full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Julia Dhar: How to disagree productively and find common ground

Unscramble the Blue Letters


One of the reasons it is so hard to disagree productively is because we become aahtectd to our ieads. We start to believe that we own them and that by extension, they own us. But eventually, if you debate long enough, you will switch sides, you'll argue for and against the expansion of the welfare state. For and against compulsory voting. And that ersxicee flips a kind of cognitive switch. The suspicions that you hold about people who espouse beliefs that you don't have, starts to evaporate. Because you can imagine yourself stepping into those sehos. And as you're stepping into those, you're embracing the humility of uncertainty. The possibility of being wrong. And it's that exact hiulmtiy that makes us better decision-makers.

Open Cloze


One of the reasons it is so hard to disagree productively is because we become ________ to our _____. We start to believe that we own them and that by extension, they own us. But eventually, if you debate long enough, you will switch sides, you'll argue for and against the expansion of the welfare state. For and against compulsory voting. And that ________ flips a kind of cognitive switch. The suspicions that you hold about people who espouse beliefs that you don't have, starts to evaporate. Because you can imagine yourself stepping into those _____. And as you're stepping into those, you're embracing the humility of uncertainty. The possibility of being wrong. And it's that exact ________ that makes us better decision-makers.

Solution


  1. attached
  2. exercise
  3. ideas
  4. humility
  5. shoes

Original Text


One of the reasons it is so hard to disagree productively is because we become attached to our ideas. We start to believe that we own them and that by extension, they own us. But eventually, if you debate long enough, you will switch sides, you'll argue for and against the expansion of the welfare state. For and against compulsory voting. And that exercise flips a kind of cognitive switch. The suspicions that you hold about people who espouse beliefs that you don't have, starts to evaporate. Because you can imagine yourself stepping into those shoes. And as you're stepping into those, you're embracing the humility of uncertainty. The possibility of being wrong. And it's that exact humility that makes us better decision-makers.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
mister rogers 6
shared reality 4
senator pastore 4
disagree productively 3
big idea 2
cable news 2
person making 2
finding common 2


Important Words


  1. argue
  2. attached
  3. beliefs
  4. cognitive
  5. compulsory
  6. debate
  7. disagree
  8. embracing
  9. espouse
  10. evaporate
  11. eventually
  12. exact
  13. exercise
  14. expansion
  15. extension
  16. flips
  17. hard
  18. hold
  19. humility
  20. ideas
  21. imagine
  22. kind
  23. long
  24. people
  25. possibility
  26. productively
  27. reasons
  28. shoes
  29. sides
  30. start
  31. starts
  32. state
  33. stepping
  34. suspicions
  35. switch
  36. uncertainty
  37. voting
  38. welfare
  39. wrong