Two girls sit on park benches on Montgomery Avenue in San Francisco. Jessica Yap, Unsplash
After the 2016 election, there was a palpable feeling of bewilderment amongst Democrats who questioned how so lots of their fellow residents might have voted for Donald Trump. For a lot of on the left, it was the disorienting sense of residing in a rustic that they now not acknowledged. However whereas this will likely have been a brand new feeling for liberals, many conservatives have lengthy thought they had been a “stranger in their very own nation.”
The US is a nation with an unbelievable quantity of racial, political, spiritual and geographical variety. It’s no marvel that we don’t usually agree with one another. However variety is just not the supply of our present issues. As a substitute, it’s that we've got turn into deeply incurious about one another, now not inquisitive about attending to know even the individuals who reside subsequent door. We reside in a nation of strangers. Even after we do discuss to our neighbors we’re more and more doing it on-line, utilizing platforms like Nextdoor or Fb.
Satirically, the data age has supplied us with extra alternatives than ever to study our fellow residents, even these in essentially the most far-flung components of the nation. However whereas social networking websites could also be an effective way to work together with strangers, they're a poor option to get to know somebody. Scrolling by way of Instagram could present the phantasm of intimacy, however the photographs and movies in our feed usually bear solely a passing resemblance to actuality. Whereas it might really feel like we're extra related than ever, the truth is that we're profoundly ignorant about the best way that lots of our fellow residents suppose, what they really feel and what they need.
As a nation, we have to embrace curiosity and domesticate the will to study from one another. There isn't a easy treatment for this. Human beings are consultants at self-sorting. Most of the decisions we make, acutely aware or not, are designed to insulate ourselves from individuals who don't share our values, backgrounds or beliefs. Social media algorithms designed to filter out differing opinions have solely alienated us additional.
How can we hope to study something about people who find themselves totally different from us after we solely work together with people who find themselves just like ourselves?
Nicely, a method is to ask them. As an expert query asker, I spend most days asking individuals extremely private questions on the best way they reside their lives, what they care about and who they belief. I’m continually attempting to grasp individuals’s beliefs, values and motivations. And I’ve discovered that polling is an efficient option to fight stereotypes and respect the contradictions and inconsistencies all of us share.
In our private lives, attending to know somebody is an extremely potent methodology of lowering prejudice. Again and again, social scientists have discovered that as we develop hotter emotions towards somebody who belongs to an outgroup, our angle towards your entire group modifications. We turn into extra understanding and empathetic.
A bunch of social scientists examined this proposition in the actual world by bringing 500 Individuals collectively for an extended weekend in 2019. The mission, America in One Room, was overwhelmingly efficient. As a substitute of the everyday one-off interactions we often have with strangers, the mission’s members had three days to get to know one another on a extra private degree. By the tip of the weekend, the variety of members who believed that “American democracy labored effectively” had doubled — to 60%.
Nevertheless it’s lots to ask individuals to make associates and spend time with others for the only real goal of lowering societal discord and intergroup animosity. We don’t work that manner, and many individuals with harried household lives merely don’t have the time. Thankfully, there are different methods to get at this drawback. Analysis has proven the straightforward act of studying a guide about individuals totally different from you'll be able to enhance our understanding and respect their views.
The place we reside and the way we interact in our group additionally affords alternatives to study and join with individuals totally different from ourselves. New analysis I carried out on the Survey Heart on American Life exhibits that Individuals who reside in shut proximity to neighborhood facilities — equivalent to libraries, espresso outlets and public parks — have extra various social ties. Even if you happen to don’t reside in an amenity wealthy space, an area spot in the neighborhood you go to recurrently — a 3rd place — can enhance your chance of getting extra various connections.
The pandemic has made all of this harder. We're spending much more time on-line and fewer time within the very locations that present alternatives to study concerning the individuals round us.
Individuals as we speak appear so prepared to guage one another based mostly on essentially the most superficial quantity of knowledge. We must always wish to know extra about not solely what individuals suppose, but in addition to grasp why they suppose that manner. And you'll’t do that with out attending to know them. Curiosity is the gateway to empathy.
Of the numerous issues that we face as a rustic, the dearth of religion we've got in one another is among the most regarding. If we’re ever going to belief one another once more, we’ll want to start out studying much more about one another first.
Daniel Cox is the director and founding father of the Survey Heart on American Life.