The Root of Division in American Conflict with Jen Goldman-Wetzler, Ph.D.

Hey, everyone, and welcome to our Throwback episode. In our Throwback episodes, we are reintroducing you to some of our most popular episodes. This is great for new listeners who want to learn more about the work we've done in the past. And it's a great refresher if you've been a listener for a long time. Enjoy. Jen, thanks for joining us.

Thanks so much for having me. Kwame, great to be back with you.

Yes. It's great to have you again. Yes. You're, you're one of the few who we have brought back because you are the perfect person to talk to in these crazy times we're living in. But before we get into all of that, let's do a reintroduction to the listeners. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Sure. I am the CEO of Alignment Strategies Group, where we work with CEOs and their senior teams to help them communicate across lines of difference more effectively, to help them create optimal outcomes for themselves, for their organizations and their teams, or create organizational health and vitality and growth. And so what that really means is that My background is 25 years of conflict work. My PhD is in Organizational psychology with a focus on intractable conflict, which I'm sure we'll get into in a little while. And I started my career out at the program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School working with executives and global leaders. And it's been 25 years of working with people in high conflict situations from Israel, Palestine to the corporate boardroom and anything in between.

Fantastic. Yes. And so the day we're recording it, it's February 2nd. And we reached out to you early in January because living in America, there's been a lot of conflict recently. I don't know, maybe, maybe you haven't seen it, maybe other people have missed it. But In America in 2021, we started off with a bang. And so I wanted to bring you in because of your background in intractable conflicts, those that just don't seem like they're ever going away. And one of the things that's been interesting about the work that you've done is the role of humiliation in the conflicts that we're seeing. And so I just kind of want to give you the floor and see where we should start as we analyze the situation we're finding ourselves in now and the role that humiliation, shame, those type of things plays into what's happening.

Well, I started my research on humiliation and the role that humiliation plays in exacerbating long term conflict in 2002. And this was obviously right after 9, 11, I began doing my PhD at Columbia and I got a little postcard in the mail saying we're starting this new fellowship that's funded by the U.S. department of Homeland Security. Would you like to apply? Because I had done some work with the National Science foundation and that's how that postcard came to me. And so I applied and proposed that I do work looking at the role that humiliation plays in exacerbating long term conflict. And this was around the time of the Abu Ghraib debacle where American service people had, had been found to be deeply humiliating. People who were in the Abu Ghraib prison and were, you know, this was, this was not a good thing. And so as we look at. And so then I had five years of my research funded by the US Department of Homeland Security and did some fellowships and internships there over my time over those five years. And when I look at what's happening today in America, the lens that I bring is this lens of when you humiliate people, whether intentionally or not, you are more likely to see aggressive behavior or when simply when people feel humiliated for any number of different reasons. What my research found, and I think it's, you know, it's not rocket science, is that when people feel humiliated, they will be more likely to be aggressive than if they don't feel humiliated or if they feel that people are taking care of them and their needs. So we can, you know, say a lot more about that.

Yeah, so it makes sense, right? It makes sense about how humiliation can lead to higher levels of aggression. And I think what would be interesting is to explore the different types of humiliation that exist and the various potential locations where it could come from. How can it come from? What's the genesis? So I think that would be an interesting starting point. What would be considered humiliating to different people at different times?

Well, what your question makes me think about is in my research I looked at the different definitions of shame versus humiliation. And in the scholarly literature, the way that humiliation is differentiated from shame is that shame is a more private emotion that a person might take on themselves. You might feel ashamed when you are by yourself. But the reason why you might feel humiliated, in contrast, is that something has happened to you in a public sphere, even if that is only with you and one other person, but that someone has publicly noticed or seen, acknowledged something that has happened to you, that that would lead you to feel ashamed if you were by yourself. But it's this public experience of it. And so when we also my research happened to be about the differences between feeling humiliated about a social identity characteristic like race, religion, nationality, gender, versus being humiliated about a personality characteristic like whether you're introverted or extroverted or anything that has, that does not have to do with your social identity. And so what I found was that it was particularly when people felt humiliated about a social identity characteristic, they were more likely to become aggressive versus versus when people felt humiliated about a personality characteristic, they were more likely to feel ashamed. That this is something specific to me personally. I'm going to kind of bring it internally. I've read a little bit about, and you can imagine anecdotally differences. You can think about gender differences there too, that women are more likely to bring a sense of, of shame inside of themselves and kind of feel sad or depressed as a result, versus men that might be more likely to lash out or become aggressive in response to feeling humiliated. So there's all these different ways to think about, about what, what do we do with when we feel humiliated? But the way that I think, the way that I think about this today is that when you have a large swath of the American population who may be feeling humiliated about not being able to find a job and attributing that to the color of their skin. Right. I'm a white person from the Bible Belt and jobs are going away. My family has had a job in the coal industry for this many years and now suddenly that's gone. That, that is a very public sense of humiliation or source of humiliation potentially for people. And that to me, it's not a surprise if we would see people kind of joining more right wing extremist groups, whether online or in person, whether violent or just threatening violence as a result.

Yeah, this is a really, really great analysis and it makes sense. And I especially like the distinction between shame and humiliation and how that manifests differently going, it's processed differently and how it can lead to different behavior. I think that's really important. And one of the things that we talked about before is that there's often a danger in focusing too heavily on the cause and then not next steps. Can you tell us a bit more about that too?

Yes. When I was in graduate school, there was a moment towards the end of my five years that I looked up and looked around and realized that I could spend the rest of my life, as I had spent the last five years, looking at the complex causes of seemingly intractable conflicts. And I saw many people around me doing that. And it's good work. And it's important work and people, it's important to define the parameters and how we get stuck. And for myself, I decided, you know, I wanted to spend the rest of my life looking at how can we get out of these kinds of situations. So my hope is that in our conversation today, we can actually, you know, spend a little bit of time, like we just have, looking at, well, how do people get stuck? And emotions are a big piece of that. And the emotion of humiliation in particular is, I think, a big piece of this, of what we're experiencing today. And I wouldn't want us to get stuck there because there's so much more work to be done about, well, how do we get out? How do we get out of it?

How do we get out of this. This seemingly pernicious cycle that we find ourselves in with these conflicts that don't go away?

One way to think about this is, first of all, to acknowledge that emotions are real and emotions can get us deeply stuck. I mean, it is partially about understanding, well, where are we, right? If we just take a pause and we look at what's going on today and we say to ourselves, all right, there are people who are losing their jobs and people who see that as a result of their racial background, the fact they look around and they see that America is becoming more racially diverse, more ethnically diverse, more religiously diverse, and that can feel very threatening. So rather than only focusing on that, we know that intellectually, those. That what I just described may be true, I think we can also. It behooves us to pay attention to the emotions that those people may be experiencing as a result of all of that. And so if we think to ourselves, well, they may be feeling a sense of deep humiliation, that not only am I sad, angry, confused, frustrated because our jobs are going away, I'm also feeling humiliated. And I feel humiliated not only on my own individual behalf or on behalf of my family, but I feel humiliated on behalf of an entire group of people that my social identity represents. And when we know that that may be happening, then we have the capacity to ask ourselves, well, what could we do about that? Right? We don't. And I would not suggest that what we want to do about that is to pander to people and say, well, we're going to bring you your jobs back. Which is really like, in a way, what I mean, not in a way. Very clearly, to me, what Trump was. Was telling them was saying, we're gonna. We're gonna take care of the coal industry, and we're gonna make sure that there's coal jobs forever and ever. I mean, just to me that is, that is not how we handle it. When people are feeling these ways, feeling sad, frustrated, angry, humiliated. What we wanna do is say, first of all, acknowledge it. I mean, you might, it could help to think about it as what would you do if an individual came to you and was feeling those ways? Well, if an individual came to you feeling those ways, you would ideally acknowledge what they're feeling. We get it, get that you may be feeling angry, upset, depressed, not know where your next paycheck is coming from, humiliated. And then second is to say what to think for ourselves. What could we do to help turn this situation around over the long term? Right. I'm not going to kind of give you back your jobs because that's going to lead to other devastating effects with the climate, you know, and we're not going to, we don't want to move backwards in society. We want to move forward. But how can we address the reasons why you might be feeling these ways? That's going to help you, that's going to help all of society at the same time. And to me that's the real conundrum is how do we create this kind of win, win. And I mean, the third thing that really does come to my mind is when we, is that we can predict, we can predict that when people feel a, when people feel humiliated about a social identity characteristic, they are more likely to become aggressive and lash out at the people, particularly at people who they perceive to have wronged them. And so if I am, you know, if I were consulting to the Biden administration at this moment in time, I would say, folks, let's think really hard and really carefully about the messaging to this community. Let's predict that there is going to be right wing extremist behavior that's going to come out. Let's track what people are saying on social media. If there's even a way to prevent the violence by like one, one, one idea that I've had, and I don't know if people are doing this, is to look at social media and look at gun registries and do some kind of analysis of, you know, what people are posting online and then do they own guns and if they do, to be aware that these are potential threats. So my hope, you know, fingers crossed, My, my hope and my prayer is that there are folks in, in, in intelligence who are paying attention to what's being posted online and who is buying guns and to really predict and prevent violence before, before it Happens makes a lot of sense.

And I especially like the focus on the emotional reality of it. Right. Because a lot of times people will belittle the reality of emotions. They will say, okay, that's not the issue right now. The issue is what I deem to be a fact, whatever that happens to be right. And I think something that's going to be really important for us to do is acknowledge it, like you said, and treat it like that, that one on one negotiation. So there's going to be the emotional compone de escalation through acknowledgment and then at the same time, joint problem solving, working together to figure out what the solution is. Because the reality is there are some legitimate concerns. The fact that you do not have a job is a very legitimate concern for you and the people around you. And so we can't just brush people aside and act like it's not a problem, because it is. They have legitimate concerns. And it's tough now, though, in these, in this climate to have these types of meaningful conversations, especially when political ideologies might not be in line. And so in your opinion, for. Let's just think about us as individuals when we're having these meaningful conversations with our friends, our family members, our colleagues at work. How can we avoid shaming somebody, how can we avoid humiliating somebody and try to get to more substantive dialogue that could actually be more collaborative?

Look, I think it's very, very challenging right now. I know why you're asking the question, because that is the question of the hour. And I think the first thing to know is that you are not alone. Obviously, if you are experiencing, having trouble reaching out to people across the aisle, friends, family, coworkers, it is an incredibly tough time. My sense is that, you know, the Biden administration, if you look at the inauguration and the language around unity, here is a leader who is doing his best to help us all know that he's looking out across all of us for the best interests of everyone. And so one thing is to remember that, you know, we have someone who says and seems to care about everyone. I know people who have told me that in just in the last month, they've been reaching out to people by email and by picking up the phone and calling and saying, I know it's been a tough time. I know we haven't had a chance to really talk. Honestly, I'm not sure that we're still, we're going to be able to do that going forward. But I at least want you to know I carry, I care about You. If it's appropriate to say, you know, I love you, and I care about our relationship, I care about our friendship, I care about our working relationship. And I just want you to know I. That, you know, I'm here if you ever want to chat and. And then people can respond. I think to me, that was. That was inspiring to talk to someone who had done that. But I think, you know, it's. It's a rare. It's rare to find people who I think are willing to do that or able to do that. But. But even just putting, you know, putting that. That out there can be a good thing. Um, yeah.

Yeah, it's. It's a tough one. It's really tough. And I think about it from a relationship therapy perspective. You think about John Gottman and the Love Lab out on the west coast and the work that he's done, written several incredible books on marriages and relationships that work. And one of the things he talks about is repair attempts. After you've had a difficult conversation or an argument, whatever it might be, you'll see different members of the relationship. They'll try to do a repair attempt, like, oh, hey, honey, you want to, you know, get some ice cream? Or something like that. It's not something that's in the ordinary. You understand that you're doing it as like a. Well, check essentially for the relationship. And I think it's essentially what you're suggesting there is doing the same thing for these conversations that we're having after we have a tough conversation about politics, checking in to make sure the relationship is good. And I think that's smart and really reaffirming the value that you see in the other person and the relationship. That's really important to help to remind people that there's more to our relationship than this argument. And something that I've recognized, though, is that sometimes people will say something, and for them, they think it's completely okay. They think there was nothing wrong with what they said, but they inadvertently triggered shame. They inadvertently caused the person to feel humiliated. What are some things that we can do to make sure that we don't make those types of mistakes?

So I think this gets back to what you said earlier, which is we can't always control what. How. What we do or say will land on other people. So I may not mean to humiliate you, and I may inadvertently do that. And that may be, you know, whether we're looking at it at the one, on one level, like you and me talking to each other as individuals, or if we're looking at it at the community or even global or national level. I think this same thing applies, that we may not intentionally have meant to humiliate someone. But the key comes that when we recognize, when we acknowledge the way someone may be feeling. And again, it can be very hard to know what someone else is feeling. But sometimes we can tell by what they're feeling, by, you know, if someone's lashing out at you, well, maybe there's a reason for that. Sometimes by the things people say and do, you can have a sense of how they may be feeling or you can ask them, depending on the relationship. And if you have discovered that you have inadvertently led someone to feel embarrassed, ashamed, humiliated, you can apologize. You know, for a good first thing to do, maybe just say, I am sorry that it was not my intention. I've seen. We were talking about the new work that, the new book that you're working on, which is about how to have difficult conversations about race. And I've certainly been in situations where I've seen or I've heard about, someone was telling me they were a facilitator of a conversation where the. The facilitator was a witness to a white person inadvertently committing a microaggression against a person of color. And the facilitator kind of tried to, you know, wasn't sure what to do, and so made like a half cover, you know, half helping move, but it really wasn't enough. And in a situation like that, I've seen the person who made the microaggression feels say things that were so over the top, you know, oh, I'm so, so, so sorry and it's all my fault. And telling story after story about that own that, that person, you know, that that aggressor's wrongdoing, that it was just too much. Right. So I would not. I mean, I'd be curious to hear how you would handle this, given that you're writing a book about it. But I would not advise that. I would advise saying, I'm sorry, that was not my intention, and I'm really sorry for the impact that it had on you. And, and please let me know, you know, anything, any feedback you have for me or something like that. I know sometimes the language of intention and impact cannot be appropriate in those moments too, but. And also skirting around the issue and acting like it didn't happen and not acknowledging the person's feelings, you know, probably also want to away from that. That too. Although it can be very, you know, tricky ground, but taking responsibility for our own, our own mess ups. Even in the case of, of the government. Right. If the, you know, Biden is now taking responsibility, or the Biden administration and everyone working there needs to take responsibility for what has happened over the last four or five years and acknowledge, apologize. Right. That will go a long way towards helping those aggressive reactions from getting worse.

Yeah, that's huge. And the art of apology is difficult to master just from a skills perspective and from an ego perspective in a lot of these situations. And the thing that I really liked about your response there, Jen, was the fact that you said, yeah, you're going to make mistakes. It's not possible for you to avoid making mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. It's how you recover. That's really the key. That's really the key. I make mistakes in these conversations all the time. I'm not as eloquent. And listen, listeners, spoiler alert. We edit the podcast. I'm not as eloquent as you think I am. And when I find myself in those situations where I might have said something the wrong way or I recognize I'm going the wrong way, I'll stop mid sentence and say, you know what, let me say it differently. Or if it, if it came out the wrong way or I recognize it might have had an impact, I'll pause the conversation and say, hey, just want to check, did that come off the wrong way? If it did, let me know. I'll adjust. And then the way that you, you mapped out the apology was really important. And this is something that one of my friends, Alyssa Carpenter, said on the podcast a few months ago. When you're apologizing, you don't want to say I'm sorry. If you're saying I'm sorry that I'm sorry that it had that impact on you. Right. And that key word is so important because you're not saying, hey, if you're like this soft person and super weak, if that hurts your feelings, I'm sorry that you are so fragile. That's really what it comes out as. That's how they feel about that. But instead, if you say I'm sorry, that then it puts you right on the, on track, on the road to recovery. And that's so important in these conversations.

Absolutely. Couldn't have said it better than what you just did.

Fantastic. Well, this is great. And this was really, really helpful. And again, what I really appreciate about this approach is that is its simplicity. The analysis is not that complicated. The things that we need to do in terms of rebuilding these relationships and communicating effectively and making people feel better about the situation is not that complicated. It is difficult. That's the thing. It is difficult to execute. But I really appreciate you bringing some simplicity and clarity to this.

Thank you, Kwame. And I will add, given that you just said that, I think it's okay at this moment in time to not be sending out those olive branches like I was talking about earlier. Of the one person who told me that he was doing that, I thought, you know, kudos to him and that's wonderful and great and he deserves a big, big gold star. And I think at this moment in time, in my opinion, it's okay to simply not be contributing to the acrimony that we're seeing, to not be contributing to the violence, to not be contributing to the violence in words online. So, you know, we're going to have a big shift that needs to happen from the way it's been over the last, you know, many hundreds, couple hundred years and last decades and last five years. And so when you're making such a massive shift, on the one hand, you know, you could think about it as you want this revolutionary change. On the other hand, if you're thinking about what you can do as an individual, I think it's fine to say change takes time. And right now, probably the most. If for you, it feels like the most authentic thing that you can do is to just not do anything that would make things worse, that's good. And you also deserve a gold star. And that's fine in my book as well. Keep it simple. Keep it simple.

I love it. And for those of you out there who say to yourself, I wonder what my conflict style is, and I wonder if there's some kind of tool out there, maybe a quiz perhaps that could help me to figure out what my conflict style is. I guess that's a question I should ask you, Jen. Do you know of such a tool out there?

Well, Kwame, it just so happens that I do. It's called the conflict habits assessment. And you can take it online if you go to optimaloutcomesbook.com/assessment. And there are four different conflict habits that you can diagnose for yourself. You can have other people take it. And then once you know what your conflict habit is and what other people's conflict habits are, you'll see how you tend to get stuck in these conflict situations that just seem to go around and around and around. And then once you know you're stuck, just like we've been talking about this whole conversation, once you can acknowledge where you are in being stuck in, then you can learn how you could do something different to break free from that conflict loop.

Fantastic. Thank you. That's great. I was wondering about that, too, but I'm glad that there's a quiz out there that we can take. Well, Jen, thank you again for coming on the show. We really, really appreciate it.

Thank you so much. Kwame. It's always fun to be in conversation with you, even about such heavy topics.

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