The Psychological Value of Balanced Pragmatism

Source: Image Generated with AI ∙ June 4, 2024 at 8:48 AM

We live in an era of intense political division. Indeed, things are so deeply split, that is hard for people who have opposing views on an issue to even talk to each other. So, what kind of signals could someone with a deeply-held view on an issue send to others that would get others who disagree with them to want to engage?

This topic was explored in a fascinating paper by Curtis Puryear and Kurt Gray in a 2024 issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. They suggest that people want to talk to other people they disagree with when they have positive perceptions of them (believing that they are moral, intelligent, rational, and authentic), and that the best way to improve this perception is to use a strategy of balanced pragmatism.

Balanced pragmatism is a strategy in which people are willing to consider the views of people they disagree with (that is, they are balanced), and they seek solutions to difficult problems that will actually work (that is, they are pragmatic). The authors argue this strategy is better than either balance or pragmatism alone and also better than strategies like giving good logical arguments in favor of your own view.

The value of balanced pragmatism was tested both for perceptions of politicians as well as for perceptions of potential conversation partners.

In studies of politicians, participants viewed either videos or read tweets by actual politicians. Both Democratic and Republican politicians were selected, so that studies could explore the impact of communication strategies on perceptions both of people you are likely to agree with and people you are likely to disagree with. Some videos were selected to display balanced pragmatism in which the politician showed openness to other views and a desire to find solutions to hard problems. Judgments of the perception of these politicians and interest in engaging with them were compared to a variety of other conditions that did not display balanced pragmatism including other videos, campaign ads, and biographies of the politicians.

The results were consistent. Overall, when judging a politician from another party, people viewed politicians more positively and were more interested in engaging with them when they used a balanced pragmatism strategy than when they used other strategies. The balanced pragmatism strategy had little impact on judgments about politicians a person was inclined to agree with. That means that there is no negative impact of using this strategy, and it can increase engagement with people who you are likely to disagree with.

In addition to doing several studies on perceptions of politicians, the researchers also explored the impact of balanced pragmatism on perceptions of other people you might want to talk with. One study demonstrated that when given instructions, people can display balanced pragmatism in a statement about their own views (though they don’t tend to do it naturally, and they’re not very good at it even when prompted). Other studies found that judgments of other people are favorably influenced by a balanced pragmatism strategy compared to giving a logical statement of your own views. That is, people found others who show themselves to be balanced and pragmatic to be more moral, intelligent, and worthy of respect than individuals who give a logical argument about their opinion. They were also more interested in engaging with people who display balanced pragmatism compared to individuals who just give a good logical argument.

These results suggest that when you’re evaluating an opponent or a politician, you want to engage with someone when you think they are looking to do something productive. Just hearing someone give an impassioned defense of something they care about is often not that useful. Engaging with someone who respects your views and wants to solve problems is more likely to lead to progress. In these challenging political times, there is great value in adopting a balanced pragmatic attitude.