Sana Khadar

Mm-hmm.

You're listening to All in the Mind.

I'm Sana Khadar.

Kirk Gray is a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and he's the author of Outraged, Why We Fight About Morality in Politics and How to Find Common Ground.

So, Kurt argues, and his research suggests, that everyone is ultimately worried about the same thing, harm.

But their ideas of what causes the most harm and who is most vulnerable, that's what differs, based on personal politics, religion, culture, life experience, all kinds of things.

The problem is, there are a few factors that often cloud our ability to grasp this.

One is our tendency to engage in something called moral typecasting.

Yeah.

Not all situations are quite so clear cut.

In fact, many of the conflicts we face are way more complex.

This kind of dynamic has been observed in all kinds of intergroup conflicts, from Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda to Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland to Israel and Palestine.

And how do we bust through that inclination?

How do we move past that quirk of our psychology?

Kurt has some more specific advice as well on how you can go about talking with someone you disagree with productively.

Right.

Right.

This is why we lead everything with a story.

Absolutely.

Yeah.