EP 06 - What We Talk About When We Talk About Politics

Visit our website BeautifulIllusions.org for a complete set of show notes and links to almost everything discussed in this episode

Selected References:

5:53 - See “This is why you get worked up about politics, according to science” (CNN, 2017)7:58 - Difficult Conversations by by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen11:04 - “According to Peter Ditto, a psychology professor and researcher who studies motivated reasoning and what he refers to as “hot cognition” - the interface between passion and reason,“People think that they think like scientists, But really they think like lawyers. Scientists don't care what the answer is: they look at the data and draw a conclusion, Lawyers know the conclusion they want to reach, then they harness a bunch of facts to support that conclusion.” And this is how we construct our political facts, whether we realize we’re doing it or not.” - For more on this, confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and other cognitive biases see “When It Comes to Politics You’re Not As Rational As You Think” (University of California News, 2016) and “Cognitive Biases Cheat Sheet” from writer Buster Benson, author of Why Are We Yelling? The Art of Productive Disagreement14:42 - See “This Article Won’t Change Your Mind” (The Atlantic, 2019) or “Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds” (James Clear)15:25 - See “Why Won’t They Listen?” (New York Times, 2012) and Jonathan Haidt interview with Tamler Sommers 17:49 - See “The Psychology Behind Why Politics Can Get So Heated — and How to Show Up Differently” (Healthline)18:29 - “Due to this overlapping of identities, political identity is now sometimes referred to as a mega identity. According to political psychologist and author Liliana Mason, people have a huge number of different group identities, any of which might seem the most salient at any given time. In general, the identity at the top of your mind at any given moment most likely will be the identity facing the most pressing threat. But over the past few decades, the parties have become increasingly aligned with other social identities including race, religion, and rural or urban location. And when these links start connecting our parties and other parts of our social identities, then all of this gets drawn into that one particular political competition. once these mega-identities get formed, we start to think of out-group partisans as quite different from us — not just in terms of their political views, but also racially, religiously, and with any number of overlapping categories. We feel ever more socially distant from these out-group members, which makes it easier to dehumanize them, to think about them with less generosity.” - See “As the Rhetoric Escalates: Talking with Liliana Mason” an interview with Lilliana Mason, political psychologist and author of Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity22:40 - The exact lyric is “Scotty liked all of the books that I recommended even if he didn't I wouldn't be offended........” in the song “Tire Swing” by Kimya Dawson, which appears on the Juno movie soundtrack20:54 - Social Identity Theory23:52 - “For people who pay attention to such things, New Haven is widely regarded as a pizza mecca, and is home to a few locations, most notably Pepe’s and Sally’s, that frequently appear on best pizza lists. Locals not only identify as being defenders of New Haven pizza, or more appropriately “apizza,” against other cities such as New York and Chicago, but also within New Haven everyone has a particular place that they argue is the best. For what it’s worth, and although I’ve certainly softened in my stance, I still happen to be a Pepe’s partisan, and won’t really argue unless you try to tell me that Modern is better.” For more on the New Haven pizza scene see Frank Pepe’s Pizzeria Napoletana, and “The Definitive Guide to New Haven Pizza” (Eater, 2014)25:08 - See Negative Partisanship, “Negative Partisanship Explains Everything” (Politico, 2017), “How Hatred Came to Dominate American Politics” (FiveThirtyEight, 2020), and “The rise of negative partisanship and the nationalization of U.S. elections in the 21st century” (Electoral Studies, 2016)28:55 - See Dehumanization, “What Is Dehumanization Anyway?” (Psychology Today, 2018), “The 5 Steps of Dehumanization” (Psychology Today, 2018) and “Dehumanizing Always Starts With Language” (Brene Brown, 2018)30:48 - See “The Age of “Mega-Identity” Politics” (The Ezra Klein Show) - an interview with Lilliana Mason30:52 - Minimal Group Paradigm30:57 - See “Robbers Cave Experiment” (Simply Psychology) and “Revisiting Robbers Cave: The easy spontaneity of intergroup conflict” (Scientific American, 2012)43:08 - “Six of One - Obamacare vs. The Affordable Care Act” (2013  video clip from Jimmy Kimmel Live)44:00 - See “Party Over Policy: The Dominating Impact of Group Influence on Political Beliefs” by Jeffrey Cohen (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2003)51:48 - “Don’t put too many onions in the sauce” (video clip from Goodfellas)55:52 - See “Teresa Bejan on Free Speech, Civility, and Toleration” (Episode 116 of the Mindscape Podcast) - an interview with Teresa Bejan, political scientist and author of Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration56:45 - See “Managing Conversations When You Disagree Politically” (American Psychological Association)

This episode was recorded in October 2020

The “Beautiful Illusions Theme” was performed by Darron Vigliotti (guitar) and Joseph Vigliotti (drums), and was written and recorded by Darron Vigliotti