questions. After the break, Kenji Yoshino will answer more questions about why we cover and offer ways to tap into our authentic selves. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. Support for Hidden brain comes from WhatsApp. On WhatsApp, no one can see or hear your personal messages. So the calls with your mom, chats about the latest work, drama, late night voice messages, and all those photos and videos of your dog, every personal message stays private because no one, not even WhatsApp, can see or hear your personal messages. WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Support for Hidden Brain comes from Meta AI. Meta AI is the personal AI that's tailored to you now with its very own app. It's built to get to know you, offering helpful answers and inspiration. Just start typing or speaking to get the answers you need wherever and whenever. Because Meta AI is your personal AI. Download the Meta AI app now available on the Apple App Store and Google Play. This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Legal scholar Kenji Yoshino has spent decades thinking about how people mask their identities in order to conform to both real and imagined pressures from those around them. He's also thought a lot about how we can be ourselves more of the time. Kenji, in our original conversation, we talked about how the US has been described as a melting pot. To varying degrees. Newcomers to the country feel pressure to assimilate into the culture. That assimilation often requires covering. A listener named Lexi had a question related to this phenomenon. A lot of us are, you know, multiple generations down of being a descendant of the melting pot and feel really lost because our specifics of our identities are really, are a mystery to us and elude us. So what if one really knows and can feel that they're covering a lot, but is very unsure of what they're, what they're covering because there's not, there's not this strong force underneath it of identity to want to break through? How does one uncover what they're covering? So it's a very interesting question, Kenji, can you cover some aspect of your identity that is weakly Held or not, a part of your identity that you yourself understand fully.

[Kenji Yoshino]

This is a really brilliant question, so I want to thank Lexi for this one as well. What I want to say is I think the answer is yes, and I think that the way we look at it is, to begin with, a false assumption about authenticity. Oftentimes, I think that people think of authenticity as there is this authentic self. Think of, like a marble statue that's underneath a drape. And all I need to do, if I'm covering, is to whip off that drape off of my authentic self, and the statue will be there in its fully resplendent glory, and I will be able to show the self that I have always known existed to the rest of the world. What Lexi is pointing out is that that is not true for her. And, in fact, I would want to offer that that's not really true for anyone, that ourselves are so fluid, so narrative and structure, that even over the course of a very short period of time, what we experience in ourselves to be the authentic core of who we are can actually change and morph over time. So this idea that we fully know ourselves and that ourselves are stable is a very strange assumption, that kind of statue under a drape assumption. Because where would the entire tradition of, say, Western psychoanalysis be if that were true? I don't fully know myself. You don't fully know yourself. And what Lexi is saying, perhaps simply, more honestly than the rest of us, is that there are parts of herself that she doesn't understand or no. So does the concept of covering still make sense if you yourself don't know what's underneath the drape? And I think that it can. And here's why I think it can. I think it can because I like to think of covering not as an adjective that modifies the noun performance, but as an adjective that modifies the word demand. So I'm actually not interested in looking at other people and psychoanalyzing them and try to figure out whether they're covering or not, because the same behavior can be seen in two people, and one of them could be covering, and one of them could not be covering. So it's pointless and, in fact, perhaps invasive and insulting for me to eyeball somebody and think I know exactly what's going on inside that person's head. I actually don't like to think about covering that way as modifying a performance. I like to think about covering as modifying a demand. My question is, when I look at the environment, does the environment seem inhospitable either to Authenticity in general or doesn't make a covering demand that says, say, in a male dominated workplace, you can be a woman in this workplace, but only if you cover any difference that you might have with regard to your parenting responsibilities. Or we want you to be as tearless or aggressive or as analytical as the stereotypical male. And of course, many, many women are naturally that way. That's not the point. The point is that this demand is being made, you know, oftentimes reflexively without any kind of justification behind it. So when we think about covering demands rather than covering performances, I think we get some traction on this problem of saying, I actually don't need to know who I am in order to say, actually that demand seems really illegitimate to me. And the whole process of finding who I am is going to be much facilitated if those demands are retired.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Covering is often a survival strategy that arises from the societal norms we face. This next question comes from listener Ann, who helps survivors of sexual abuse navigate life and work. There is such a recoil around the.

[Kenji Yoshino]

Disclosure of sexual abuse that this holds.

[Rob Wheeler]

The strategy of covering tightly in place.

[Shankar Vedantam]

For sexual abuse survivors. It is also true and well researched that healing and recovery comes through being.

[Rob Wheeler]

Acknowledged, accepted and given the recognition that.

[Shankar Vedantam]

This thing that happened and this story lived with was no fault of the survivor. I wonder when our society, which causes.

[Kenji Yoshino]

So much sexual abuse, will also have.

[Shankar Vedantam]

The courage and opening to hear about it. Do you have any thoughts on this? I think Ann is getting at something of a catch 22 here, Kenji. It's important that we discuss topics like sexual abuse, but people who've experienced abuse don't always feel safe talking about it. How do we navigate this tension without putting in some ways additional pressure on the most vulnerable people who are the victims?

[Kenji Yoshino]

Yes, it's a really deep problem and I want to again thank Ann for that and to thank you for framing as a catch 22. So if someone sort of recoils or has a negative reaction or stigmatizes being the victim of sexual assault in some way, that sends a really clear signal about how you're supposed to behave. But if you don't challenge it, then the covering demand will never go away. So how do we cut that Gordian knot? I think the answer, Shankar, is allyship of just understanding that people who watch the covering demand transpire can intervene as allies, even if they haven't had the experience themselves. So very often I see people reacting and thinking, well, this is a stigmatic comment made about sexual abuse. But it's not for me to intervene as an ally. Because I have not experienced this myself, so I don't really have standing or the kind of authority to step in and say that wasn't great what you said. Could you please rethink or rephrase that? But if you think about what the alternative is, which is then you're sort of stepping out of the field and forcing individuals who are themselves actually the victims of sexual abuse to speak up for themselves, then I think the case for allyship gets a lot stronger. So a lot of the work that we encourage people to do at my center is to say, please step in as an ally, but be smart about how you intervene. So say I want to be careful because I'm not directly affected by this, but that comment didn't land well on me for XYZ reasons. Can you please reframe or explain you're a comment? And so if we have like a whole sort of army of allies stepping in to not call people out, but to call people in right on these covering demands that they're making, then I think we can make some real headway without unduly burdening the people who are most directly affected by those covering demands.

[Shankar Vedantam]

As you know, Kenji, the Trump administration earlier this year ordered the end of DEI frameworks within federal and federally funded workplaces. Dei, of course, stands for diversity, Equity and inclusion. Listener Erin had a question on this shift in policy.

[Kenji Yoshino]

In light of the current administration's shift away from DEI initiatives. Have you observed or heard, anecdotally, any changes in how people experience or navigate covering in professional or social settings? Things for those of us who feel especially vulnerable right now, whether due to marginalized identities, neurodivergence, or simply the high personal and professional stakes of authenticity, what strategies or sources of encouragement might help us navigate these spaces while staying true to ourselves? So I want to be careful about this. I have so much to say because I am a lawyer and we run the only center that I know of on diversity, inclusion and belonging out of a major law school, or one of the few, I should be careful to say. So I first want to respond to this idea about DEI and how DEI has become a kind of newly regulated field and how the federal government has withdrawn support for DEI. So the executive orders, the first one issued on January 20, shuts down DEI initiatives in the federal government. And that, of course, the president has authority to do because he sits on top of those workers. So it's the largest employer in the United States. I don't want to undersell that at all. But I want to say that that is where the president's power is at its acme. When we get to the private sector or to universities, the capacity of executive orders to shut down diversity equity inclusion practices is much diminished. So I want to just make sure that we're all aware, of course, we need to comply with the law, but that we shouldn't over comply when our values are being impinged on by those laws. So I'll leave the legal piece of it at that, but moving to the more kind of social piece of it, regardless of whether it's legal or not. I think what we're experiencing in this country is an enormous backlash against diversity equity and inclusion. And that can often result in people feeling less safe to express kind of marginalized identities in the workplace. And I guess to that I would say two things. One is that your capacity to either express your own identity or to express support for another person's identity is still perfectly legitimate, legal, socially acceptable, because really the crosshairs have been placed not on dei absolutely, but rather on the more institutionalized forms of dei. So when, as a matter of institutional policy, a university or an employer says we're going to promote individuals from underrepresented groups by giving them a bump or a thumb on the scale in the promotion process, that's really what's being attacked. My capacity to support a colleague against opprobrious comment that's been made against them, that's still perfectly acceptable. So I should still be able to fully challenge those covering demands. And the final thing, second and final thing that I'll say about this is that I also think that this hearkens back to an earlier exchange, Shankar, that you and I had, which has to do with the universality of the covering demand. So that I think that oftentimes when people feel chilled and say, expressing their neurodiverse identity in the workplace, that is because someone thinks, well, how come you get so much solicitude for that identity Simply because it's a DNI identity? Whereas I don't get any kind of support for the fact that I'm the first generation of my family to go to college or I came from a lower socioeconomic background. So simply because I tick the boxes of being a cisgender, straight white man like you think that I've never suffered anything in my life and all lights turn green for me all the way down the highway, and that, you know, I'm always on the side of being an ally rather than somebody who has something to manage or cover myself. And I think we can all do Ourselves a huge amount of good to say, let's just take it away from the DEI lens, which I think increasingly has just become associated with a zero sum game of if I get a bump, then you get disadvantage. Which if you're talking about something like a university class, is actually true, right? If you have a set number of people who can be admitted and one person gets a bump, then anyone else who doesn't get the bump gets disadvantage. But covering isn't really like that. That if I can actually be more authentic, let's stick with the example of being neurodiverse, if I can actually be more open about that. And then someone says to me, well, why can't I be open about these other aspects of my life? That I feel like there's no reason why society should force me to downplay these aspects of my identity and I should be able to articulate them in our community. My answer to that is absolutely, let's have that conversation. There's enough authenticity out there for all of us, and all of us are enriched when we don't sort of limit our aspirations or our identities on the basis of kind of witless conformity. So I think we really need to move past this kind of melting pot ideal, which only ever worked for certain segments of society in the first place, to say it's actually more of a mosaic tossed salad kind of approach where we say actually we all come into the society in these different ways and these different starting points and, and the huge glory of American society is that there's so many stories and so many identities that people are bringing to the table. And so why would we want to shut down any one of those stories in the name of this kind of witless conformity.

[Shankar Vedantam]

So in the course of this conversation, Kenji, I think I've come to see how subtle and nuanced the idea of covering is and how it comes in so many different guises and so many different shapes. We got a question from listener Eliana, who emigrated to the United States from Colombia when she was 20 years old. Here's what she told us. I felt very self conscious that people would ask me where I was from, and as soon as I said I was from Colombia, they would assume that I was a drug dealer. So I remember vividly wanting to learn English as quickly as possible and with the least amount of accent as possible so that people cannot tell that I was an immigrant from Colombia, from Latin America. What do you think of this, Kenji? Is learning to speak a new language without an accent? Can that be a form of covering.

[Kenji Yoshino]

Again, it really depends on the experience of the individual. So what I didn't hear her say, but what I intuit from the fact that she called in to express express it, is that she experienced that as some kind of harm. And it really goes back kind of beautifully to the catch 22 point that you referenced, because I view the real culprit here to be not Eliana, who's covering or not covering, but rather this assumption that people who are from Colombia are drug dealers. So it's that stereotype that we want to retire. So obviously there's nothing wrong with learning to speak sort of perfectly assimilated English. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But I do worry that if people assimilate in those ways, then the underlying covering demand and illegitimacy of that demand never gets called out and challenged. So I want people to be able to rebut the idea of just because I say I'm from Colombia. It's kind of a ridiculous thing to think. But I understand where she's coming from because I've seen these kinds of stereotypes myself of, oh, you must be a drug dealer. It's that that we want to contest. And I just want to note that the more we assimilate, the less that underlying demand is going to be contested.

[Shankar Vedantam]

This last question comes from a listener named Jane who writes, how do you help other people discover that they are covering and masking their true selves? I think this is actually a subtle and difficult question, Kenji, especially given the course of the conversation we've had. What do you think?

[Kenji Yoshino]

I'm so glad that this question has come up because oftentimes people say, well, do you want me to go collar the nearest person in my life and say, I don't think you're being truly authentic or really truthful about the way you're presenting yourself to the world. Then I absolutely am not recommending that. So I want to disassociate myself from that approach as vehemently as I can. But the thing that we can do is something that I will borrow from the incredible Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson, who writes about psychological safety. She defines psychological safety in the team context as a team climate marked by mutual respect and interpersonal trust in which people feel comfortable being themselves. The way you get somebody to uncover, it's a little bit like asking a bird to eat from your hand. You don't like, force feed the bird, right? You just create the environment around the bird so that the bird feels safe enough to do something that might otherwise make it feel quite vulnerable. So it's really about creating the surround sound around individuals, which might actually include sharing your own story so that people know that this is an environment in which those stories are welcomed and cherished rather than sort of derided as wise as this person. Bringing a personal matter into a professional environment, for example. So creating the environment around the person that makes it safe if and when they choose to share to lean into their authenticity.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Kenji Yoshino is a legal scholar at New York University. He's the author of the Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights along with David Glasgow. He is co author of say the Right how to Talk About Identity, Diversity, and Justice. Kenji, thank you so much for joining me again today on Hidden Brain.

[Kenji Yoshino]

Thank you so much for having me back.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Hidden Brain is produced by Hidden Brain Media. Our audio production team includes Annie Murphy, Paul, Kristin Wong, Laura Kwerel, Ryan Katz, Autumn Barnes, Andrew Chadwick, and Nick Woodbury. Tara Boyle is our Executive producer. I'm Hidden Brain's executive editor. Hidden Brain is turning 10 this year and to celebrate, we're hitting the road. Join me as I share seven key insights I've learned in the first decade of the show. Go to hiddenbrain.org tour for more information and tickets. I'm Shankar Vedantam. See you soon.