Given the country’s political divide, we often hear that conversations are the key to empathy and connection. Which is true. But that also doesn’t scale very well. One way to combat this is to correct dangerous political misperceptions and help us find more overlap. In fact, a Hidden Tribes study shows that 85% of Americans are more similar than we think.
Today, James Coan explains the Perception Gap and how it forces us to see each other as threats rather than with compassion. This applies to the workplace as much as politics. He talks about why conversations are great, but indirect interceptions also help close this gap and bring us together. This includes More Like US’s work in education, journalism, and the arts to portray each other in a more accurate light. James also shares some advice for creatives and creators on how they can help. The work is intriguing and frankly, makes a lot of sense – and it can be used by corporate leaders as well. This conversation could not be more important right now, so please learn more about their work and take a listen.
To access the episode transcript, please search for the episode title at www.TheEmpathyEdge.com
Key Takeaways:
- Books, movies, and other media that feature characters who are “not like us” are not there to convert your children; they are there to expose people to different experiences and lives for better understanding.
- We’re never going to be able to tap into the conversations and the empathy of listening to one another until we realize that we’re closer than we think we are.
- People who feel threatened, especially to their safety and security, are more open to authoritarian tendencies. By focusing on the desire for atypical leadership, people are able to work better together rather than fight.
“Every day Americans tend to be more similar ideologically than fellow Americans tend to realize. An average Democrat or Republican will agree on more and are less extreme than people realize.” — James Coan
Episode References:
- Mónica Guzmán: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Divided Political Times
- Edwin Rutsch: How Empathy Circles Can Change the World
From Our Partner:
SparkEffect partners with organizations to unlock the full potential of their greatest asset: their people. Through their tailored assessments and expert coaching at every level, SparkEffect helps organizations manage change, sustain growth, and chart a path to a brighter future.
Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.
About James Coan, Co-Founder and Executive Director, More Like US
James Coan is Co-Founder and Executive Director of More Like US, which corrects dangerous political misperceptions of each other, at scale. He previously served as DC Alliance Co-chair and Mid-Atlantic Regional Lead for Braver Angels, one of the largest organizations dedicated to reducing political divides, and previously co-led social media and Ambassador outreach nationally. He has been involved closely in the field since shortly after the 2016 election, with a main interest of achieving goals at scale. He brings 10+ years of strategy consulting experience and worked at a think tank after receiving a degree in public policy from Princeton.
Connect with James Coan
More Like US: https://www.morelikeus.org/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-coan-6465b15/
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. Given the country’s political divide, we often hear that conversations are the key to empathy and connection, which is true, but that also doesn’t scale very well. One way to combat this is to correct dangerous political misperceptions and help us find more overlap. In fact, a hidden tribe survey shows that 85% of Americans are more similar than we think. My guest today is James Coan, co founder and executive director of more like us, which corrects dangerous political misperceptions of each other at scale. He previously served as DC Alliance co chair and mid atlantic regional lead for braver angels, one of the largest organizations dedicated to reducing political divides, and previously co led social media and Ambassador outreach nationally. Today, James explains what the perception gap is and how it forces us to see each other as threats, rather than with compassion. This applies to the workplace as much as politics. He talks about why conversations are great, but indirect interceptions also help close this gap and bring us together. This includes more like us as work in education, journalism and the arts to portray each other in a more accurate light. James also shares some advice for creatives and creators on how they can help the work is intriguing, and frankly, it makes a lot of sense, and it can be used by corporate leaders as well. This conversation could not be more important right now, so please learn more about their work and take a listen. Welcome James Coan to the empathy edge podcast. Excited to hear about more like us and the work that you do around bridging misperceptions and divides, around politics and all of that stuff that we’re dealing with right now. We could not be more timely. So welcome to the podcast.
James Coan 02:42
Well, thank you, Maria. It’s great to be here. So
Maria Ross 02:45
tell us a little bit about your story and how you even got here. What brought you to this passion and this calling of the work that you’re doing right now?
James Coan 02:53
Yeah, so I know there’s a lot of business leaders here. I was an energy consultant for more than a decade. In 2016 I felt that my country was tearing itself apart. Wasn’t sure what was wrong or what I could do about it, and so it began this now, eight some odd year journey, I was doing a lot of volunteer work to try to reduce political divides at scale. About three years ago, I realized the only way forward was to create a separate organization more like us. I’ll be happy to talk more about that. Yeah, absolutely. And
Maria Ross 03:26
I know you were involved as a volunteer for braver angels, and we’ve actually had Monica Guzman on the show before, and I’ll link to her episode in the show notes, but tell us a little bit about the organization you were you’re spearheading now? Yes,
James Coan 03:41
so more like us. We correct dangerous political misperceptions of each other at scale, there’s a finding known as the perception gap that we’re more similar, and we tend to realize across the political spectrum, and we find ways of increasing trust across the political spectrum, and also decreasing an overblown sense of threat that Americans often have of one another, right?
Maria Ross 04:09
I mean, this could not be more relevant. We’ve talked about, you know, we talk about empathy from all angles on this show, and we’ve done a few episodes on having, you know, political conversations trying to bridge that political divide. And it’s really interesting that you said, you know, you started coming to this work in 2016 because that’s actually when I came at this work of, you know, thinking about, I had a two and a half year old son at the time, and I was reading him books about empathy and sharing and compassion, but the leaders in the headlines were doing anything but, and kind of like you, I was like, Well, what can I do about that? After I got over my dismay and being disheartened about it, I thought there have to be people and companies and leaders who are winning with empathy. So I guess, in a way, my works about challenging the misperceptions people have about what empathy is and what it isn’t. Because. I think that stops a lot of people from embracing their empathy, and where it kind of intersects with politics is I talk about empathy is not about agreeing with someone. It’s about trying to understand their context and their point of view and finding common ground from that conversation. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the work of Edwin rush at the Center for building a culture of empathy. So he was on the show. I’ll link to his episode in a second, in the pot, in the show notes. But he ran, he does this facilitation technique his organization called empathy circles. And they did these empathy circles at the most divisive political rallies around 2016 2017 they were actually featured in a documentary called Trump phobia, or something like that. And what they did was they got people from completely opposite ends of the political spectrum together in what they called an empathy tent, and facilitated this technique around listening. And people didn’t walk away converted, but they walked away appreciating the other’s point of view and actually seeing each other as human. So I know your work is a little different, because you are literally combating misperception and misinformation. Can you tell us a little bit about what that work looks like?
James Coan 06:12
Yeah, sure. So three or four major areas say education, journalism and arts. So education, both secondary and tertiary, higher ed, we have a lesson plan about this finding of the perception gap and causes, consequences, potential solutions, and we’re starting to work with various organizations and higher ed, including the national social norm center. So for decades, there’s been work on correcting social norms about health behaviors among college students. Like, if students think that many other students drink more than they actually do, then they’re more likely to say, binge drink. But then you correct their norms and what is actually happening, and then they’re like, Oh, actually, I don’t want to do this either. Yeah. And then we’ve aggregated hundreds of data point points from surveys including Gallup and pew that show overlaps between Democrats and Republicans on more than 20 different topic areas. That’s called similarity hub. We’re working with a professor to test that inclusion into news articles. So right, if there’s a hot button topic, but a couple data points that show actually in certain aspects of this, we’re not hopelessly divided. How does that change how people think in and see each other? We have a nonprofit partner with that. And then finally, we have some guidance for those in the How to portray people across the political spectrum and a better and more accurate light. So some examples of this, you know, from maybe a more left leaning perspective, could be like Will and Grace. You know, Will, it normalizes someone who who’s gay. But then, you know, from the right there’s a show currently, Connors, the Connors, which is a REAP of Roseanne, which can better humanize kind of a white working class character. So tell us
Maria Ross 08:08
a little bit about the perception gap, because that seems to be where the crux of your work is about. Is about closing that tell us what that is,
James Coan 08:15
yeah. So the perception gap, and really it’s perception gaps, as you find more data on it. So originally, it came from a group with a very similar sounding name, called more in common in 2019 that looked at it from an ideological standpoint. So Americans, when we’re talking about everyday Americans, the American public, tends to be more similar ideologically than fellow Americans tend to realize an average Democrat Republican will agree on more are less extreme than people tend to realize. So there’s ideological component, but there’s other work that we highlight in the lesson plan and elsewhere on conversational misperceptions, so kind of a perception that conversations will go worse than they actually will, that people on the other side will want to listen less than they actually do, and there are threat misperceptions, so overestimating that people across the political spectrum dehumanize us. Way to say this is we think, they think we’re monkeys, but they don’t. And then there’s items about breaking democratic norms or engaging in political violence, where there are large gaps between what people think those the other side want to do, or how they think, and how those people on the other side actually do think and how they would act? Yeah.
Maria Ross 09:41
I mean, there’s definitely a clear relationship between the work that you’re doing and how to foster empathy, how to help people see another person’s perspective and perceive it for the reality that it is, versus the bias that I think it is because of these perception gaps. Yes, right?
James Coan 09:59
So you. It’s easier to have empathy or compassion or other related words when the other person is actually more similar to us than we realize. So yeah, sometimes there has to be that even though they are different, I still should have empathy or compassion toward them, but more like us doesn’t really take these normative stances. We’re just like, well, they’re more similar, they’re less threatening. So probably these emotions that you know, the goals are, you know, to to be more empathetic, to be more compassionate, tend to emerge on their own without necessarily forcing the issue very much. So
Maria Ross 10:41
where would we see your work show up? I know you talked about the different prongs of what you do, but where would we as people, not, you know, everyday Americans and workers and executives and where? Give me an example, or give us an example, please, of where that work shows up. Like, where would we see that in action?
James Coan 10:59
Yeah, well, so admittedly, more like us is in fairly early days. So African American probably would not see this work show up. I mean, it’s possible to go to similarityhub.org, and view all of this data that we found. There are other organizations. I’ll talk about one called Bridge entertainment labs that is working with Hollywood’s TV and film to change how we see and feel about one another from the entertainment media that’s consumed those documentaries. So there’s a group called builders that brought 11 people together in Tennessee to talk about gun issues and even braver angels made a documentary a while back. Or, if you’re a college student or or high schooler and you’re interested to learn about the business world that you may eventually join, right, we are, you know, very focused on getting into, you know, those places and and having messages reach students where they are necessarily relying solely on workshops and dialog as the method. So
Maria Ross 12:14
talk to me about that, that last point you just made, because I know you talk about the views can be improved without conversations that are costly and hard to scale. What do you mean by that?
James Coan 12:24
Right? So in the academic literature, there’s a difference between what sometimes called direct contact or indirect contact, or even just or indirect methods. Uh, when it comes to efforts to reduce political divides, sometimes called depolarization, or bridge building. There’s been an extremely strong emphasis on conversations as the method, and there is substantial work that supports that it can be effective, that dates back to the 1950s and even some work before that. But there’s also a whole body of work on indirect contact, on seeing others in a better light. So something known as various contact, watching people have useful conversations. There’s parasocial contact, connecting with characters, and then there’s a whole host of misperception interventions. There was something known as the strengthening democracy challenge, run by Stanford. And there were hundreds of submissions of eight minutes or less. 25 were tested, and three of the top performers, the majority of those specifically reduced, focused on misperceptions and misperceptions of threat, in particular, across the political, political spectrum. So there’s a lot of academic work on other methods, and there’s even fascinating stories we want to talk about it for other divides, like soap operas and Burundi to bring Hutus and Tutsis, you know, together and normalize, you know, relationships and friendships, collaboration between them. So there’s decades of experience in its beyond conversation. Some of these just mathematically, in a country of three 40 million people, can scale more easily than expecting everyone to have lots of conversations, although I should say that we’re open to conversations, right? There’s not a bad method. More like us is focused on scale. Also means that we’re interested in kind of stop, drop and roll messaging, like, what are the few kind of items to keep in mind when having a conversation which won’t be complete, it won’t cover every single detail about how to have a conversation, but it could spread. But again, that’s just a method, not only possibility.
Maria Ross 14:47
Oh my gosh, I love all of what you’re saying, because one of the things that I’ve talked about in the past in terms of how we can strengthen our empathy is just exposure, right? And one of the tips I give in my first. Empathy book, the empathy edge is explore with your imagination. So consume art books, documentaries, movies, shows that are either created by someone who has a different lived experience or portray people that have a different lived experience, so that you can actually activate cognitive empathy. First of like, oh, I What is that like? I didn’t know what your experience was like. I’m using my brain first to understand your perspective and your context, and that could lead to emotional empathy, where I start to, you know, really connect with the feelings that you have. But in order for me to get to understanding and compassion, I don’t have to necessarily go through the like I’m feeling exactly what you’re feeling, and I’m having a conversation with you, we can really activate that empathy, especially you know, work they’ve done with young children of just that exposure, and that’s why books and stories and movies and shows that feature characters who are Not like us, they’re not there to convert your kids to that specific thing. They’re there to just give your kids exposure to people like that so they understand them better. And so, you know, we could go on a whole rant about banned books, but we won’t. So I love what you’re saying about this idea of like, if we want to get this to scale, and maybe even bring people along who are uncomfortable having conversations. We can, we can go through all these other routes. And I was very intrigued by the work you’re doing around journalism. Is that to sort of get bias out of journalism, or what? What’s the work specifically you’re doing there? Yeah.
James Coan 16:39
So when it comes to journalism, I think there are a fair number of articles that may portray the country in very divided ways. So the original perception gap report for more in common had the fairly unfortunate finding that the more often that people follow the news, the larger their distortions were about those in the other political party? Yeah, that would be the opposite right, and people would get more informed and have more accurate views. So yeah, working with an organization called trusting news at this point, mostly focuses on building trust in journalism, on making sure that lots of voices in the community are heard, but they’re interested also in this more kind of national view of allowing people to have more accurate perceptions of those across the political spectrum, that there was another more in common study called Hidden tribes, done pew did a similar typology, and only about 15% of Americans are in the left and and right most categories combined. So it’s like 85% or so Americans are somewhere in between. But those 15% tend to have more formal education, have more wealth, have more political power and just tend to be louder. Yeah, so, right, that’s the kind of people who we tend to hear from, more, I should say, from not trying to be ranting at all. They’re more like us. There’s two other co founders. One co founder has raised money and worked on Democratic campaigns. The other is a recent past president of the National Federation of Republican women. So whenever I have to speak in ways that can resonate co founders who have fairly different political backgrounds, perspectives, extent and we’ve gotten a lot of resonance across the political spectrum with this. Sometimes when I present, there are conservatives who will come up, and they seem to be excited by what I what I’m saying, and I’ve gone to CPAC and feedback there. So it’s definitely not like a one sided area or approach that it would only work for one side I
Maria Ross 19:07
see. So given the times we’re in right now, do you all feel a particular urgency for the work? I mean, how are you helping given the times we’re in right now,
James Coan 19:23
yeah, so at some level, we’re there’s actually a surprisingly small amount that we’re changing in terms of what we’re doing, because we’re mostly talking about the perspectives of fellow Americans, the American and so unless the public’s views on all sorts of things just change, changes overnight. It doesn’t really have a huge impact on that directly. We do write a fair number of articles in the fulcrum and we’re going to have a couple articles coming out. Yes, well, I’m not sure when this it will be after. I’m talking right now, but possibly before you can hear this. You’re listening that discuss threat and compassion, which I guess would be pretty interesting from an empathy standpoint, that if we see another side or another person as a threat, likely to also be able to have compassion for them. And so we talk about this, you know, in terms of government workers who are getting fired, but also maybe surprising things, some, to some extent, listeners that there’s actually more than twice as many drug as gun deaths per year, but I don’t think maybe people more toward the left of the political spectrum would emphasize that twice as kind of dealing with drugs twice as much as guns in general. There’s probably more focus and but, but a lot of people who you know, working class, you know, possibly world more likely to be Republican voters at this point, right? There’s a whole host of kind of, you know, negative associations these people are, are they racist? Are they sexist, etc, and that can use the extent to which we have your empathy or compassion to group when there are aspects of them that are seen as quite negative.
Maria Ross 21:28
Yeah. I mean, I think all of this is important. I think where people are scared right now is that the policies being enacted are not a perception. They’re a reality for people, the governmental policies. I think that’s where folks are having trouble saying, I can’t look past some other side being a threat, because you literally are a threat to my existence, if I’m trans, if I’m a woman who’s pregnant, if I’m you know, all of these other things so but I think your point is really well taken that we’re never going to be able to tap into the to the conversations and to the empathy of just listening to each other until we realize that we’re closer than we think we are. And I think a lot of it is just, I make, you know, I’m making assumptions. You’re making assumptions based on the political side we’re on when, you know it’s a kind of a trope by now, of like, we have more in common than we do that divides us. But your work, I feel like it more like us is about actually giving us that data and giving us that like, No, we really are. This isn’t just something, some Pollyanna thing we’re trying to say
James Coan 22:36
yes and or at least right, we’re more similar than we tend to realize, you know, numerator and denominator would be about more similar or more different, but right, more similar than we think. And we’ve also focused, I would say, particularly on threat and trust, right? So it even to extent the written article, articles about kind of switching out the word polarization for over threat, overblown sense of threat, and emphasizing building trust, possibly even more than building courageous.
Maria Ross 23:10
I’m going to push back a little bit again to kind of go back to my previous thought. But what about the people who are under threat because of policies from one side or the other like that. We can’t gaslight them. We can’t say they’re not under threat when they’re under threat. So how do you how does more like us handle that? Yeah, because,
James Coan 23:31
okay, so some more like us does not comment on the level of threat from an administration or a given elected official. Right? These, these, yeah, given administration could be extraordinarily threatening for some groups and right, not trying to change one’s views and say, Oh, I actually know whatever tariffs are wonderful, or, like, no, no. I mean, like, we don’t, we don’t go down that kind of route. We’re just saying everyday Americans and the connection and the long term to leadership, right? Because, I mean, this is more of a leadership podcast, like, under what conditions do people support atypical leaders, and some work authoritarianism, where people who feel threatened, especially threatened to their safety and security, are more open to more authoritarian tendencies, and so a lot of the kind of work against the administration is often called, you know, say fighting or kind of protecting constitutional norms, fighting can often actually be counterproductive. So you do it for well, upholding democratic arms can work to extent we focus, I would say more on what we call draining. So draining the desire for this kind of atypical leadership, right that if people feel really threatened by another group of fellow Americans, maybe it makes sense to have a very strong leader who at least supports us, who is a bully for us. But if the people across the political spectrum actually aren’t that threatening, then wait, why do we need such an aggressive leader for our side? It drains desire for that, but also works more kind of in a, what might call kind of a liberalism, or you think about cancel culture, right? Like, oh, if, if there is so much emphasis, or, you know, if these people on the other side are so scary, right? And maybe we need to, like, put up walls in terms of what they can say or not. But again, if they’re less scary, realize that, you know, there’s only a few of them who are saying such things, right? This desire for more, maybe we call it left wing authoritarian tendencies, tends to diminish when we’re talking about trust. It’s a much, you know, it’s kind of a longer term, sort of like pulling the rug under, rather than like fighting going in the streets immediately. But to me, it also makes more strategic sense, since, yeah, a lot of people have been fighting for a decade, and I don’t know if they’ve accomplished very much,
Maria Ross 26:01
right? I totally agree. I really, I think that’s an interesting perspective on that of taking away the fear and the threat that leads us into these situations that become so extreme that we that there’s people who even want to follow such leaders, whichever way they go to the extremes, right? So that’s really interesting. I want to wrap up, because I know that more like us offers a few resources that are useful to businesses, and what are some tangible ways that leaders or teams or organizations can integrate some of those resources? Yeah,
James Coan 26:36
and I would say probably at some level, there should be a conversation to see what would make most sense in different business contexts, right? But our lesson plan presentation is a good place to start that yes, even though we’re testing this honestly with high schoolers, it’s not like watered down and a lot of this information about perception gaps when it comes to ideology and conversations and threats, is very powerful for adults, right? I were thinking of different modules. When I was in the private sector, we had to do all sorts of online modules about sexual harassment and things like that. And in theory, something like that, uh huh. Can be done in this field, and it may be an area that we pursue in the future, right? Often? Can
Maria Ross 27:27
I interrupt you for one second? Yeah? Can? Can these resources help leaders deal with the, you know, the things that are coming into the workplace, because we are humans, we don’t park our humanity at the office door. Can these resources help leaders navigate those differences within their workplace that might be negatively impacting the collaboration, negatively impacting the work, negatively impacting the understanding, because now there’s conversations happening at work that we didn’t used to have. So are you saying that some of these resources can help if leaders or organizations or HR teams or learning and development want to bring in some ways to help their leaders navigate, but also help the teams collaborate across some of these divides and misconceptions?
James Coan 28:17
I will give an answer. Probably right. I don’t want to oversell, but Right? Because in many cases, people are jumping to the conclusion that, okay, just because someone has a bumper sticker on their vehicle, it means they this whole host of things, and they should, they’re threatening all sorts of ways. Then yes, this work can help that. But if there are a small number of people who actually do fit stereotypes, in that case, you know, kind of have to deal with them as they are, but we’re to say people to be much less common than believed. And even if there are those kind of stereotypical beliefs, there’s a whole host of kind of factors about people you know on which and can connect all sorts of complexity and things that they’ve done that are admirable, and a lot of the guidance that we have for the arts in theory can also be kind of used as starting points to think about colleagues in the workplace,
Maria Ross 29:16
right? I love it. I love it. Well. It’s such important work. And thank you so much for coming today and sharing a little bit about what you do. And we need more organizations doing this kind of work, and more more organizations that tap into the research and the work that you’re doing, because there’s no other way forward, right? We can’t keep continuing on the path that we’re on, because it’s not going to be good it’s not gonna have a good end. So we need to find these ways of collaborating and these ways of busting, you know, like you said, this, percentages of the things that really are true to the stereotypes are so small, and we’re focusing 90% of our effort there, where we actually need to be coming together, on where, where we. We We are on the same page a little bit more. So I love it. Thank you so much for sharing these insights and your work. We’re going to have all these links in the show notes. I’m going to add a bunch of the links that you referenced in our conversation as well. But for anyone that’s on the go, where’s the best place that they can find out more about you and the organization?
James Coan 30:18
Yeah. So more like us.org, right? If people have individual questions, you’re welcome to email me at, James, no, don’t contact me.
Maria Ross 30:28
And I assume folks can connect with you on LinkedIn as well, and just reference that they heard you on the podcast.
James Coan 30:33
Oh, sure, yeah, connect with me on LinkedIn. Okay, great.
Maria Ross 30:36
Well, James, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Yeah,
James Coan 30:41
thank you, Maria. It’s been a cool to be here. And thank you
Maria Ross 30:44
everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Please rate, review and share with a colleague or a friend, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathy edge.com there. You can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events, please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria, never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
