Amanda Ripley reports on a secret lab working to heal the country's political division
Amanda Ripley has written about how one university is trying to "Make America talk again" for
The Guardian.
❝ In a hard-to-find windowless room deep inside a New York university, some difficult conversations are taking place. But this is not unusual, because this is a Difficult Conversations Laboratory.
Though it does not physically resemble a dungeon, it probably should. Researchers conducting experiments here routinely generate the kind of excruciating discomfort that most of us spend every family gathering trying to avoid.
Participants sign a waiver warning them that the experiments could cause stress or unpleasant feelings, before they are surveyed on a range of fraught topics, from abortion to the Israel-Palestine conflict. They are paired with someone who utterly disagrees with them and asked to talk things through around a small conference table. All while being recorded. [TheGuardian.com]
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