If it feels like it鈥檚 harder than ever to have conversations about controversial subjects without explosive arguments, you鈥檙e not alone.
鈥淧eople are so trigger-happy and willing to engage in outrage much more quickly [than they were five or 10 years ago],鈥� said Michael McQueen, a psychologist and the author of Mindstuck: Mastering the Art of Changing Minds. 鈥淥ne of the reasons for that is, we鈥檝e never had to make up our minds about so many things so quickly, and there鈥檚 so much information, so there鈥檚 a sense of overwhelm.鈥�
Humans evolved to think, learn, and problem-solve with other people, not alone, but emerging brain research suggests that , isolation, and information overload in the modern world鈥攆rom pandemic distancing to social media and screen addictions鈥攁re making it more difficult for our brains to cope with even mildly uncomfortable conversations.鈥�
This project is part of a special report called Big Ideas in which EdWeek reporters, the EdWeek Research Center, and contributing researchers ask hard questions about K-12 education鈥檚 biggest challenges and offer insights based on their extensive coverage and expertise.
This can be especially damaging during adolescence, the critical period for social development. Just as children need explicit instruction to learn how to read before developing into fluent readers, research suggests on themselves and others in social interactions before becoming able to automatically process intentions and other social cues along with cognitively demanding information. Without opportunities to learn and practice emotionally and cognitively challenging conversations, students cannot develop the mental strategies needed to engage as healthy, social adults.
Telling your brain it鈥檚 wrong
Our brains to being wrong than to a mistake outside our control, spending less time trying to learn from and correct outside errors.
Yale University brain researchers had pairs of adults talk about controversial topics鈥攐ne on which they agreed, the other on which they disagreed鈥攚hile their brain activity was being monitored using measures of electrical impulses and oxygen levels in the brain (electroencephalography, near-infrared spectroscopy), as well as eye-tracking. (Technology and methods to measure brain activity while people interact in real time have developed in the last decade, but children are notoriously difficult to monitor, and Yale鈥檚 study, like virtually all recent neuroscience research on conflict, focuses on adults, even as developmental research suggests we can extrapolate findings to some extent for young people as well.)
When two adults on a topic, the social and attention networks of their brains鈥攖he systems involved in joint attention, mirroring, and holding eye-contact鈥攚ere more active and likelier to synchronize across different areas of the brain and with each other. This synchronization is associated with and closeness. People whose brains are in sync, these and other studies suggest, are more likely to trade listening and speaking roles smoothly and to be open to changing their opinions during a discussion.
During an argument, though, our 鈥渂rains are hugely different,鈥� said Joy Hirsch, a professor of comparative medicine, psychiatry, and neuroscience at the Yale School of Medicine, who conducted the study. Be they students debating in a classroom or parents protesting at a school board meeting, arguing people don鈥檛 sync up neurologically, the study suggests. They literally 鈥渃an鈥檛 see eye to eye鈥� and are also much more sensitive to perceived differences in the tone or volume of their partner鈥檚 voice, as opposed to what they are actually saying.
鈥淲hen you鈥檙e agreeing with people, you鈥檙e looking them in the eye. You have a reciprocity. You鈥檙e nodding your heads, gesturing, and signaling facial expressions that are congruent, pleasant agreement,鈥� Hirsch said. 鈥淭he exact opposite is true in disagreement. Those social [brain areas] appear not to be operative. What鈥檚 operative is a primary frontal lobe process where one is competing, strategizing, pushing forward your agenda. You鈥檙e not cooperating, and the eye contact and the social gesturing changes.鈥�
Growing up 鈥榰nder attack鈥�
Young people growing up in the high-stress, technology-driven environment that we鈥檝e witnessed since the pandemic may be even more primed to overreact during disagreements.鈥�
When we are in face-to-face conversations and activities with other people, our brains constantly monitor for vocal and nonverbal cues鈥攁 quirk of the lips to soften a criticism into a joke, for example.
But in a separate study, Hirsch found that in a virtual conversation like a Zoom meeting, our brains respond as though we are alone, not with other people, and may be less sensitive to nuances in communication. That, she explained, can put our virtual conversations at higher risk of arguments, miscues, and blowups.
鈥淭he question of whether more people are engaged in [online] conversations that tend to be more confrontational rather than a true social kind of agreement may actually be true鈥攁nd it should be troubling,鈥� Hirsch said.
Socializing more virtually than in person has been shown to increase adolescents鈥� feelings of isolation and worsen mental health problems such as anxiety and depression鈥攚hich U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy warns have risen to 鈥溾�� levels for children and adolescents since the pandemic. Both social isolation and mental health problems can increase the chance that students will perceive a neutral statement as an attack, further challenging their ability to engage in civil disagreements.
Similarly, instead of developing opinions from broad research or speaking to people with different perspectives, learning through social media and algorithm-based platforms (such as YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook) can encourage students to develop narrow, simplistic approaches to understanding and thinking through complex issues.
Adolescence develops the parts of the brain associated with executive function and metacognition鈥斺�渢he ability to step back from your thoughts and reactions,鈥� as McQueen describes it. But algorithm-based social platforms can hamstring this development by creating more simplistic feedback loops, making teenagers more likely to struggle with complex, uncomfortable conversations.
鈥淚n that stage of life where [adolescents] are naturally looking for certainty, they鈥檙e finding it in algorithmic abundance,鈥� McQueen said. Instagram, TikTok, and similar platforms provide reductive, simplified responses to complex problems, serving up confirmation bias to young people who are highly susceptible to binary thinking. This tendency toward confirmation bias, McQueen explains, 鈥渂ecomes part of your identity.鈥�
And when political social posts include negative, emotional, and moral words like 鈥渉ate鈥� or 鈥渄estroy,鈥� they are among people who already agree with the argument鈥攂ut less likely to be shared across groups with different opinions. These social media messages may further help build group identity without actually encouraging conversations and problem-solving. This one-way communication has been linked to higher risk of radicalization among young adults.
Group-think and sorting are natural tendencies for children and adults alike.
鈥淭he human mind would rather feel right than be right,鈥� McQueen said. 鈥淭he feeling of being right is so alluring: that righteousness that comes from, 鈥業鈥檝e got it figured out,鈥� and everyone who disagrees is wrong or hasn鈥檛 got the right information.鈥�
In the classroom context, this can spark bullying and 鈥渙utrage鈥� culture, in which students react collectively in disproportionate and intensely negative ways to things they dislike or disagree with. This reactivity makes it both more challenging and more necessary for teachers to create environments in which students can safely make mistakes and have uncomfortable conversations.
Disagreeing over something connected to someone鈥檚 morals or identity (be it broad identity like gender, culture, or politics鈥攚hat McQueen refers to as 鈥渋deological tripwires鈥濃�攐r a smaller group, like a school or team) triggers the same responses in the brain as a physical attack. The resulting, disproportionate reaction is called an 鈥�,鈥� referring to the part of the brain connected to regulating emotions and dealing with both physical and emotional threats. 鈥淚t鈥檚 part of the limbic system,鈥� he said, 鈥渟o, there鈥檒l be physiological [reactions]: Your palms get sweaty, your face gets flushed. In that moment, you are almost unable to think calmly and reasonably and even generously; you want to [succeed over] the other person.鈥�
Setting the stage for healthy disagreements
Teachers can help students learn how to engage in constructive disagreements and find common ground across complex issues, but it can require a more hands-on approach that can be daunting to teachers exhausted by divisiveness in the classroom.
Rethinking class-discussion formats may be a good place to start. In a nationally representative survey administered this July, more than 1 in 5 teachers told the EdWeek Research Center that they 鈥渟kipped teaching one or more perspectives on an issue because [the teacher] thought they might be too controversial,鈥� and nearly 2 in 5 said they teach controversial topics in ways to discourage students鈥� questions or debates. Avoiding controversy can make for a calmer classroom in the short term, but developmental researchers agreed it won鈥檛 give students the opportunities and skills to learn how to cope with challenging discussions in the long term.
The more that children and adults learn to see an issue or problem in nuanced, multidimensional ways, the more likely they are to be 鈥渢ractable鈥� and have 鈥減roductive鈥� arguments about it, according to a series of studies by researchers at the Difficult Conversations Lab at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Helping students develop better responses to disagreements or being wrong can also help them gain traction academically, according to Pepperdine University researcher Elizabeth Mancuso. Mancuso and her colleagues found that adults with higher 鈥渋ntellectual humility鈥濃�攖he openness to admit when you鈥檙e wrong鈥攖ended to learn faster than their equally intelligent but less intellectually humble peers.
鈥淭he reality is that everybody鈥檚 wrong a lot of the time. Everybody makes mistakes, everybody makes cognitive errors. Just being wrong, I don鈥檛 think necessarily invokes intellectual humility,鈥� Mancuso said, 鈥淥ur hypothesis is, people who are more open to the idea that they don鈥檛 know everything, that they have things to learn, do in fact learn more.鈥� You might also be 鈥渕ore curious,鈥� she said.
While intellectually humble people are more likely to take a nuanced view in arguments, teachers can encourage this development, too. Eight out of 10 educators told the EdWeek Research Center that their students were 鈥渟omewhat鈥� to 鈥渆xtremely鈥� willing to 鈥渄iscuss important topics with people they disagree with,鈥� which offers promise.
Nurturing a classroom approach to being wrong
Teachers are the linchpin in helping students develop intellectual humility, both in how they respond to being wrong or challenge themselves and in the tone and structure they set for classroom discussions.
Students develop more openness and resilience in classes where teachers readily admit to their own mistakes and maintain a class climate encouraging students to react respectfully when peers disagree or make mistakes.
And research suggests it鈥檚 worth it for teachers to give students more opportunities to grapple with challenging conversations in respectful ways.
In one at Columbia University鈥檚 Difficult Conversations Lab, pairs of adults were told they would spend 20-minute sessions trying to find consensus on highly charged topics, like affirmative action or abortion. For some, researchers primed them to think about the topic complexly: They provided background information in which opposite views were specified and integrated, and the pairs were explicitly told to 鈥渃onsider different perspectives.鈥� For others, researchers simply contrasted opposing views and told the pairs, 鈥淚t is important to have a clear perspective.鈥� A third group was given no directions.
While the pairs who took a complex approach were able to write a joint statement on their topic, less than half of the pairs who took a simplistic approach came to a consensus. Moreover, the pairs engaged in more complex discussions acted less defensively, asked more questions of each other, and felt more positive during the discussions than those who had more black-and-white arguments or no direction at all.
鈥淕rappling with difficult issues has always been uncomfortable, but that doesn鈥檛 necessarily mean it鈥檚 something we should shy away from,鈥� McQueen said. 鈥淐reating space to unpack nuance and to expose young people to nuance is difficult when there鈥檚 so much curriculum content to get through,鈥� McQueen said. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 trying to flesh out complexity and nuance that鈥檚 going to lead to a far greater willingness for people to just look for the areas of gray in life, rather than racing to judgments that are really easy and lazy.鈥�
