The Waging Dialogue Project is a search for new and better ways of communicating across divides. Cultural and technological forces are dividing people across modern society, leaving political systems stagnant and ineffectual. Efforts to address this toxic polarization typically stress the need for debate, empathy, and compromise, but this may not provide a complete or lasting solution. As unprecedented advances in technology radically reshape how we interact, the time to develop a model for true shared understanding may be now or never. This will require a major advancement in the science of human psychology.
Our Theory
Bridging divides and mitigating toxic polarization takes more than empathy. We can harness the tools of psychology to make structural changes in how we think, feel, and communicate with people who are different from us.
Our Research Laboratory
Dialogue is the heart of our research. We bring together people of different backgrounds, experiences, and opinions to talk with one another — in two-person dyads and small groups. We learn from these challenging conversations through our unique Meta-dialogue analysis.
Our Instructional Products
We have created curricula for middle school and community college students that promote communication and understanding. We currently run a job-skills based microcredentialing program for adult learners and are developing an online version for the general public.
Waging Dialogue in Action
Videos
Subscribe to our YouTube channel to view the dialogues at the heart of our research, and videos highlighting the work we’ve done with young people.
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Our species is brilliant at bridging divides in science and technology, but we’re terrible at bringing divides between one another. With all of the violent and fear-based battles of ideology and identity fought on the planet today, we humans are long overdue for an evolutionary leap.
We can change the fight-or-flee dynamic by changing the very wiring of our brains. What if we used words instead of wars; shared insights and transformational moments instead of battles between victor and victim; discovered creative solutions and new directions instead of “I’m right, you’re wrong”?
Begin now. Invite friends, “frenemies” and colleagues from different ideological centers to talk to—rather than at, about or against—one another. When impasses arise, look to language to build bridges. Ask new questions. Share what works and what doesn’t. Make it interesting and fun. Be on the frontlines of an exciting new movement. Pass it on.
Dr Alice L Maher, Founder of Waging Dialogue
WAGING DIALOGUE is a project of CHANGING OUR CONSCIOUSNESS, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, founded in 2009, that develops theoretical, methodological, and educational tools to understand and mitigate intergroup conflict. By developing emotional literacy – the capacity to view the world through others’ eyes – we facilitate dialogue between people of different thoughts, beliefs and communication styles, counter prejudice and stigma, and transform education. Join one of our projects and become part of the next innovation in human understanding