How to talk someone out of bigotry

https://www.vox.com/2020/1/29/21065620/broockman-kalla-deep-canvassing

By Brian Resnick
Jan 29, 2020, 9:40am EST

What does it take to divert someone away from prejudice and toward greater acceptance of others in order to build support for progressive causes? “Deep canvassing,” a relatively new technique, is showing promise — and is backed by rigorous testing from researchers and activists in the field.

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The new research shows that if you want to change someone’s mind, you need to have patience with them, ask them to reflect on their life, and listen. It’s not about calling people out or labeling them fill-in-the-blank-phobic. Which makes it feel like a big departure from a lot of the current political dialogue.

“I think in today’s world, many communities have a call-out culture,” says David Broockman, a UC Berkeley political scientist who has run these experiments with Josh Kalla, a political scientist at Yale University. “Twitter is obviously full of the notion that what we should do is condemn those who disagree with us. What we can now say experimentally, the key to the success of these conversations is doing the exact opposite of that.”

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