The Psychology of America's Dangerous Divide: An Interview with Keith Payne
Issue 139: Why the psychology of identity is the root of political polarization
As the election in the United States approaches, it is impossible to avoid being confronted by the depth of political polarization confronting the country. With exquisite timing, Professor Keith Payne has just published a new book, Good Reasonable People: The Psychology Behind America’s Dangerous Divide, which helps explain and explain how to tackle the divisions that plague our society.
Keith draws on research to make sense of what’s happening. But it’s also personal for him. Having grown up in a blue-collar, conservative Christian family in rural Kentucky, he has long and close relationships with people whose beliefs often differ dramatically from the beliefs of the academics and researchers with whom he works.
A core insight at the heart of his book is that human beings tend to have an incredibly strong bias to see ourselves as rational, reasonable, good people. We spend a lot of mental and social energy convincing ourselves of this fact. As a result, when we encounter people whose beliefs, behaviors, and values differ from our own, we often rapidly jump to the conclusion that they must be irrational, unreasonable, and quite possibly bad people. This idea has animated our newsletter for the past three years, so we were eager to invite him to discuss his book. He notes:
Political scientists estimate that 85 percent of Americans have no ideology. The 15 percent that do are typically academics, journalists, and other people who eat, sleep, and breathe politics. What the typical American has is not a political ideology, but a social identity.
Drawing on the psychological dynamics that produce conflict and polarization, Keith offers strategies that ordinary people, leaders, and organizations—including social media companies—can take to reduce polarization and start to mend many of the relationships that have frayed over the past few years.
We encourage you to read our interview with Keith below and check out his new book here.
What does your book teach us about social identity or group dynamics?
‘Good Reasonable People’ is about how social identity is the root of the political polarization that is paralyzing the US and driving wedges between friends and families. The title comes from the way that people constantly use flexible thinking to reassure themselves that they are good, reasonable people and the groups that define their social identity are, too. When we encounter new information, arguments, or ideas, we rationalize until we come to the conclusion that we were right all along. This is why it's nearly impossible to convince the other side they are wrong (and why they think the same thing about us). Like ‘The Power of Us’, my book argues that social group identities are both the cause of social divisions and a key to healing them. My book shows how looking at the world through the lens of social identity makes sense of other people's political beliefs that otherwise seem puzzling, and points out ways to use shared social identities to bridge divides.
What is the most important idea readers will learn from your book?
We think that we are divided over political ideologies, but we're not. In fact, most people have no political ideology, understood as a coherent set of interconnected political beliefs. An enormous body of research over more than 50 years shows that people's opinions about one issue (like tax cuts) is very weakly correlated with opinions on other issues (like government benefits) that are logically related. And when you survey the same respondents over time, their answers to the same questions are incredibly inconsistent.
Political scientists estimate that 85 percent of Americans have no ideology. The 15 percent that do are typically academics, journalists, and other people who eat, sleep, and breathe politics. What the typical American has is not a political ideology, but a social identity. That's why we can predict with incredible accuracy which party you prefer if we know just a few things about you, such as your race, your education level, and whether you were born in a county that had a lot of slaves in 1860. If we want to have better conversations, we have to learn to stop bludgeoning each other with facts and start understanding how political views function to maintain our sense that we (and our groups) are good people.
Why did you write this book and how did writing it change you?
I have conducted cultural psychology research for decades. At the same time I’ve taught practically-minded students at top business schools. I wrote this book to share the toolkit that I've developed for leading groups through their cultures. By "lead" I mean influence from any position. It's a playbook not just for the boss of an organization, but also for its middle managers, employees, customers, and fans.
What will readers find provocative or controversial about your book?
I wrote this book, in part, because I couldn't stop getting into fights with family members over politics. Like many people, I had the maddening experience of knowing, on the one hand, that my family members were sane and decent people. Yet on the other hand, when it came to politics their views often seemed insane or sinister. As a psychologist, I knew more than most about the ways that social identity and motivated reasoning can lead people to twist logic and defend their groups with rationalizations. But to apply what I knew, I had to remove myself from the heat of the immediate social interaction and think through the science. I wrote the book to help others do the same. Writing the book changed the way I engage with people about politics.
To begin with, I don't get into arguments on social media any more - that's a sucker's game. But more than that, I came to realize that when people make an argument about an issue, there's usually no use getting into a debate about the facts and merits of the issue. That's because issue stands are usually tools people are using to defend their sense that they are a good reasonable person. If I disprove something they've said with facts and evidence, it won't matter to them. They can always find another fact, change the subject, shift the goal post, and so on. Instead, I learned to ask: How is this idea protecting their self-esteem? And how is my own view protecting mine?
Do you have any practical advice for people who want to apply these ideas?
Here are three tips from the book for having better conversations and staying connected with people you care about across political divides:
First, when you are tempted to get into an argument, ask yourself what your real motive is first. Often we are trying to change the other person, to embarrass them, or to dominate them. If those are your goals, you have already lost. People sometimes change their views, but those changes come from long-term experiences like education, travel, or a close relationship. You can't wrestle a mind into submission with facts, or anything else.
Second, research finds that partisans greatly overestimate how far apart they and their opponents are on most issues. Even more important, we overestimate how much the other side dislikes us. So don't make assumptions about what the other person believes or feels. Ask them.
Third, thinking of a person as a token member of their group (e.g., another Republican / another Democrat) leads us to think of them as less human. Thinking of them as an individual (who happens to belong to a group) helps humanize them. Always try to see a person as a person first.
You can learn more about Good Reasonable people here and follow Keith on Twitter/X here.
News and Updates
This week, Professsor Phil Zimbardo, the Stanford psychologist behind the controversial ‘Stanford Prison Experiment’ died at age 91. We discussed his famous study—and the modern reinterpretation—in our book and in a recent newsletter this month (see below). On Monday, Jay was invited on San Francisco local radio (KCBS All News Radio) to discuss the Stanford Prison Experiment and it’s legacy. You can listen to the short 5 minute interview here.
Catch up on the last one…
Our last newsletter continued our series busting popular myths about classic research in psychology — explaining why what many people believe they know about groupthink is incorrect. You can also read previous columns that reinterpret the Bystander Effect and the Stanford Prison Experiment. We will debunk several other myths in the coming weeks.
