Andrea has created an emergency kit for getting along during this divisive political period and joined us to highlight one specific technique that’s designed to prevent defensiveness and hot takes. Can this technique help Americans overcome seemingly insurmountable ideological divides? And more importantly, would that be cool?
“To give the thinking brain a chance, we need an automatic stall technique, and my favorite one is Fogging.”
Listen to Andrea’s submission featured in Episode 76 of How Cool Is This? and read a transcript of the full 5-minute podcast episode below:
Andrea: As a psychologist, I was looking for a way to cool things down, because don't plan to get defensive. We don't plan to lose our cool. What we can plan is to have something to say or do that will stall us while our thinking brain kicks in. The old, primitive, reptilian part of our brain - the amygdala - is on alert, and when it perceives danger in a contentious political discussion or over Thanksgiving dinner, we automatically respond… change in breathing rate, change in heartbeat, change in the galvanic skin response, fancy term for sweating.
We get ready to do something. And yet, those responses usually are not as good as they would be if we thought about what we wanted to say or do. So to give the thinking brain a chance, we need an automatic stall technique. And my favorite one is: fogging.
Fogging is where you look for something you can agree with, even on the surface, and simply say without denying, defending, or attacking back “you're right” or “it could look that way.” And even if people know that you're using the technique, it works.
That's fogging, a way to cool things down. Wonderful technique. One of many that I've stuffed into my emergency kit for finding common ground, helping Americans get along. It's a toolkit for these difficult times. How to disagree without being disagreeable and manage and cope when times seem really upside down.
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Brian: Nick, Andrea has written a book, The Emergency Kit for Finding Common Ground, Helping Americans Get Along. How cool is that?
Nick: We could work a lot harder to get along with each other, and I'm not talking about the kind of kumbaya, why can't everybody just go back to normal bullshit. I'm talking about trying to have difficult, but meaningful conversations.
Brian: I don't really want to talk to people who disagree with me, but I also know it's ridiculous to continue living in a world where we all just accept that “Hey, we're never going to get along.” That's not cool.
Nick: That just seems kind of defeatist to me. If you just talk to people that share the same views as you, you're never going to grow as a person.
Brian: In general, losing your cool is not cool. But on the flip side, if you do get frustrated, if you do get threatened, it's not really fair to say, “Hey, can you just be cool about it?” Because that is a natural response… Is fogging cool?
Nick: This technique of just keeping the conversation going, keeping both people invested and involved, I think is cool. I think it could work.
Brian: It works, but in a five minute podcast, we'd fog and then it'd be over. There's no room for fogging here.
Nick: Luckily we don't disagree a lot. But if we did, fogging would just make for a pretty boring episode, if I continually said, “It could look that way.”
Brian: The example everyone will use is Thanksgiving, where usually politics comes up and then the turkey gets thrown against the wall and there's a jam everywhere. We don't want that. That's not cool.
Nick: That might make for a great viral video. It would not make for a very good Thanksgiving.
Brian: Food fights are cool, but only in school.
Nick: Incredible point.
Brian: Thanks.
Nick: I do think there are certain things on which you can't find common ground. I don't think Andrea is, or us, are advocating for people just to be like I guess I just don't really care about healthcare for all anymore, or I just don't really care about abortion anymore.
We're not asking you to just forget about those things and do a big group hug. We're just asking you to get along in a civil way that involves people not hurting each other.
Brian: How cool is it for everyone to just agree with you all the time?
Nick: I think that would be honestly uncool. It would be very boring if you know everything I said, people were just like, “yeah, I agree. That's great.”
Brian: So you don't want to be a yes-man dictator?
Nick: Initially that would be kind of nice, when I would say something like, “I hate soup, I think we should ban soup. No one should be able to eat it.” And everybody agreed with me and said, “Yeah, we'll get rid of soup.” But you know, after a while, if I just started banning all of these different foods that I didn't like I think I'd get pretty bored.
Brain: That's sad. Soup's great.
Nick: It’s horrible.
Brian: In the winter time, I like it, but I could see how it wouldn't be nice in the summer.
Nick: It's a bad food all year round, and I will not walk back that point.
Brian: Well, I don't know if we're ever going to get along on this point.
Nick: It could look that way.
Learn more about Andrea’s work as a psychologist at https://www.andreamolberg.com/ and check out her book “EMERGENCY KIT for FINDING COMMON GROUND: Helping Americans Get Along” on Amazon.
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