What turns a playful debate into an angry, tearful argument? Or a cheerful Thanksgiving feast into a frosty dessert? America is heading into the holiday season after a divisive election season. So we're featuring an episode from NPR's science podcast Short Wave about what happens in our brains during conflict: Why it tempts us to shut down, and how we can navigate difficult conversations—political or otherwise—without losing control.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Full Episode
I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is a Sunday story from Up First. Every Sunday, we do something special. We go beyond the news of the day to bring you one big story. Now, I don't need to tell you that there is a lot of disagreement in this country at the moment. Donald Trump has been elected as the 47th president. A lot of people are elated. A lot of people are upset.
And soon, a lot of people who disagree will be sitting across from each other at the holiday dinner table. We've dealt with a fair share of disagreements in my own family. I won't go into all, you know, the bloody details, but generally someone will start talking and then I will realize that they're wrong. And I start delivering the facts. My brother likes to argue.
So whether he really believes it or not, he'll start being contrarian. And, you know, other members of the family, aunts and uncles, they'll jump in and they'll have their opinions. And it'll all be going well. We'll be all loud and stuff. And then it'll go too far. And I don't know if anybody else has this. I should stop, you know, arguing the point.
But there's a part of me that goes, keep going, keep talking because I'm right. And sometimes when you get that last word in, that's what ends up tipping just a disagreement into an all out emotional fight and tears are flowing and things like that. And that's what you don't want.
But one thing I've always felt in all my kind of arguing my points and trying to get the last word is I have never really been able to convince anyone that of my rightness and i do wonder like why why is it so hard to convince people of things to persuade people and and is there maybe another way that i should be approaching these conversations
Which is why I wanted to share this episode from NPR's science podcast, Shortwave. Turns out, they've been asking basically the same thing.
I wanted to know, what does science have to say about how to manage conflict well, political or otherwise?
That's producer Rachel Carlson in an episode hosted by Emily Kwong. This week, NPR is exploring America's divisions and sharing stories about people who are trying to bridge their divides. So today we're following Rachel on her scientific pursuit of this question.
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 Bruckheiser, a conservative Republican who works for the National Review.
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