The Art of Disagreeing Well: Julia Minson PhD on Conversational Receptiveness & the Psychology of Conflict

We live in a moment when disagreement has become a spectator sport — louder, faster, and more polarized than ever. But what if the goal was never to win the argument, just to be heard, and to actually hear back? In this episode, we sit down with Julia Minson, PhD, associate professor of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School and one of the leading researchers on the psychology of conflict and disagreement. Julia is best known for coining and studying “conversational receptiveness” — the measurable, learnable set of language cues that signal genuine openness to an opposing point of view, even amid deep disagreement. We explore why our brains are wired to avoid engaging with people who see the world differently, why “winning” an argument rarely changes anyone’s mind, and what the research actually shows about the words and phrases that make people feel heard rather than dismissed. Julia walks us through her studies on political polarization, workplace conflict, and closed-door negotiations, and offers practical, research-backed tools for having harder conversations — with family, colleagues, and the people we’re most tempted to write off. If you’ve ever walked away from a hard conversation wishing you’d handled it differently, this episode gives you the psychology — and the language — to do it better next time.