Professor Alison Wood Brooks

And I remember thinking, gosh, that's such a...

I remember Tali Sharot telling me about a study.

She told me, she's a neuroscientist in London, and she told me they put two people in a brain imaging scanner and got them to like look at photos and come to agreement on the price of something.

Yes.

And then eventually in these studies, I'm super paraphrasing here, she's probably like cringing.

Oh, do you?

Yeah, my back goes up.

I get my back up.

Yeah.

she showed pictures of the brain in these scans when someone disagrees with you.

And I think, and I might be getting this inverted, that it was almost like the brain had shut down to receptiveness in that moment.

It was like, so I always, when I wrote this chapter in my book called Do Not Disagree,

It's an intentionally provocative chapter because people think, what do you mean?

Never disagree with anybody?

No, that's right.

But I mean, like, don't make the first thing you say, I disagree.

100%.

I met a girl called Anne who always said yes and instead of but.

And it shocked me because it was so different.

Having a conversation with her, you say something to her and you go, I think this.