Study explores why we disagree so often

[Kyng]

https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/03/16/new...ach-other/

Is a dog more similar to a chicken or an eagle? Is a penguin noisy? Is a whale friendly?

Psychologists at the University of California, Berkeley, say these absurd-sounding questions might help us better understand what’s at the heart of some of society’s most vexing arguments.

Research published online Thursday in the journal Open Mind shows that our concepts about and associations with even the most basic words vary widely. At the same time, people tend to significantly overestimate how many others hold the same conceptual beliefs — the mental groupings we create as shortcuts for understanding similar objects, words or events.

It’s a mismatch that researchers say gets at the heart of the most heated debates, from the courtroom to the dinner table.

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Yeah, I've lost count of the number of times I've found myself in a heated argument, only to eventually discover that we'd been talking past each other the whole time. I was using a word to use one thing; the other person was using the same word to mean something else; and neither of us was aware of this as the argument unfolded .

Obviously this isn't the only source of disagreement (after all, we genuinely do all have different values and personal experiences!), but it probably is the easiest to overcome once we know it exists .

[Emerald]

Easily done and good for someone to realise they are squabbling over identical yet different opinions lol

[Moonface]

If neither side is seeing things from the perspective of the other at all, I think it's always going to be hard for both parties to be talking on the same page just as would be the case if both sides were talking about a viewpoint they actually share but leave enough ambiguity to not notice that sharing the same viewpoint doesn't automatically mean sharing the view from the same angle.

Failing to connect with the opposing side also means you're likely to not say anything that gets your point through to them, since it'll probably just turn into one or both sides just regurgitating talking points, like a structure not connecting to its foundations for its weight to actually mean something.