Why are we arguing?

“Truth is born in a dispute”? No matter how. There is a big difference between a dispute and a discussion, and if something meaningful can arise in the latter, then the former is, in fact, a duel. And I do not like to fight since childhood. I am for peace talks.

What is a dispute?

Ushakov’s explanatory dictionary explains the meaning of the word as follows: “A dispute is a mutual bickering, a verbal (oral or written) competition in which each side defends its opinion, proves its case.”

The dispute is aggressive. The competition does not imply the ability to hear and understand the other, its goal is victory. Where did you see at the Olympics that the athletes were ready to give way to each other? Dispute for gambling. Developing over time, it spurs, draws in, provokes emotions, can lead to anger and mutual insults, and even to a big quarrel.

Argument feeds the ego. Its essence is to oppose one’s “correct” opinion to someone else’s “wrong” one. And the goal is not to find the truth and not to understand the other, but to prove one’s case. For many, this is so important that even weighty arguments from the other side cannot convince them. Because giving in is tantamount to a loss and hurts pride. What kind of “search for truth” is there, not up to it at all.

Why the brain is deaf to the opponent’s arguments

And why is the conviction in the correctness of one’s opinion so difficult to hear the arguments testifying against it?

A recent study at the University of London helped us learn more about what happens in the brain during these moments. The scientists set out to understand what neural mechanisms contribute to a phenomenon called confirmation bias. Confirmation bias has long been known to psychologists, but the neurophysiology of the phenomenon has not been well studied.

This kind of cognitive bias causes people to choose exactly the information that confirms their opinion. This is especially true when we are very involved emotionally. To illustrate, consider a kitchen debate about politics, when opponents can quarrel to the bone. Excessive self-confidence prevents people from changing their minds, even if they face overwhelming evidence that their belief is false.

The experiment took place with the participation of 75 people who watched the movement of dots on a computer screen. Each brain was connected to a magnetoencephalographic scanner. Based on the brain activity and the participants’ responses, the scientists obtained evidence: people who were absolutely sure of their answer were not able to perceive the information that refutes it, but they sensitively monitored everything that could even indirectly confirm their opinion. But the brains of less confident participants remained sensitive to the arguments for and against.

But the Dunning-Kruger effect describes the opposite phenomenon. It happens like this: the less competent a person is in some area, the more aplomb he expresses his opinion. Obviously, this applies to people with low intelligence and a narrow outlook.

Emotions

Of course, moving points within the framework of an experiment does not cause as much emotion in a person as an important problem that affects him personally. And since memory is a creative process in some way, and our perception is akin to a lens through which we look at the world, the share of subjectivity in any of our judgments can be very large.

Consider, for example, the summer of 2005. Was it cold or hot? “Good” or “bad”? I’m sure: having collided foreheads, two debaters can defend their opinions with foam at the mouth. Simply because in the memory of one, a beautiful sunny day at the dacha with friends was deposited, and the second had wet feet and a runny nose due to an umbrella forgotten at home.

Moreover, often people argue with friends, family members. And the dispute between two housewives about how to properly cook Olivier, with an apple or a fresh cucumber, can mask a showdown on a completely different topic.

Especially often this concerns the family, and in this case, why not look for what is really the problem? And instead of arguing with the father-in-law about whether to plant flowers or potatoes in the country, it is reasonable to discuss property disputes.

“The dispute has great potential”

“In my opinion, a dispute has great potential, but only if there is mutual respect, equal attention to one’s own and another’s point of view, as well as a clear understanding of one’s subjectivity and the level of knowledge of the subject of the dispute,” explains Anastasia Gurneva, a Gestalt therapist. – If the need of the debater is not in dialogue, but in feeding his ego, then this is already a story about manipulation.

And in general, the initial conviction in one’s own rightness and another’s wrongness is an entry into the situation of communication not on an equal footing, but from top to bottom. The other does not act as a separate person with his own opinion that is interesting to the disputant, but becomes the object of “rework”. The disputant needs to be persuaded, that is, to remake, the look of the other and become right for him. And this is already a form of violence, and you can get involved in such disputes only if you like verbal hand-to-hand combat.

But in order for such a dispute to take place, you must agree to its basic conditions:

1. “There must be only one truth.” What can be opposed to this? Respect for differences, recognition of equal rights to subjectivity – one’s own view and the view of another person. Of course, you can check on the Internet whether one of you remembers the following line of Pushkin’s poem correctly, but what if you are arguing about politics, religion, value orientations or tastes in music?
2. “One of you knows the truth.” During the pandemic, everyone became virologists, during the economic crisis, advanced economists. The ability to see the limits of your knowledge is a wonderful property.
3. “The task of each is to convince the other.” Again, you are not required to agree to this condition, and without it, the argument turns into a dialogue or simply fades away. The technique here can be “I-statements”. In the end, you can directly tell the interlocutor that you are not interested in a conversation on a given topic or in such a tone.

If you are involved in an argument

If the debater still hurt you, then here are questions for self-examination. For example:

• What personal experience does the topic of the dispute resonate with you?
• Are there ideas in this thread that you consider to be universal truths? Do you want the debater to think the same way?
• Did you have any expectations of how the dispute was supposed to proceed? Was there enough respect, attention in the dialogue? Hint: if the disputer is not a random passerby, but your friend or family member, and the dispute is not an isolated one, then how do you deal with aggression and protecting your own borders from invasion?
• Why is the opinion of the disputant so important to you? In general, if one’s own rightness so needs the whole world to agree with it, is the disputant really sure of it himself? Who does he really want to convince?