by Corinne Bendersky | 11:00 AM August 12, 2014
How do you encourage someone whose deeply held beliefs are at odds with yours to support and collaborate with you – or, at least, not obstruct you? Obviously, directly challenging their convictions will backfire. My research suggests some effective strategies.
Negotiations 101 teaches us to find something that is valuable to our opponents yet not costly for us to concede in order to encourage concessions from our opponent. In recent research published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, I describe how during ideological conflicts, proactively affirming the status of the people who don’t share your moral convictions may help you work together more effectively and to navigate through tense, complex situations.
In one of my experiments, for example, participants gave away roughly 40% more of their own tickets for a bonus lottery drawing to people who disagreed with them about the Affordable Care Act when their opponent affirmed their status than when he or she did not.
“Status affirmation,” as I call it, is more than being nice or simply saying, “I respectfully disagree.” It’s about satisfying people’s deep-seated, universal desire to be respected and – all things being equal – to generally increase in status over time. Imagine that two colleagues who work at a pharmaceutical company, Sarah and Kevin, have opposing views about Obamacare. While Sarah strongly believes that the legislation was an essential tool to fix our broken health care system, Kevin is adamant that it is an inappropriate government intrusion into the most personal aspects of people’s lives. Their ideological opposition spills over into many aspects of their working relationship and they frequently clash. As a result, Sarah expects Kevin to resist a promotion for which she has applied.
My research suggests that Sarah may be able to disarm Kevin by telling him how much she admired his tact and political savvy in a recent negotiation with a disgruntled client. By affirming that Kevin’s prestige and status in the company had increased as a result of how he handled that situation, Sarah is giving Kevin status, which he likely both desires (even if he never says so explicitly) and doesn’t expect to get from Sarah. Although Kevin probably won’t support Sarah when her promotion comes up for discussion, he is less likely stand in her way.
Here are some tips for how to avoid conflict and affirm your opponent’s status:
- Do not try to change their opinion about the substance of your moral opposition. Unlike other conflicts or negotiations, your aim is not to persuade an opponent to agree with you. Instead, your goal is to engender a mutually respectful and collaborative relationship regardless of your ideological positions. In the previous example, Sarah did not try to change Kevin’s opinion about healthcare but to disassociate their moral positions from their working relationship.
- Be sincere. You have to find something about the person that you really admire. For instance, acknowledge their commitment and passion, or recognize their skills in a completely different domain than the one over which you disagree, such as Sarah’s affirmation of Kevin’s tact with the unhappy client.
- Be specific. Status affirmation is unexpected and may be met with skepticism. Had Sarah said she admires Kevin’s interactions with clients in general, it would have been less compelling and credible than praising what he did in that specific situation.
- Be proactive by affirming status prior to engaging in negotiations or situations in which you need your opponents’ help. Had Sarah complimented Kevin’s handling of the client situation right before he went to the meeting to discuss her promotion, the tactic would have been less likely to succeed.
Although many people intuitively convey general respect when they are in conflicts and negotiations, status affirmation works best when your opponent receives something they really want – meeting an unspoken, underlying desire for status and respect – not just a hollow statement. Thus, proactively articulate sincere, specific respect without trying to persuade your opponents to change their moral convictions.
CORINNE BENDERSKY
Corinne Bendersky is an Associate Professor of Management and Organizations at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
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