When Dialogue Hurts—and Heals

What happens when a conversation changes you—but the other person never knows? University of Virginia professor Rachel Wahl shares her research on student dialogues that linger long after they end, including one that revealed both the promise and heartbreak of real engagement. This episode dives into what it takes to build understanding across deep divides—and why curiosity and respect might be democracy’s most radical tools.

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Transcript

Michael Lee: [00:00:00] When we disagree is a show about arguments, how we have them, why we have them, and their impact on our relationships and ourselves. The boss has proposed a clearly flawed strategy, but nobody says a word. Doubts remain unvoiced. Heads nod in agreement, and six months later, everyone wonders how such smart people could have made such a terrible decision.

This is group Think where the desire for harmony overrides critical thinking. Irving Janus, the researcher, coined this term after studying foreign policy disasters like the Bay of Pigs invasion. He found that cohesive groups, especially under pressure, often converge on decisions without properly evaluating alternatives.

The scariest part is that members genuinely believe they've reached consensus through careful deliberation when they've actually engaged in collective self-censorship. Groupthink doesn't require weak-minded followers. It happens in family [00:01:00] interventions that backfires spectacularly because nobody wanted to seem unsupportive.

It happens in friend groups. Where everyone pretends to enjoy activities they secretly hate because they assume that others love them. The restaurant, everyone agrees to visit, but nobody actually likes. That's group think and action. Romantic relationships create two person, group. Think couples develop shared delusions about their finances, parenting skills, or relational health, because challenging these beliefs feels like betrayal.

We're not like other couples, becomes a mantra that prevails. And it prevents honest disagreement. Friends watching dysfunctional relationships wonder why the couple can't see obvious problems. They're trapped in their private group. Think bubble Workplace Group think produces spectacular failures too.

Tech companies convince themselves their product is revolutionary while ignoring user complaints or marketing teams fall in love with campaigns that customers genuinely hate. Cults represent Group [00:02:00] thinks most extreme form. Where questioning the group becomes literally unthinkable. The symptoms are recognizable.

Direct pressure on dissenters, self-censorship, illusions of unanimity and stereotyping outsiders as evil or stupid. Groups develop mind guards who protect leaders from troubling information and members rationalize away problems and maintain unwavering beliefs in the group's inherent morality.

Preventing groupthink requires structural solutions. Make people play devil's advocate, encourage authentic dissent. Leaders should speak last, not first. Bring in outside perspectives. Create anonymous feedback channels. And most importantly, celebrate disagreement as healthy rather than threatening, the best decisions can come from groups that argue productively, not those that agree easily.

I'm Michael Lee, professor of Communication and Director of the Civility Initiative at the College of Charleston. Our guest today on When We [00:03:00] Disagree is Rachel Wall. Rachel is an associate professor of education at the University of Virginia. And the director of the Good Life Political Project at the Karsh Institute of Democracy.

Rachel, tell us an argument story. 

Rachel Wahl : Thank you so much. So the one that comes to my mind was. From interviews that I did a couple of years back, I had been watching different dialogues on college campuses between university students who disagreed with each other, and then afterward I would interview the students who participated and then I'd come back to them a couple years later and interview them again.

And I've done this lots and lots of times, but there's one disagreement that has stayed with me in particular. And it was between a queer woman who's liberal and a conservative evangelical Christian man, 

Michael Lee: Uhhuh. 

Rachel Wahl : And [00:04:00] at the first dialogue, which happened now seven years ago, I would say they. Had a really difficult heated conversation over marriage rights.

Mm-hmm. For people who are gay. And the gay woman left the conversation shaken deeply upset. And I remember her saying to me in the interview afterward, two things, she said, I just don't understand why he wouldn't want me to be happy. And I know that I'll be thinking about this conversation for the rest of my life and it will probably never occur to him again.

And one of the things that upset her so much about the conversation is the sense that it had affected her so deeply and was just an [00:05:00] offhanded, casual interaction to him. Something that he hadn't really put much thought into or didn't really care about. When I interviewed him, I learned first that this issue had far more significance to him than she or I could have ever imagined 

Michael Lee: Uhhuh.

Rachel Wahl : And then when I interviewed him again three years later, I discovered that he had never stopped thinking about the interaction. 

Michael Lee: Huh. 

Rachel Wahl : But that she would never know either of those things even though they had sat down together to have a two hour dialogue. So when I interviewed him, I learned that he, in his words, had struggled with same sex attraction his entire life.

He essentially is gay 

Michael Lee: uhhuh, 

Rachel Wahl : that he did not dismiss marriage rights out of a [00:06:00] superficial. Obedient judgment as she had thought, but rather out of a really deeply considered idea about what is good for humans. Mm-hmm. And human flourishing. And that over the years he had continued to think about their interactions.

Michael Lee: Yeah. 

Rachel Wahl : And his regret that his inability to put into words. His reasons had disappointed him. He knew that he had failed to convey to her the personal meaning of the issue, the importance to him, Uhhuh, and his reasons for his views. And so the conversation had actually stayed with him even more deeply than it had stayed with her.

And I've thought about this interaction so much over the years because. [00:07:00] It really is a reminder to me of how much is possible in dialogue because when I spoke to him in our confidential interview, he was able to explain a worldview that I had previously little understanding of, but yet also at the same time, the incredible limits of dialogue.

Because when he was actually speaking with her in that moment, he had not been able to put into words his reasons, and she had left the interaction, feeling dismissed and unseen. I 

Michael Lee: wanna come back to the specifics of this particular case, and not just what the participants were saying, but also why it sticks out to you.

But just to set the scene. Now broadly, we've heard a little bit about this particular item of research, but in your broader stream of research, you were bringing students together. [00:08:00] They are having a difficult dialogue about something they disagree about. Then you're doing an immediate or quickly thereafter, interview confidentially with both of them separately about how it went and their feelings about the other person and the issue and themselves and so forth.

And then following up with them several years later to do a, a much later interview about the durability, the stickiness of the conflict, but they don't also then come back together and talk to one another three years later again, right. 

Rachel Wahl : That's correct. 

Michael Lee: And how many of these kinds of initial dialogue, confidential interviews plus way after interviews, have you done 

Rachel Wahl : so?

With college students. I've interviewed over 50 students and conducted two to three interviews with most of those 50 students. 

Michael Lee: Yeah. And of the range of things that they talk about, what's included, this is obviously about marriage equality, but what else comes up [00:09:00] 

Rachel Wahl : around 2017? The immigration ban came up a lot, particularly for students whose families had immigrated from other countries.

When I was conducting interviews around 2020, race and policing came up a great deal. It really reflects whatever is happening in the country and the way that you would expect. 

Michael Lee: That's right. And then now coming back to this one and the, the kind of stickiness of this particular conversation for you, you said that this.

This one, as you look at it, really shows the potential for dialogue to create perhaps mutual understanding, but also shows its limits. Will you expand on the first part? Why do you see this as a positive case of people potentially coming together from the outside looking in, at least as I hear you, it sounds like she might consist, still have a pretty.

I don't know. Un uncharitable take on this. I mean, she feels like this person doesn't like [00:10:00] her, doesn't like people like her and so forth. And, but you see this somewhat positively. Talk about that. 

Rachel Wahl : Yeah, that's right. The reason I see it positively, although not only positively, right, but the reason it's partially positive were, because I consider my interviews also a form of dialogue.

When I was interviewing him, and he knew it was confidential, his name and face weren't associated with the conversation anywhere. He was able to disclose much to me about not only his personal experience, but also the depth and the thought that went into his views that invited me to understand those views in a way that I had not before.

It showed me what is possible for me to understand in a new way by listening to somebody who I disagreed [00:11:00] with. And so the interview for me was a form of dialogue. 

Michael Lee: Mm-hmm. And, and she had, if I'm putting words in her mouth, she had thought that he was making a very casual set of dismissals. 

Rachel Wahl : That's exactly right.

Nothing be, and that the conversation was 

Michael Lee: forgettable. 

Rachel Wahl : That's exactly right. One of the reasons that she felt so shaken up by the conversation is she felt that this issue that could make or break her ability to live a good life was so superficially and casually dismissed by somebody who would vote against her.

Was so seemed, it seemed to her that he was just. Accepting a religious and political script without thinking carefully about it, and that upset her very much. [00:12:00] 

Michael Lee: Right. And then in fact, you say that he had applied some depth of thought. This was not a casual consideration. How did that show up in interviews with you?

In other words, how could you tell? 

Rachel Wahl : He talked about the years he spent. Reading and reflecting and praying and talking to people whose judgment and discernment he respected. And it was very clear that this choice, this view, came at tremendous personal cost to him. He had decided to live celibate in order to reject his own longing because.

He believed in a particular vision of human flourishing, and while I was not persuaded that this would be a superior way for humans to flourish, it [00:13:00] did give me a newfound respect for his personal integrity that I would not have understood had I not had this conversation with him.

Michael Lee: Let's flip the the coin a bit. You talk a bit about how this, both in terms of understanding the initial dialogue between them, but also in your dialogue with him after the fact, you came to a greater understanding, not necessarily of his position, but of his motivation of his worldview and of his integrity as you put it.

And that perhaps shows the potential for greater dialogue amongst people who disagree with one another. If we can apply some curiosity, respect, and depth of perspective to the disagreement. But you also characterize this conversation as sticky for you because it might show the limits of dialogue. Talk about that too.

Rachel Wahl : That's right. It shows to me how much gets in the way when we try to [00:14:00] talk to each other that. Self-consciousness and how much we're willing or not willing to disclose the nervousness and the anger and the hurt that make it difficult for us to explain with depth and nuance our own, not only our own reasons, but also our own.

Uncertainty, our own inner conflicts, the way in which we so quickly polarize so that we feel that we have to be all or nothing and seem completely confident about all of our convictions, when actually most of us have inner struggles with the things that mean the most. It's very difficult to create the space to have a conversation that is honest in searching.

Michael Lee: And when you look at this really complicated case, what larger lessons do [00:15:00] you draw? It seems like such a mixed bag. You've kind of persuaded me that this is a bit of a mixed bag with suggestions of promise and suggestions of payroll simultaneously. And so it's easy to look at this and feel somewhat confused about, you know, the potential for people to really come together across their differences.

Rachel Wahl : I think it reinforces to me what the moderators of this dialogue were originally trying to do, and which did work successfully for many students, and I think perhaps could still work for these students if they had more time and space, which is when we bring people together, try to create an environment in which.

People are asking each other questions driven by curiosity and mutual respect, because what I find is that most often though, obviously not all the time when people don't [00:16:00] feel attacked and they feel that they're going to be respected, that their dignity is not in question, and when they feel like the person is asking them questions because they're actually curious.

People are far more likely to admit their own uncertainty and reflect on their own beliefs rather than just stick to a script and defend everything they think that they are supposed to believe. 

Michael Lee: How are you incorporating those ideas about. The conditions under which people can really share and really feel safe to use the words really feel comfortable expressing their inner convictions.

Going forward in your research, how do you create those conditions? 

Rachel Wahl : Sure. So I am working with a Cars Institute of Democracy to design a dialogue program at UVA, and I've also [00:17:00] been supporting other universities and schools to. Design their own dialogue work that's appropriate for their settings, and each place in each setting will look a little bit different.

But we do in all of these ways, try to create conversations where certain norms are set with students at the beginning that are based in, Hey, what do we wanna accomplish here? Mm-hmm. What do we hope for? Do we want a boring conversation where we all pretend to agree? Do we want a painful conversation where all we do is fight?

What do we really want? And students usually say, we really wanna understand other opinions that are different from our own. That would be way more interesting. So what do we have to do if we're going to get there? And students usually come up with, we. Have to ask [00:18:00] each other questions and answer honestly, and give each other the space to not feel like they're gonna be attacked If they say the truth and we come up with these norms, and then we structure conversations so that they're question based, so that students are asked to ask each other their sincere questions and ask themselves the same questions.

Michael Lee: Do you get the group of people to more or less agree to what is their goal? Like why are we talking to each other? Yeah. What do we hope to, in the best possible version of you and I talking about a disagreement? Yeah. What's the, what's the outcome we hope for the most? They usually say, well, I just wanna understand you better, as opposed to, I wanna beat you into submission and convince you that I'm right about human flourishing.

To to give the first example and then work your way back to a set of norms or practices or conversational exchange that makes the most sense to achieve the goal of collective understanding. 

Rachel Wahl : I think [00:19:00] everybody wants to persuade each other. I think that's human and it's good. Democracy at the end of the day is about persuasion.

I think though that we don't accomplish that very well when all we're doing is telling the person they're wrong in our words and our tone. And students, when they're asked to stop and think about it. Recognize that. 

Michael Lee: How scalable do you think this is to a non-student, non-academic, non university context?

In other words, how can your research inspire seep out, be modeled in discussions online around these mythical water coolers? The, the stereotypical Thanksgiving table argument that goes horribly wrong all the time and so forth. 

Rachel Wahl : I think you need a setting. And [00:20:00] so in order to have a setting, it's helpful to have an organization.

I've had churches and synagogues contact me to give talks and workshops for divisions within churches and synagogues. So that's a really great setting for these conversations to happen, and I think they could happen in a variety of places, but you need some kind of organizational context where people are already invested and willing to show up At the same time, there are organizations that create these settings across the country, you know, that bring people together for a weekend to have these conversations.

Absent any kind of setting that lasts longer than that, and I think that's better than nothing. That works too. 

Michael Lee: Rachel Wall, thank you so much for being on when we disagree. 

Rachel Wahl : Thank you so much. It was a pleasure. 

Michael Lee: When we Disagree is recorded at the College of Charleston [00:21:00] with creator and host. Michael Lee Recording and sound engineering by Jesse k and Lance Laidlaw.

Reach out to us at When We disagree@gmail.com.