The Key to Rational Argument: Reframe It as a Partnership

One important mental shift that I and other people have found really useful in remaining fair minded and objective in arguments is instead of thinking about the argument as a battle where you’re trying to win, reframe it in your mind so that you think of it as a partnership, a collaboration in which the two of you together or the group of you together are trying to figure out the right answer. 

That makes it much easier to evaluate which arguments are good and which arguments are bad because you’re motivated by getting the right answer together rather than by having whatever argument you came into the discussion with turns out to be the right answer.  

In Their Own Words is recorded in Big Think’s studio.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock