[Applause]
when it gets to politics we all get a
little weird and by we I don’t just mean
us in this room
I mean people across the globe so let me
rephrase when it gets to politics no
matter who we are and no matter where we
live we all just get a little weird also
when we make political decisions we just
cannot seem to follow our material
self-interest
we just don’t we just won’t very often
we make political decisions that don’t
just disregard our self-interest but
directly oppose it that’s the test do
you know somebody who’s rather wealthy
and votes progressive and do you know
somebody who’s rather poor and votes
conservative well both these people vote
and direct opposition to their own
material gain let’s call them your
friends Dan and Joe your wealthy friend
Dan by voting progressive votes money
right out of his pockets because let’s
be honest progressives are not exactly
known for tax cuts your poor friend
that’s called Joe by voting conservative
votes money out of the public
infrastructure that he depends on
because again let’s be honest
conservatives are not exactly known for
pouring money into the public welfare
system so as I said when it comes to
politics we all get a little weird we
just cannot seem to follow our
self-interest now when you want to find
out what people
truly care about because clearly we all
seem to have a hard time keeping our
eyes on any one specific material price
if you want to find out what people
truly care in politics about in politics
where do you go what do you look at you
look at the mind you go to the mind and
when you get there what do you do you
take really really deep you unveil the
hidden structures of the mind you are in
essence being a mind archaeologist and
you look at the structures that are just
not obvious and by doing that you can
get an increasingly clear answer to the
question of how come that some of us are
progressive against our material
self-interest very often how come some
of us are conservative and yet others
are torn because by the way what the
heck is going on with a political middle
how come that those folks just simply
cannot seem to make up their mind about
what it is they want in politics and how
can we move them in order to understand
these deeper layers of the mind you
unearth the non-obvious the non-obvious
structures of our cognition and there is
something that is not obvious about the
way we reason about the world that we
need to know about if we want to
understand better what’s going on with
these political choices and that is that
your brain my brain everybody’s brain
loves concrete world experience loves to
think about the world in terms of things
that we have experienced in our life
things we can see things we can touch
things we can smell things we can hear
our brain loves that stuff
what our brain doesn’t have so much is
abstract ideas such as politics because
politics cannot be easily touched seeing
heard smelled any of those things so
that is a fundamental truth about the
way that our brains work our brains want
to think about the abstract in terms of
the concrete taking this fundamental
truth about the brain into account my
colleague George lay cough in 1996 came
up with a revolutionary approach to
understanding what conservatives really
want what progressives really want why
the middle just cannot seem to to decide
what they really want and what he said
is this look if our brain likes to think
about the world the abstract political
world in terms of concrete stuff where
do you think it turns what is that most
concrete experience we all have with
being part of an in-group and having
authority it’s the family so what he
found is that very commonly
automatically implicitly we cognize
political realities in terms of family
life and so he said well maybe what
conservatives really care about is
strict family values strict tough love
parenting and maybe what moves
progressives is nurture and empathic
Family Values and maybe the middle just
cannot decide because they cannot make
up their mind what they want not just
some politics but in parenting for the
past 10 years for the past decade I’ve
been fascinated with these questions and
together with my lovely colleague George
Lakoff and my equally lovely colleague
Matt Feinberg have run a series of over
two dozen studies looking into exactly
these questions essentially taking
the idea I just laid out and digging
deeper and deeper and deeper into
different aspects of it and here’s three
things we asked in specific question one
is it true that we implicitly map our
family values on to politics
question two our our family values a
better indicator of our political
behavior than our material interest and
question three what the heck moves the
middle and how can we persuade them in
elections as you know that’s a hot topic
across the world in politics because
everybody wants to persuade the middle
or at least understand what they you
know where they come from so in a first
study we tackle this problem and imagine
for a moment you’re one of our
participants in this study what we do is
we tell you look congratulations you’ve
just become a parent you have a baby boy
let’s name an Albert and Albert has been
crying all night and you checked
numerous times and there’s nothing wrong
with him
Albert is just trying because he’s
crying now we give you two options to
choose from option number one you pick
Albert up and you soothe them option
number two you let Albert cry himself to
sleep think for a moment about what your
answer would be to that question option
a is nurture and parenting you focus on
empathy and compassion you want to let
Albert know that he’s not alone in this
world
option B is strict parenting you focus
on self-reliance Albert needs to toughen
up
after we gave you these options we well
if you happen and our experiment would
have given you an opinion poll on
politics something that is seemingly
entirely unrelated asking you about the
environment taxation and the economy and
so on
what do you think would have happened
well here is what did happen people
polarize politically the moment we got
them to deeply think about their family
values they actually changed their
political values well they increased
their political stances study number two
remember the question was if not
material interest then what moves people
in politics and to strict values and
family life predict conservatism to
nurture and values predict progressivism
and our people in the middle just torn
in terms of what they believe is ideal
parenting in other words if Dan and Joe
your wealth in your poor friend do not
vote their self-interest can we
understand what moves them politically
by asking them about how they would run
a family
maybe that’s the type of opinion polls
we need to do if you really want to know
what people are up to politically stop
asking for material interests and start
asking for family values and here’s the
study we did we gave people statements
about parenting and they had to indicate
their agreement statements like tough
love is required to raise a child right
straight or children have to learn to
see the world through other people’s
eyes nurturing and then we looked at how
people with strict and nurture and
values positioned themselves politically
and what we saw is exactly what we
predicted
strict family values translated into
conservatism nurturing family values
translated into progressivism and then
people who just couldn’t decide terms of
political positions were also morally
torn between family ideals on to the
third question which x3 actually relates
to the point I was just making if people
in the middle are torn in terms of their
family values then there might be an
opportunity to move them politically by
doing what not addressing their material
interests we’re going to lower your
taxes we’re going to give you better
schools etc but by appealing to their
family values and that is exactly what
we tackled and study three study three
we wanted to find out whether or not
people would move based on material gain
and or whether they would move based on
moral argumentation to do this we turn
to the 2016 US presidential elections
and we took people and asked them about
their support for Donald Trump as a
candidate and then of course we asked
them about family values were they
strict were they nurture and were they
torn and what we saw and this shouldn’t
come as a surprise at this point is that
people that supported Trump had strict
Family Values and people who opposed him
had rather nurture and family values and
then folks in the middle that still
hadn’t quite decided what they wanted to
do in the election endorsed both types
of parenting they said I can go either
way I can be a strict parent punishment
is important and I can be a nurturing
parent you know I’ll always go the extra
mile and talk to my child about about
why something is wrong but I told you
this study wasn’t primarily about
out testing again whether these values
predict political positioning what we
really wanted to know is how can we move
these people toward Trump so we gave
them wonderful statements by supposed
experts independent experts who had
studied the political scenery and we’re
now ready to tell them look if you vote
for Trump the economy in America is
going to go through the roof what do you
think did they move you’re still not
convinced that’s okay it’s over I mean
if you think about the way that we think
about politics that we talk about
politics the way that campaigns are run
or you have issues i loose and you try
to address people’s interests women the
poor the single mothers the what you
know whatever you have it’s just not a
way that we’re used to think when it
comes to politics so no they did not
move toward Trump is the short answer
well then we gave them a moral argument
and we said look experts have found out
that Trump is exactly the strict father
that our nation needs right now and they
just scrambled toward Trump they said oh
well they didn’t say this consciously
they’re unconscious minds at whoa this
is great I just found my moral match I
just found somebody who’s gonna run this
nation the way that I would run a family
and that’s great
and that is where the political decision
came from in that moment so in these
three studies we tackled the question of
how do people become conservative or
progressive and why some of us are in
the middle why some of us are
ideologically affect flexible or in
other words open to suggestions from
either side now I started this talk out
by saying that when it comes to politics
we all get a little weird
because we cannot seem to follow our
self-interest well the truth is that
when you look at the unconscious mind if
you look at the brain and the way it
makes political decisions with the
opposite of weird we make decisions in a
very principled way based on our family
values based on something that we deeply
deeply care about and what does that
mean for political conversation well
once you understand that your political
opponent is doing nothing but following
their values is trying to do what they
truly honestly believe is best for the
nation you may be able to have more
empathy and respect and form better
coalition’s and also once you get more
clarity about your own values that
underlie your political stances you will
have a much easier time arguing for what
you want forming coalition’s and working
across party lines and seeing that your
true opinions your true political goals
based on your morality not based on
self-interest are being understood and
taken care of thank you
[Applause]
when it gets to politics we all get a
little weird and by we I don’t just mean
us in this room
I mean people across the globe so let me
rephrase when it gets to politics no
matter who we are and no matter where we
live we all just get a little weird also
when we make political decisions we just
cannot seem to follow our material
self-interest
we just don’t we just won’t very often
we make political decisions that don’t
just disregard our self-interest but
directly oppose it that’s the test do
you know somebody who’s rather wealthy
and votes progressive and do you know
somebody who’s rather poor and votes
conservative well both these people vote
and direct opposition to their own
material gain let’s call them your
friends Dan and Joe your wealthy friend
Dan by voting progressive votes money
right out of his pockets because let’s
be honest progressives are not exactly
known for tax cuts your poor friend
that’s called Joe by voting conservative
votes money out of the public
infrastructure that he depends on
because again let’s be honest
conservatives are not exactly known for
pouring money into the public welfare
system so as I said when it comes to
politics we all get a little weird we
just cannot seem to follow our
self-interest now when you want to find
out what people
truly care about because clearly we all
seem to have a hard time keeping our
eyes on any one specific material price
if you want to find out what people
truly care in politics about in politics
where do you go what do you look at you
look at the mind you go to the mind and
when you get there what do you do you
take really really deep you unveil the
hidden structures of the mind you are in
essence being a mind archaeologist and
you look at the structures that are just
not obvious and by doing that you can
get an increasingly clear answer to the
question of how come that some of us are
progressive against our material
self-interest very often how come some
of us are conservative and yet others
are torn because by the way what the
heck is going on with a political middle
how come that those folks just simply
cannot seem to make up their mind about
what it is they want in politics and how
can we move them in order to understand
these deeper layers of the mind you
unearth the non-obvious the non-obvious
structures of our cognition and there is
something that is not obvious about the
way we reason about the world that we
need to know about if we want to
understand better what’s going on with
these political choices and that is that
your brain my brain everybody’s brain
loves concrete world experience loves to
think about the world in terms of things
that we have experienced in our life
things we can see things we can touch
things we can smell things we can hear
our brain loves that stuff
what our brain doesn’t have so much is
abstract ideas such as politics because
politics cannot be easily touched seeing
heard smelled any of those things so
that is a fundamental truth about the
way that our brains work our brains want
to think about the abstract in terms of
the concrete taking this fundamental
truth about the brain into account my
colleague George lay cough in 1996 came
up with a revolutionary approach to
understanding what conservatives really
want what progressives really want why
the middle just cannot seem to to decide
what they really want and what he said
is this look if our brain likes to think
about the world the abstract political
world in terms of concrete stuff where
do you think it turns what is that most
concrete experience we all have with
being part of an in-group and having
authority it’s the family so what he
found is that very commonly
automatically implicitly we cognize
political realities in terms of family
life and so he said well maybe what
conservatives really care about is
strict family values strict tough love
parenting and maybe what moves
progressives is nurture and empathic
Family Values and maybe the middle just
cannot decide because they cannot make
up their mind what they want not just
some politics but in parenting for the
past 10 years for the past decade I’ve
been fascinated with these questions and
together with my lovely colleague George
Lakoff and my equally lovely colleague
Matt Feinberg have run a series of over
two dozen studies looking into exactly
these questions essentially taking
the idea I just laid out and digging
deeper and deeper and deeper into
different aspects of it and here’s three
things we asked in specific question one
is it true that we implicitly map our
family values on to politics
question two our our family values a
better indicator of our political
behavior than our material interest and
question three what the heck moves the
middle and how can we persuade them in
elections as you know that’s a hot topic
across the world in politics because
everybody wants to persuade the middle
or at least understand what they you
know where they come from so in a first
study we tackle this problem and imagine
for a moment you’re one of our
participants in this study what we do is
we tell you look congratulations you’ve
just become a parent you have a baby boy
let’s name an Albert and Albert has been
crying all night and you checked
numerous times and there’s nothing wrong
with him
Albert is just trying because he’s
crying now we give you two options to
choose from option number one you pick
Albert up and you soothe them option
number two you let Albert cry himself to
sleep think for a moment about what your
answer would be to that question option
a is nurture and parenting you focus on
empathy and compassion you want to let
Albert know that he’s not alone in this
world
option B is strict parenting you focus
on self-reliance Albert needs to toughen
up
after we gave you these options we well
if you happen and our experiment would
have given you an opinion poll on
politics something that is seemingly
entirely unrelated asking you about the
environment taxation and the economy and
so on
what do you think would have happened
well here is what did happen people
polarize politically the moment we got
them to deeply think about their family
values they actually changed their
political values well they increased
their political stances study number two
remember the question was if not
material interest then what moves people
in politics and to strict values and
family life predict conservatism to
nurture and values predict progressivism
and our people in the middle just torn
in terms of what they believe is ideal
parenting in other words if Dan and Joe
your wealth in your poor friend do not
vote their self-interest can we
understand what moves them politically
by asking them about how they would run
a family
maybe that’s the type of opinion polls
we need to do if you really want to know
what people are up to politically stop
asking for material interests and start
asking for family values and here’s the
study we did we gave people statements
about parenting and they had to indicate
their agreement statements like tough
love is required to raise a child right
straight or children have to learn to
see the world through other people’s
eyes nurturing and then we looked at how
people with strict and nurture and
values positioned themselves politically
and what we saw is exactly what we
predicted
strict family values translated into
conservatism nurturing family values
translated into progressivism and then
people who just couldn’t decide terms of
political positions were also morally
torn between family ideals on to the
third question which x3 actually relates
to the point I was just making if people
in the middle are torn in terms of their
family values then there might be an
opportunity to move them politically by
doing what not addressing their material
interests we’re going to lower your
taxes we’re going to give you better
schools etc but by appealing to their
family values and that is exactly what
we tackled and study three study three
we wanted to find out whether or not
people would move based on material gain
and or whether they would move based on
moral argumentation to do this we turn
to the 2016 US presidential elections
and we took people and asked them about
their support for Donald Trump as a
candidate and then of course we asked
them about family values were they
strict were they nurture and were they
torn and what we saw and this shouldn’t
come as a surprise at this point is that
people that supported Trump had strict
Family Values and people who opposed him
had rather nurture and family values and
then folks in the middle that still
hadn’t quite decided what they wanted to
do in the election endorsed both types
of parenting they said I can go either
way I can be a strict parent punishment
is important and I can be a nurturing
parent you know I’ll always go the extra
mile and talk to my child about about
why something is wrong but I told you
this study wasn’t primarily about
out testing again whether these values
predict political positioning what we
really wanted to know is how can we move
these people toward Trump so we gave
them wonderful statements by supposed
experts independent experts who had
studied the political scenery and we’re
now ready to tell them look if you vote
for Trump the economy in America is
going to go through the roof what do you
think did they move you’re still not
convinced that’s okay it’s over I mean
if you think about the way that we think
about politics that we talk about
politics the way that campaigns are run
or you have issues i loose and you try
to address people’s interests women the
poor the single mothers the what you
know whatever you have it’s just not a
way that we’re used to think when it
comes to politics so no they did not
move toward Trump is the short answer
well then we gave them a moral argument
and we said look experts have found out
that Trump is exactly the strict father
that our nation needs right now and they
just scrambled toward Trump they said oh
well they didn’t say this consciously
they’re unconscious minds at whoa this
is great I just found my moral match I
just found somebody who’s gonna run this
nation the way that I would run a family
and that’s great
and that is where the political decision
came from in that moment so in these
three studies we tackled the question of
how do people become conservative or
progressive and why some of us are in
the middle why some of us are
ideologically affect flexible or in
other words open to suggestions from
either side now I started this talk out
by saying that when it comes to politics
we all get a little weird
because we cannot seem to follow our
self-interest well the truth is that
when you look at the unconscious mind if
you look at the brain and the way it
makes political decisions with the
opposite of weird we make decisions in a
very principled way based on our family
values based on something that we deeply
deeply care about and what does that
mean for political conversation well
once you understand that your political
opponent is doing nothing but following
their values is trying to do what they
truly honestly believe is best for the
nation you may be able to have more
empathy and respect and form better
coalition’s and also once you get more
clarity about your own values that
underlie your political stances you will
have a much easier time arguing for what
you want forming coalition’s and working
across party lines and seeing that your
true opinions your true political goals
based on your morality not based on
self-interest are being understood and
taken care of thank you
[Applause]
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