Take a few moments to reflect on your own emotional responses to politically charged conversations. It is imperative to understand our reactions before getting in too deep into divisive political conversations as it is unlikely that our conversation will lead anywhere productive.
Do you find your emotional responses often get in the way of having a constructive conversation? Take this 12-item questionnaire from Columbia University social organizational psychologist, Peter Coleman’s 2021 book, The Way Out: How to Overcome Toxic Polarization.
If you answered yes to a majority of these questions, it suggests that you (or you and your counterpart) would benefit from cultivating strategies to manage your emotional responses more effectively before getting too deep into divisive political conversations. The good news is that there are a variety of strategies you can use to de-escalate your emotional responses. These strategies are not meant to suggest that there is not any value, legitimacy, and insight to be gained from your emotional responses-just that you are unlikely to engage constructively when you are immersed in the heat of your emotional impulses.
Source:
Peter T. Coleman and Becca Bass, The Way Out: How to Overcome Toxic Polarization, 2021
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