How To Disagree Better

Summary

Short Wave (NPR) – "How To Disagree Better"

Release Date: November 26, 2025
Hosts: Emily Kwong & Rachel Carlson
Episode Length: ~17 mins

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Overview

In this episode, Short Wave explores the science and art of disagreement—particularly how to navigate conversations with people we fundamentally disagree with. With family gatherings and heightened divisiveness in society, hosts Emily Kwong and Rachel Carlson dig into neuroscience, psychology, and practical tools to help us disagree better, featuring perspectives from long-term couple Jeannie Safer and Richard Brookhiser, and insights from leading researchers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Landscape of Disagreement

• Divisiveness Is Widespread: Polling from SNF Agora Institute and Pew Research reveals that nearly half of the US electorate views the opposing party in deeply negative terms—dishonest, immoral, closed-minded ([00:45]).
  • "It's not just in our imaginations. We really are becoming more divided." – Emily Kwong ([00:45])

2. Lessons from a 45-Year Inter-Political Marriage

• Meet Jeannie and Richard: Jeannie Safer, a liberal psychoanalyst, and Richard Brookhiser, a conservative National Review writer, married for over four decades, share their approach ([01:11–03:32]).

  • They met in a Renaissance singing group—bonded by a shared interest, not politics ([01:39]).
  • Setting Boundaries: Some topics, like abortion, are off limits. "The thing we could not talk about really was abortion. We both had strong opinions that were opposite and so we realized we can't talk about this. So we won't." – Jeannie Safer ([02:29])
  • Mutual Respect: Their long-standing relationship is underpinned by deep mutual respect and admiration, even as they maintain opposing views.

  "It really opens your mind to think that somebody that you disagree with, takes care of you, helps you, is there for you. It was really a revelation to me, actually, how much that means."
  — Richard Brookhiser ([02:56])

3. The Neuroscience of Disagreement ([05:29–10:44])

Physiological Responses

• Disagreement activates our physiological "threat" systems: dilated pupils, racing heart, sweat ([05:44]).
• Trust and the Amygdala: Our brains instinctively react to perceived group differences.
  • "There's lots of research showing that there's this discordant perceptions of trust and how trustworthy people actually are." – Oriel Feldman Hall, Brown University ([06:21])
  • When encountering someone from a different group, the amygdala (the brain's threat detector) is activated ([06:39–06:57]).

Brain Synchrony in Agreement vs. Disagreement

• 2021 Yale Study (Joy Hirsch):

  • Monitored brain activity of strangers during real, substantive discussion.

  • When people agreed: Brainwave synchrony rose, especially in social and visual areas.

    • "When two people agreed, their brain activity looked pretty similar." – Rachel Carlson ([09:09])

  • When people disagreed: Less synchrony, more widespread brain activity; used more emotional/cognitive resources.

    "The amount of territory that the brain has devoted to disagreement was astonishing to me...so much neural energy is consumed by disagreement..."
    — Joy Hirsch ([09:55])

  • Key Takeaway: Disagreement is taxing—mentally and emotionally.

4. Scientific Toolkit for Better Disagreement ([10:44–15:52])

Step 0: Assess Safety and Respect

• Before engaging, ask: Is this person receptive? Is it safe to proceed?
  • "I am not inviting people to have a conversation with people that are violent towards you or dehumanizing towards you. That's not a requirement." – Allison Briscoe Smith, psychologist ([11:20])

Step 1: Regulate Yourself

• Breathe and Slow Down: Before diving into disagreement, ground yourself with a breath.
  • "Can you take a breath? Can you slow this down just a little bit so you can kind of come back into yourself, your body?" – Allison Briscoe Smith ([11:46])

Step 2: Clarify Intentions

• Focus on your purpose for the conversation.

  • Are you aiming to learn, build connection, or “win”?
  • Research shows that dialogue aimed at understanding, not persuasion, leads to greater openness.

  "I'm not talking about persuasion debate. I'm not even talking about having my mind changed when I talk about bridging differences. I mean about the mere connection with another person and the space around seeing that person as a human."
  — Allison Briscoe Smith ([12:36])

Step 3: Practice Empathy

• Ask questions and seek to understand the person, not just their viewpoint.

  • Humanizing details—such as jobs, families, or mundane preferences—reduce perceived distance ([13:59]).
  • The less we know about someone, the easier it is to demonize or “other” them.

  "When we learn personal details about others...immediately people were able to view them with more warmth."
  — Juliana Tafour, Bridging Differences Program ([14:25])

Step 4: Humility

• Acknowledge limits to your own knowledge; openness to learning is foundational.
  • "I know I don't know everything, and even the things that I think I know well, like, there's always more to learn." – Rachel Carlson ([15:13])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "When you live with somebody for how many thousands of years that we have, you learn that some of the things that you thought were wrong, maybe weren't, and you know, if also, if you really care for somebody and admire them, if they have certain opinions, it slightly changes how you feel about it."
  – Richard Brookhiser ([15:52])

• “It’s about seeing the person and not the label.”
  – Rachel Carlson ([14:01])

• “[Arguing to learn] helps us keep an open mind about the topic at hand.”
  – Emily Kwong ([13:20])

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Important Segment Timestamps

| Time | Segment | |---------|-----------------------------------------------| | 00:45 | America’s growing divisiveness (poll stats) | | 01:11 | Introduction to Jeannie & Richard | | 02:29 | Boundaries in their marriage | | 02:56 | Reflection on respect and compassion | | 05:29 | Physiology of disagreement | | 06:21 | Trust, amygdala, and group threat response | | 07:06 | Joy Hirsch's brain synchrony study | | 09:55 | How disagreement consumes neural energy | | 11:03 | The science-informed toolkit starts | | 11:46 | Focus on breathing and intentions | | 12:36 | Bridging as connection, not persuasion | | 13:37 | Using empathy to change perceptions | | 15:13 | Practicing humility | | 15:52 | Richard Brookhiser reflects on long marriage |

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Tone & Takeaways

• The discussion is open, encouraging, and empathetic—emphasizing genuine curiosity, humility, and human connection over adversarial debate.
• Science suggests “disagreeing better” requires not just mental effort but emotional regulation and a willingness to see beyond labels, always prioritizing respect and safety.

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Recommended Action:
Before your next difficult conversation, breathe, clarify your intentions, get curious about the person, and remember: understanding is the real goal—not winning.

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Transcript

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[Emily Kwong]

You're listening to Short Wave from npr. Hey, short wavers. Emily Kwong here with producer Rachel Carlson for an episode on disagreement.

[Rachel Carlson]

Hey, Emily.

[Emily Kwong]

Hey.

[Rachel Carlson]

So it is no surprise that there is a lot of disagreement and division out there in the world right now.

[Emily Kwong]

That's the understatement of the century for sure.

[Rachel Carlson]

And a lot of people are gearing up for the holidays where you might not always see eye to eye with the people you love in your life.

[Emily Kwong]

Yeah, this is true for many people. I know it is feeling tense. And data supports this. Polling data from SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University shows that almost half of the US Electorate thinks members of the opposing party are downright equal. In a 2022 Pew study, Growing numbers of Americans said members of the other party are dishonest, immoral and closed minded. So it's not just in our imaginations. We really are becoming more divided.

[Rachel Carlson]

So, Emily, I wanted to know what does science have to say about how to manage conflict well, political or otherwise? And that's how I ended up talking to two people who've been disagreeing with each other for almost 45 years. Jeannie Safer is a psychoanalyst. She's liberal, and she's married to Richard Brookhiser, a conservative republic who works for the National Review.

[Richard Brookhiser]

And he's adorable. So he's like 92ft tall.

[Rachel Carlson]

I asked them how they met.

[Jeannie Safer]

We met in a singing group. So that was good because we shared an interest that was not political.

[Richard Brookhiser]

It's very important, actually. It was also an unusual singing group because it was Renaissance religious music, not for religious purposes, but for singing purposes. When did we meet him?

[Jeannie Safer]

1977. Yeah.

[Emily Kwong]

You know, they say singing like syncopates your heartbeats, so maybe that worked out in bringing them together.

[Rachel Carlson]

It's the Renaissance music.

[Emily Kwong]

Absolutely.

[Rachel Carlson]

And they told me they sang with this group for like six hours every single week. So they were spending so much time together. Yeah. They eventually got married. And when they first got married, they talked through and ultimately disagreed on a lot of things. They said there have only been a few times where they voted for the same people. And over time they've set some boundaries with each other.

[Jeannie Safer]

The thing we could not talk about really was abortion. We both had strong opinions that were opposite and so we realized we can't talk about this. So we won't.

[Richard Brookhiser]

So we didn't.

[Jeannie Safer]

We won't. Then you also figure out ways that you can talk about other stuff.

[Rachel Carlson]

This was so striking to me, Emily. Like they're really reflective about each other's opinions and about each other as people in general.

[Richard Brookhiser]

It really opens your mind to think that somebody that you disagree with, takes care of you, helps you, is there for you. It was really a revelation to me, actually, how much that means.

[Jeannie Safer]

Well, and not just me. I mean, you met colleagues of mine that you like, and I met your mentor who was a communist and. But he was a good boss. He treated you very.

[Richard Brookhiser]

He was a wonderful, wonderful. But we also were able to join each other's world.

[Rachel Carlson]

And this joining of worlds was proof that these kinds of conversations can happen.

[Allison Briscoe Smith]

Yeah.

[Rachel Carlson]

Jeanie and Richard have been married for a really long time and they have so much mutual respect for one another. That's a really key baseline component of these conversations. And it's not a given for everyone you meet.

[Emily Kwong]

Absolutely. These conversations aren't always possible because there isn't that baseline of respect or even safety. But presuming both, presuming the person you're talking to has those qualities towards you and you towards them, how do you have a conversation?

[Rachel Carlson]

It's not easy, but we're going to try to work through it. So today on the show, the neuroscience of disagreement. When we have the opportunity to engage with someone who thinks differently than we do, what's going on in our brains and how can we make the most of those conversations? I'm Rachel Carlson.

[Emily Kwong]

And I'm Emily Kwong. And you're listening to Shortwave, the Science podcast from NPR.

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[Emily Kwong]

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[Emily Kwong]

Okay, Rachel, you have ventured into the world of disagreement, like the neuroscience of and retrieved some info to help us have better conversations. Let's start with what happens in our bodies when we disagree. What goes down?

[Rachel Carlson]

Okay, Emily, imagine that you and I are about to have a disagreement. So our pupils might dilate, our heart might start racing, and we might start to sweat a little more.

[Richard Brookhiser]

And that, of course, just breeds, guess what? Mistrust.

[Rachel Carlson]

That's Rudy Mendoza Denton. He's a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley. Rudy Co teaches a class from Berkeley's Greater Good Science center on bridging differences. He says we might not even notice these things while they're happening to us, but on top of all of them, we start making these split second decisions about whether or not we trust someone just by looking at their faces. Those decisions, though, aren't always accurate.

[Emily Kwong]

There's lots of research showing that there's this discordant perceptions of trust and how trustworthy people actually are. And so it takes getting to know someone and assessing them again and again through different types of interactions and becoming close with them to understand whether people are indeed trustworthy.

[Rachel Carlson]

Who's that? That's Oriel Feldman Hall, a researcher and social neuroscientist at Brown University. And she says when we interact with someone we've decided is untrustworthy or even someone who just belongs to another group than us, our amygdala starts to respond.

[Emily Kwong]

Yeah, our amygdala. That is like our brain's threat detector. It's like a smoke alarm.

[Rachel Carlson]

Exactly. Activity there increases.

[Emily Kwong]

So if we're disagreeing and our amygdala is going off, what else is happening in our brain?

[Rachel Carlson]

I found a study from 2021 looking at exactly that. So I called up the lead researcher, Joy Hirsch, to talk about it. She's a neuroscience professor at Yale School of Medicine. And the beauty of this study is that Joy and her team monitored the brains of multiple people at once while they talk to each other, which is so, so cool because it's pretty new in the neuroscience world. Usually you're just looking at one person's brain at a time.

[Emily Kwong]

Right. You're just like, slid under an MRI machine.

[Rachel Carlson]

Exactly. And in this case, people wore these things that looked like swim caps on their head, and they have these little thingies all around the caps.

[Emily Kwong]

What is little thingies?

[Rachel Carlson]

What's that for? It's literally the term that Joy used when we were talking about it. She told me they're technically called optodes. So some of these are like little lasers that emit light into the brain, and then some detect that light. So researchers like Joy can then use these measurements to look at neural activity.

[Emily Kwong]

So in Joy's study, she just had people sitting around having a conversation like one might at family dinner, except her research participants are wearing these swim cap things.

[Rachel Carlson]

Yeah, it's a really interesting family dinner. They surveyed a bunch of people on Yale's campus and the new haven area on statements that people tend to have strong opinions about, like, for example, marijuana should be legalized or same sex marriage is a civil right. And then they specifically paired people up. So the partners were strangers. They didn't know each other before. And also so that they agreed with their partner on two topics and disagreed on two other topics.

[Joy Hirsch]

Joy told me these people were not pretending. They were not like debaters that take, you know, a negative side and a positive side.

[Emily Kwong]

No, there are just people out here living their lives. Yeah. And she's looking at their brain activity. What did she find?

[Rachel Carlson]

During agreement, Joy says they saw activity related to the visual system and also in the social areas of the brain. But, Emily, it wasn't just activity in these places. These areas were also more synchronous when people agreed on the topic.

[Emily Kwong]

Okay, their brains were more synchronous. What does that mean?

[Rachel Carlson]

So Joy says that when two people agreed, their brain activity looked pretty similar. So certain areas lit up in similar ways while they talked. And her working hypothesis for what this.

[Joy Hirsch]

Means is the sharing of information involves higher levels of communication that people are learning so that there's a consensus of what is being shared, what's going on.

[Rachel Carlson]

Versus when participants disagreed with each other. In those cases, people's brain activity wasn't as synced up. It was kind of like a computer cacophony instead of a harmonious duet. And as they disagreed, Joy says it seemed like each brain was engaging a lot more emotional and cognitive resources.

[Joy Hirsch]

The amount of territory that the brain has devoted to disagreement was astonishing to me. And this is beyond the data. The observation that so much neural energy is consumed by disagreement, and there are so many areas that are coordinated during disagreement, that tells me that this is a very important behavior.

[Allison Briscoe Smith]

Huh.

[Joy Hirsch]

Others might have other interpretations.

[Rachel Carlson]

So Joy is hypothesizing that disagreement might be really taxing on us. Like, you're expending more energy when you disagree with someone someone than when you agree with them.

[Emily Kwong]

Okay, so clearly, disagreement sets off a waterfall of reactions and behaviors that lights up all these parts of the brain. When that is happening to us, which seems fairly inevitable, how can we approach disagreement? Better. What does the science say on that first?

[Rachel Carlson]

Kind of like we said before, we decide if we want to have a conversation with someone, and also if that person is going to be receptive, you.

[Emily Kwong]

Can always walk away.

[Rachel Carlson]

Yeah.

[Allison Briscoe Smith]

I hear often, if I talk to that person, am I subject to violence?

[Rachel Carlson]

That's clinical psychologist Allison Briscoe Smith.

[Allison Briscoe Smith]

I am not inviting people to have a conversation with people that are violent towards you or dehumanizing towards you. That's not a requirement. Like, actually, your humanness is there. We can all kind of discern. And bridging differences actually doesn't require or ask us to do that.

[Rachel Carlson]

So that's kind of like step zero. Decide, do I want to have a conversation with this person?

[Jeannie Safer]

Yeah.

[Rachel Carlson]

But if we do decide to engage with that person, the first step in a potential disagreement is simple. Focus on your breathing.

[Allison Briscoe Smith]

Can you take a breath? Can you slow this down just a little bit so you can kind of come back into yourself, your body? Can you take a breath and then align with the intention?

[Rachel Carlson]

Alison co teaches that bridging differences class with Rudy. I mentioned earlier. She told me that this moment, slowing down breathing can help us move into step two, which is coming back to our goals for the conversation.

[Emily Kwong]

Right. Like, she described it as an intention.

[Allison Briscoe Smith]

Yeah.

[Rachel Carlson]

Why we're having it, what we're looking to get out of it. Because research shows it's not super easy to change someone's mind. And it can be pretty ineffective to spout facts at someone to try to do this. Yeah, but Alison and Rudy both told me we can find more common ground with someone with. When we try to understand their perspective instead of trying to convince them that they're wrong.

[Allison Briscoe Smith]

I'm not talking about persuasion debate. I'm not even talking about having my mind changed when I talk about bridging differences. I mean about the mere connection with another person and the space around seeing that person as a human.

[Emily Kwong]

This absolutely reminds me of Jeannie and Richard. They are not trying to change each other's minds. They're not. They're trying to create space for each other to talk about what they feel, and they're ultimately putting the good of their relationship first.

[Rachel Carlson]

And it kind of seems like they have the right idea, at least from a scientific perspective. Research shows that people who engage in dialogues or conversations to learn rather than to win come away from those conversations with a more open perspective.

[Emily Kwong]

Okay, so arguing to learn helps us keep an open mind about the topic at hand. But you mentioned earlier, Rachel, how we're often making judgments about other people. Not just their opinions. So how do you navigate those feelings that can kind of obscure your ability to fully listen to someone?

[Rachel Carlson]

Yeah, that's a great question, Emily. And it's our third step, empathy. So that includes asking the person you're talking to questions about themselves, trying to humanize them to learn more than just their opinion on whatever topic it is that's bringing up these feelings.

[Emily Kwong]

I think this is why things devolve on social media so much, because people are not asking questions of each other. They're just, like, leaving these pronouncements in the comments, you know?

[Rachel Carlson]

Totally. No, I think so too. I mean, it's a whole other rabbit hole. But it is kind of like how Jeanie and Richard met in their singing group. Like, they got to know each other's hobbies. They learned about their families, their careers. And knowing these details about a person can help us be more open to them. In other words, it's about seeing the person and not the label. So when we learn personal details about others, details about their job and their family and even what they'd like to have for breakfast, what science showed was that immediately people were able to view them with more warmth. Just knowing those details made them change their perception and made them see the other person less, not like them. That's Juliana Tafour, the director of the Bridging Differences Program at UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center. That's where Rudy and Allison teach their class. And these tactics can help us be more charitable towards others, like, by looking at the strongest parts of their arguments instead of the weakest and more humble. Just understanding where we might need more information or circumstances where our own beliefs might be limited.

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Yeah.

[Emily Kwong]

Humility seems like an important way forward.

[Rachel Carlson]

Yeah. Like, I know I don't know everything, and even the things that I think I know well, like, there's always more to learn. So it's not really that any one of these things or even all of them together is a magic wand that's suddenly gonna help us all agree.

[Emily Kwong]

Yeah. And that doesn't seem like the goal.

[Rachel Carlson]

No. Like, for Jeannie and Richard, they both told me neither of them have really changed any of their opinions in the last 44 years of marriage. But it was clear to me, just by talking to them, they really admire each other. They respect each other's beliefs. And I think what's most important here is they try to understand why they each hold the opinions they do.

[Richard Brookhiser]

When you live with somebody for how many thousands of years that we have, you learn that some of the things that you thought were wrong, maybe weren't, and you know, if also, if you really care for somebody and admire them, if they have certain opinions, it slightly changes how you feel about it.

[Emily Kwong]

Rachel Carlson, thank you for giving us a toolkit for moving forward in these divisive times.

[Rachel Carlson]

Of course. Thanks for having me. Emily.

[Emily Kwong]

This episode was reported by Rachel Carlson and it was produced by Hannah Chin. It was edited by our showrunner, Rebecca Ramirez, Tyler Jones, and Rachel Check the facts.

[Rachel Carlson]

Special thanks to Kenneth Barish. He wrote a whole book about some of this stuff called Bridging Our Political Divide, which is going to come out in the next few weeks.

[Emily Kwong]

I'm Emily Kwong.

[Rachel Carlson]

And I'm Rachel Carlson.

[Emily Kwong]

Thanks for listening to Short Wave from npr. Take care of yourselves.

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[Emily Kwong]

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