In our seemingly ever more polarized world, it can seem next to impossible to cross the political divide and work effectively with someone from the opposing side. Stanford research suggests that a good first step would be to try and empathize with them. What’s more, this empathetic approach might also make each side more persuasive to the other.

“Many people have extreme perceptions of what the other side believes, so it’s really about unfreezing those views and getting people to open up to the other side,” the researchers explain. “Especially nowadays, this a really important thing to do because in many ways we don’t have a shared reality anymore.”

Understanding the other side

The prospects of bipartisanship seem further away than ever, with a 2014 survey revealing that there has been a considerable jump in the number of Republicans and Democrats who have very unfavorable views of their opponents in the 20 years from 1994 to 2014.

This is despite more recent studies suggesting that most people actually want a less partisan form of politics. If people want the different parties to work more effectively together, why are they not doing so? The researchers believe this desire may not survive contact with reality.

“It’s one thing to think it’s worthwhile to cooperate with members of the other party, and it’s another thing to want to have them over to your house for Thanksgiving dinner,” they explain.

Cross-party empathy is an asset

Central to changing the picture is to view cross-party empathy as an asset rather than a liability. This finding emerged after giving volunteers written arguments stating that cross-partisan empathy is either capable of increasing one’s persuasiveness or diminishing it.

Those in the group informed that it was beneficial tended to have a much higher desire for bipartisan cooperation than their peers as a result of this change in their mindset. The researchers then wanted to test if this change in attitude translated into changes in behavior.

More persuasive

A second group of volunteers was primed to either think that cross-partisan empathy was beneficial or not, before then writing a short message designed to try and convince others to change their views on gun laws.

“The effects on message ratings are sizable: messages from the high-utility condition were 98% more likely to be seen as empathic and 64% more likely to be seen as persuasive by outpartisan readers than ones from the low-utility condition,” the researchers explain.

“It turns out that empathy can be shockingly powerful at helping us connect across differences,” they conclude, “especially when people know it can.”