For the most part I’ve mentioned my sources in the text and they can be found in the bibliography; here I’ll note those I haven’t explicitly cited, along with any additional observations.
PART ONE
1. Beyond Fight or Flight
The study of discussion threads in a BBC forum is by Chmiel et al. Edward Hall introduced the concept of high- and low-context cultures in his 1976 book Beyond Culture. The example of bubuzuke in Kyoto is cited in Nishimura et al. (its original source is literature from the Kyoto Tourist Board). The quote, ‘the constant and sometimes never-ending use of words’, is also from Nishimura. On this topic I also drew on papers by Croucher, and Kim. The study on the diversity of news diets is the Reuters Institute Digital News Report, reported on by Fletcher et al. in NiemanLab. The Columbia University study is by Sun and Slepian. The Harvard Business School study is by Noam Wasserman. For evidence on how anger affects the way we perceive people and make decisions, see DeSteno.
Since they are both classed as ‘negative emotions’ in psychology, sadness and anger are often studied together. It turns out that they have contrasting effects on our thinking. In a study by Litvak et al., undergraduates primed to feel either sad or angry were asked to imagine themselves in an emotionally charged scenario (for instance, you invite someone you’ve just met to your house party because you think there might be a chance of romance, and they turn up with a girlfriend, leaving you feeling embarrassed). People feeling sad were more likely to think reflectively and analytically about the ambiguities of the situation; those primed to be in an angry mood were quicker to assign blame and identify culprits.
The other studies I refer to on parent–child conflict are by Brett Laursen (‘three or four conflicts with parents’) and Ryan Adams, with Laursen (‘a 2007 study’).
2. How Conflict Brings Us Closer
My account of William Ickes’s experiments is drawn from his book, Everyday Mind Reading. The conversation between Penny and her husband is recorded in Sillars et al., ‘Stepping into the stream of thought: Cognition during marital conflict’. My conversation with Alan Sillars was important to everything I say in this chapter, including the distinction between relationship and content. For the section on workplace conflict I drew on the meta-analysis by Carsten et al., as well as De Wit. ‘Both male and female senior execs were expected to conform to dominant norms’ is from Martin and Meyerson.
3. How Conflict Makes Us Smarter
‘Psychologists have now established beyond doubt that people are more likely to notice and consider evidence that confirms what they believe . . .’ For a review of evidence for confirmation bias, see Nickerson. On evidence for ‘intelligent and educated people are just better at persuading themselves they’re right’ – see for instance the paper by Richard West et al. The story of John Yudkin is based on my article for the Guardian, ‘The Sugar Conspiracy’.
4. How Conflict Inspires Us
For my account of the Wright Brothers’ arguments I relied on Mark Eppler’s marvellous book, The Wright Way. He called their approach to problem-solving in argument ‘forging’. The stories and interviews about rock groups are largely drawn from my article for 1843 magazine, ‘A Rocker’s Guide To Management’. For anecdotes about the Beatles I relied on Mark Lewisohn’s definitive history of the group’s early years, Tune In. Bormann’s theory is described in Group Dynamics by Donelson Forsyth. I found the story about Crick and Watson in Joshua Wolf Shenk’s excellent book, Powers of Two.
PART TWO
5. First, Connect
The video and partial transcript of Susan Bro’s eulogy for her daughter Heather Heyer can be found at https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/coralewis/heres-heather-heyers-mothers-eulogy-they-wanted-to-shut-her. My account of Heather’s murder is drawn from published accounts and from conversations with Susan Bro and Alfred Wilson. Susan told me that there is footage of Heather, shortly before she was killed, going over to one of the young neo-Nazis and attempting to engage her in conversation. ‘Can you tell me why you came? Can you tell me why you believe what you believe?’ The woman simply said, repeatedly, ‘No comment.’ Please visit the website of the Heather Heyer Foundation, which has established a scholarship programme providing financial assistance to young people passionate about social change.
The significance of a pause at the start of a phone conversation is observed in Elizabeth Stokoe’s fascinating book Talk: The Science of Conversation. The observation by Eli Pariser was made in an interview with Wired, conducted by Jessi Hempel.
6. Let Go of the Rope
The interrogation video I witnessed, and my interviews with the Alisons, Stephen Rollnick, and Steven Klein, are based on an article for the Guardian I researched and wrote in 2017 (which was also informed by an interview with William Miller). Details have been changed including the name of the interviewee in the video. The quotes from the interrogation are verbatim. My permission to view the tape was negotiated with the UK counter-terrorist police when I was writing the piece.
Carli Leon is quoted in a 2018 Voice of America News article by Sadie Witkowski.
The reference to ‘public health officials’ and Emma Wagner is from a New York Times article by Jan Hoffman. The 2011 study on therapy is by Freda McManus et al., and the German study is by Ziem and Hoyer.
7. Give Face
For the Mandela story I relied on John Carlin’s marvellous portrait of the man, Knowing Mandela, which I strongly recommend. The Twitter study is by Zhu and Lerman. The story of Laura Chasin is told in Peter Coleman’s book, The Five Percent. A transcript and video of Ocasio-Cortez’s discussion of disagreement can be found here https://theintercept.com/2019/03/09/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-aoc-sxsw.
8. Check Your Weirdness
I drew on multiple sources for my account of the Waco incident, including books by Thibodeau and Reavis. My biggest debt is to Jane Docherty’s erudite and penetrating analysis of the negotiations, Learning Lessons From Waco (and a subsequent interview she gave, cited). I’m also indebted to Malcolm Gladwell’s superb article for the New Yorker. The ‘completely sadistic’ quote is from Danny Coulson’s memoir of working for the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, No Heroes. For my account of Joe Henrich’s work I drew on an interview with him conducted by Ethan Watters for Pacific Standard. For Richard Lewis’s analysis of cultural differences in negotiation, see his book When Cultures Collide.
10. Make Wrong Strong
I owe thanks to Paul Taylor for my introduction to Miriam Oostinga’s work on apologies in hostage negotiation. I made the connection to Ben Ho’s work after hearing an episode of the excellent Freakonomics podcast, devoted to apology (the podcast is hosted by Stephen Dubner). Costly signals come in many forms. In the eighteenth century, pirates flew the skull and crossbones flag because nobody else would dare to. Piracy was illegal and punishable by death. The pirates’ victims were therefore more likely to surrender without a struggle if they saw the flag, since they knew they were dealing with recklessly flamboyant criminals.
11. Disrupt the Script
For my account of the Oslo negotiations I relied on Jane Corbin’s compelling and authoritative book, as well as an email conversation with Terje Rød-Larsen. I first came across the story after watching the brilliant play Oslo by J. T. Rogers. Peter Coleman also runs the Intractable Conflicts Lab, encountered earlier. For much more on the dynamics of conflict I recommend his excellent book, The Five Percent.
12. Share Constraints
Change My View continues at Reddit but Kal Turnbull has now established a new and independent website and app called Ceasefire (ceasefire.net). I advise you to check it out and perhaps test some of your beliefs there. The Cornell study of CMV discussions is by Chenhao Tan et al. The finding that longer replies are more persuasive than shorter ones chimes with the findings of an investigation into a change that Twitter made to its platform in 2017, when it doubled the 140-character limit to 280. A statistical analysis published in the Journal of Communication (Jaidker et al.) revealed that the change made political discourse on the site more polite, analytical and constructive.
13. Only Get Mad on Purpose
The University College London study is by Shergill et al.
In Japan, Ellis Amdur studied a 400-year-old martial art called araki-ryu. For the first three months, the only technique that he was permitted to practise was serving sake to his teacher in a way that concealed his intention. He carried the sake on a sanpo: a traditional wooden tray that must be carried at eye level. At the very moment he served the tea he was to draw a concealed mock knife (made of oak) and attempt an assassination. If his teacher detected the merest hint of intent to attack, he would take out a wooden weapon and strike or stab his pupil, often leaving bruises.
The Huthwaite research findings have been summarised by the company’s founder Neil Rackham in a paper called ‘The Behaviour of Successful Negotiators’.
PART THREE
15. The Infinite Game
The Bertrand Russell letter is in Ronald Clark’s biography of Russell.
My account of Roger Williams’s life is drawn from Teresa Bejan’s book and also from John Barry’s excellent biography of him. In the same year as The Bloudy Tenent was published, his friend John Milton published Areopagitica, his polemic in praise of freedom of speech: ‘Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.’
On democracy as an infinite game, I was also influenced by David Hume’s argument that society should be built on a conflict that is always balanced and never resolved: ‘In all governments, there is a perpetual intestine struggle, open or secret, between Authority and Liberty, and neither of them can absolutely prevail in the contest.’
On the French culture of argumentation: before the Normandy landings of 1944, the British Army issued a manual to its troops instructing them in native cultural habits. It included this warning: ‘By and large, Frenchmen enjoy intellectual argument more than we do. You will often think that two Frenchmen are having a violent quarrel when they are simply arguing about some abstract point.’
Susan Bro puts great emphasis on being respectful, but civility, she told me, is not quite enough. ‘Trying to talk civilly to everyone is not going to work because then they don’t understand your anger. So you should be passionate, but you also have to try to hear what the other person is saying, even if you’re not ever going to agree with them.’
I came across Mary Parker Follett in Peter Coleman’s book The Five Percent, and then in Andrea Gabor’s Capitalist Philosophers. I also drew on papers on Follett by Gary Nelson and Judy Whipps (the latter includes a marvellous quote from Follett: ‘Truth emerges from difference . . . from all the countless differings of our daily lives.’
17. Toolkit of Productive Argument
George Thompson’s quote can be found in his book Verbal Judo, which contains many other diamond-like aphorisms (‘Insult strengthens resistance, civility weakens it’; ‘When you stop thinking like the other, you lose your power over them’) and much wisdom about how to handle conflict.