What if you could reach across the divide and change minds…productively? Karen Tibbals, author and public speaker, has developed a framework that allows you to do just that—changing minds on the issues using a values based approach.
When you use her model people feel really seen and heard, and they are able to listen in a way that gets results. Join us as Karen shares her how-to structure and tips from her book “Persuade, Don’t Preach: Restoring Civility Across the Political Divide” (endorsed by Richard Rohr) and start having productively persuasive conversations.
Today’s Guest
Karen Tibbals
Author and Public Speaker
Karen Tibbals left her corporate career to go to seminary, where she found a psychological theory that changed her understanding of how to communicate with people. She has taken that theory and made it into a practical method for how to talk to people across the political divide in a productive and loving way.
RESOURCES
Persuade, Don’t Preach: Restoring Civility Across the Political Divide
episode transcription
Heather Clark
Welcome to Unshakable Being: inspiration and practical tools for purpose led helpers, guides and leaders like you to shift out of stress, stop going in circles, and get what you want in your life, body and business. I am Dr. Heather Clark, and I’ll be your host.
Heather Clark
Hello, and thank you so much for joining us. Today we have Karen Tibbles. She’s the author of Persuade, Don’t Preach, Restoring Civility Across the Political Divide. And this is a book that’s endorsed by Richard Rohr, even though it is not a religious book. Karen left her corporate career to go into seminary, where she found a psychological theory that changed her understanding of how to communicate with people. She’s created a practical method for how to talk to people across the political divide in a productive and loving way. And I think we can all agree now is a great time for that, Karen, welcome to the show.
Karen Tibbals
Thank you, Heather. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Heather Clark
I am so excited to have you here. Because I think one of the bigger stressors of this moment here in the middle of a pandemic, is not just the pandemic. It is all the polarization and the political politicizing of things that at least I didn’t expect to become political. And I think I’m not alone in finding that it can be very difficult to talk to people, especially when their position, like doesn’t make sense to me. And I would just love to hear more about how you got to this theory, and then how we can all apply it in our lives.
Karen Tibbals
Well, that’s a huge question. And it’s a great story. As I as my bio said, I found this theory when I was in seminary, which I’m not going to go into a lot of the details but why I was there because that’s the Not really on topic. But what I found was that when I look when I took the theory, and I started looking at the world through the lens of the theory, which is called moral foundations theory, but anyway, which is the most popular, the most well known person who’s popularized it is Jonathan Hite. And his book, The righteous mind is what got me started on it. And it really just changed the way I looked at the world. And I started to see all this stuff that didn’t make any sense to me. I started understanding it to a certain degree that I couldn’t understand it before. And then when I started digging into it more, I actually found other people, Rob Wheeler and Matt Feinberg, who had done work using the same theories that Heiko had created and created a way to transform what people thought and then it became really, really useful. So it was two Just, you know, luck that I found it in seminary. But then it just really make me made me come alive in terms of understanding what was going on in the world. And I just couldn’t understand why other people who read his book didn’t see it the same way I did, which is why I ended up writing the book.
Heather Clark
It’s because it was for you to bring to the world. So can you add the highlights for just what are kind of the in broad strokes? What is this theory? And what’s the new worldview that you’ve been able to create from it?
Karen Tibbals
Right, so that there is moral foundations theory. And the theory says that what our actions are driven by is not what we think we’re not rational beings. They’re, it’s driven by what our belief systems are. And I think when I say that, you can start To see that when you think somebody’s behavior doesn’t make sense, it’s because you’re looking at it from a rational standpoint, and they’re not acting in a rational way. They’re acting to reflect their underlying beliefs. So when you start to understand their underlying belief system, then you can say, Oh, that’s why they’re doing that. Specifically in terms of the pandemic. What’s going on is mostly, I think, what I call common enemy belonging, and I didn’t make up that phrase. I borrowed it from Bernie Browns book. I forget which one, but it’s on belonging. And she she didn’t make it up either she’s quoting somebody else. But But what it means is that people are doing the opposite of what the other group is doing. And that’s what’s driving their behavior.
Heather Clark
So really an us versus them and if there’s a lot of them, then there’s an aspect Which means I’m in a group. And now I’m safe. I’m here in the cave by the campfire.
Karen Tibbals
Exactly, exactly. And of course, you know, evolutionarily that people who had a high degree of belonging groups that that had high cohesiveness survived. So we all have this belonging. We just use it in different ways. And this is a way that’s counterproductive to have this common enemy belonging. But that’s what we’re stuck with. So one of the things I take on in the book is what would it mean to have a more productive kind of belonging because belonging is a good thing? It’s not like it’s a bad thing. It’s just the way it’s being applied right now as bad.
Heather Clark
So how would somebody know that they were unwittingly participating in this common enemy belonging in the us versus them?
Karen Tibbals
I think anytime you think somebody else is stupid, you’re doing it.
Heather Clark
So once they catch themselves, how can someone shift out of it?
Karen Tibbals
Well, so what I say is that you need to separate, there’s three parts to it. There’s the person themselves that you’re talking to. There’s the issue you’re talking about. And then there’s the value system that they’re coming from. And you need to be able to separate the three of them. For instance, I’ll tell you the story about my aunt dot, and then I’ll try to separate it for you. So
Karen Tibbals
my aunt Dodd
Karen Tibbals
was a constant presence throughout my childhood. She was there every holiday she always brought gifts you had to line up to your picture taken, and she was always there. And as she aged, she never she never had kids. So Did it for all my cousins and, you know, everybody, I’m losing the thread of the story. So, as she as she didn’t have any children, so we cousins took on this, the, the deal of taking care of her. Well, I went to visit her one time after I got back from seminary. And she was living with a caregiver who was a Polish immigrant who was taking care of her because she was the last one alive of that generation. And she made a comment, a negative comment about immigrants to me, and her caregiver was in the room. And I just thought it was so rude and I said that
Karen Tibbals
and I ended up I’m, I walked out and I never, I never talked to her again.
Karen Tibbals
And she died about a year later.
Karen Tibbals
You know, shooting Call me. And I didn’t call her.
Karen Tibbals
But I didn’t know anything else to do.
Karen Tibbals
So let me separate those things. So the person was this, my aunt doc who’d been there my whole entire life who I love dearly. And she just was part of the fabric of my life. And I got confused between her and her views about immigration, which is the issue and the values that were driving her views on immigration. Now, the values that were driving her views on immigration, were another form of belonging, which was nationalism, it’s still falls under the same larger subgroup of belonging, but it’s a different manifestation. But what I’ve worked through by all the work I’ve done in developing the book and then going back to the story is that if I had been able to use another deep value than I could have changed the conversation. So let me switch right here to give you a little bit of a primer on moral foundation theory, so I can explain it more fully. If that’s okay.
Heather Clark
Oh, yes, please.
Karen Tibbals
Okay, so what Hite says is that there’s five basic values that we all have. And now every single human being has them and he’s done cross cultural studies. And, you know, we all have the same five, the differences that we have placed different importance on them, and give different interpretations of them. So we get confused, thinking that they’re different, but they’re really all the same. And I’ve talked about one belonging at length, and that’s important to talk about first because it underlies everything. The next one is respect for authority. And this one is huge differences in the degree of importance that people place on it and the interpretations. Some people place a lot more importance on it, and the people who are very in favor of our current president, place much more importance on respect for authority and the people who are against our current president. The third one is purity and sacredness. And again, this happens in all different people just in different manifestations of it and the degree to which there are different degrees of importance.
Karen Tibbals
The fourth and fifth ones are care, harm and fairness. And there are some
Karen Tibbals
I’ll call I’ll say predictable. But say there’s some recurring patterns to show that liberals tend to be really, really high. And I mean extraordinarily high on care, harm and fairness. And conservatives, on the other hand, tend to be even across all five of them. And what happens is that when that hat when, when it’s even on all five, they interact, so no one value dominance. The way it does for the liberals which are dominated by care, harm and fairness. So what was going on with my aunt is that her belonging with her statement about immigrants was dominating for her at that moment. But if I had gone in with a statement about respect for authority or using one of the other ones, then I could have changed the conversation.
Heather Clark
So I’m sure you’ve given us a great deal of thought because clearly it was somebody you cared about deeply. But share with me perhaps the benefit of switching gears and finding another value versus versus the action that you did take or even versus just letting it slide and trying to move on to a different conversation. Like there’s multiple ways to handle this. And I’d like to hear more about the benefit of coming at it from a different value angle versus handling it a different way.
Karen Tibbals
So what happens when you attack on the same value? Well, okay, let me let me back up. So the most common way is to avoid it, as you said, and my avoidance thing was to never talk to my aunt again, which I’m not pleased with. Okay. And I had, you know, I had spent years just smiling at her and pretending that I didn’t hear these kinds of things because she had said these sorts of things over the course of my lifetime with her because that’s the type of person she was she made these outrageous statements. She She was very blunt. And, you know, she was known for being quote unquote, anti fraud, and you know, you would put up with her and I just, for whatever reason that day, I decided not to But, you know, that didn’t deepen the relationship that kept the relationship on a superficial level. And then, of course, my walking away, I’m very sad about that I wish that I could have done something differently. So I let the relationship be broken. And you know, the next time I heard anything about her was at her funeral.
Karen Tibbals
So what, what this technique does, and it’s been shown to work in psychological research among large groups. Now what that means it doesn’t work with everyone. I can’t promise it’s going to work all the time. But Willer and Feinberg have done work to show that if you do what’s called reframing, which is what this is called, you can convince people to switch their mind about the issue because remember, we’re separating the issue from the person from the value. So we can get people to we can get people to change their mind about the issue by focusing on a different value, that’s still works.
Karen Tibbals
Now I can’t I couldn’t use something that’s totally unrelated. I’d have to have, I’d have to find a way to relate it. So specifically what I came up with that I wish I could have said to my aunt and would do again, if I could go back in time, which I can’t is, you know, Anton, I’m really sad to hear you say this, about immigrants in front of this immigrant who’s taking such good care of you, and who’s working so hard to make sure you can stay in your own home. And it makes me sad to think that you’re not valuing genies experience. And that changes the conversation. It gives a new something different to talk about. And it allows me to express myself and be real because that’s truly how I felt that I thought it was rude. But it gets added in a different way and I get my point across And now she has something different to respond to.
Heather Clark
I see. So it’s not about convincing her of your point of view. Because I’m sitting over here going, Oh, the futility sometimes of that. It sounds like it’s more about being heard being seen being you, like just for real and.no. But you found out, that would have been a way of stating it, that she could then choose to engage with or not.
Karen Tibbals
Right. So I’ve expressed myself about the issue, the issue being immigration. So I am trying to change her mind about the the issue. I’m not trying to change her mind about the value. I’m accepting that she’s got she’s higher than I am in the belonging, she’s higher nationalism. She’s, but if I frame it in such a way to say don’t just think about nationalism, think about it. How hard people work, which is the fairness, which I’ll talk about in a minute why that would work even though fairness, I said liberals are higher and fairness there is a little nuance to it. But I switched the conversation from staying in the in the nationalism thing, which I’m lower in than she is, so I’m going to lose there. Okay. I’m not going to get any way there. I can’t talk her out of thinking nationalism is important. That’s never going to work. But what I can get her to do is I can get her to think about it in a different way.
Heather Clark
I love this as an example of simply shifting the worldview and that changes the entire experience. I love that and it doesn’t devalue any of the participants. It sounds like an interaction like that. Probably does not degenerate into name calling.
Karen Tibbals
activity for name calling.
Karen Tibbals
And what I recommend is That
Karen Tibbals
I would have started out if if I had, again if I had known what I know now, which I told but you know, we never go back in time. You know, I would have started out saying, you know, I thought I love you and you’ve been there my whole entire life but this is really hard for me to hear. Because and then I would have gone into Genie work so hard.
Karen Tibbals
And then I could have just you would have heard me even better if I had started that way.
Heather Clark
Beautiful.
Heather Clark
So how have you found that this is decrease the stress in your life using this method?
Karen Tibbals
Well, I just understand things so much better instead of just railing at– I don’t understand why they’re not wearing masks or whatever it is. I’m going Oh, let me try to figure this out.
Karen Tibbals
And it It even helps the people I agree with, which is really interesting because I can start to see what’s behind what they’re saying in such a way. But I have to say it also helps me see when people are trying to manipulate me.
Heather Clark
Oh, oh yeah, with with this particular lens, I could see Oh, someone’s trying to, you know, talk to me on a care harm basis or something but so, so can you think of maybe a more tangible example about how you can tell for sure that somebody is manipulating you using these methods?
Karen Tibbals
Well, when you read a news story, and it’s a factual news story, and then they throw in the, the tear jerker story, that’s an attempt at manipulation. That’s what that is.
Heather Clark
Yet the engagement of the emotional system instead of letting the argument rest in logic and rationality it’s, yeah.
Karen Tibbals
Yeah. So, but apparently I promised to come back to fairness. So I could use fairness with my aunt in a different way. So there’s what I call three flavors of fairness. And this is based on research. So I’m not making this up for myself. But liberals tend to be high on one of two forms of fairness. The dominant one for liberals is equality based. So people having the same amount. So when you read stories about how much money so you know, how much money a corporate executive made, that’s an attempt to use that form of fairness and say, You know how outrageous it is they have, you know, that they have this and they don’t other people. Don’t have that. So anytime you see this equality kinds of thing that’s an attempt to manipulate you in that way. And the second form that liberals tend to be high on is need based. So affirmative action is the best example of a need based. And then when we talk about reparations for Black Lives Matter, that’s also a need based thing where you know, you give more to people who need it. But conservatives are high in fairness in a different way. And their way is merit based. So you have to earn it, which is why that argument could have worked probably with my aunt, because her caregiver did work hard. And I actually have examples that I’ve discovered of, for instance, a politician in one of the Dakotas who are somewhere in the upper Midwest, who was talking to the D population of the farm towns in the upper Midwest, in this particular state. And he was like, well, maybe we can get some immigrants because they’ll work hard. You know. So you had this this republican politician, state politician who was invoking the, the fairness, but in a way that that spoke to conservatives. So this does work with conservatives if you use the right form of fairness.
Heather Clark
All right, that’s deeply fascinating. And that explains a lot of things breaking it. You’re like, okay, that really does help. How do you have conversations with people? When I’m just thinking of several instances where I have thought to myself, I just don’t know how to explain to people why it’s helpful to care about other people. So and it’s my opinion that perhaps People who are at such odds, like cuz let me just back a lot of times I can think to myself, well, I don’t agree with your position. But I could see how you got there. Like, based on your life that makes perfect sense. I don’t agree, no problem. But what’s been happening a lot lately is where does that even come from? And the only thing I can think of is that their emotional systems have been engaged so strongly. Or it’s almost like a trauma based manipulation, they’ve got some trauma in their history that’s unhealed and with the emotional triggering, then this is the only conclusion they can jump to. Have you run into that, and if so, like, how can these tools help with that?
Karen Tibbals
Well, if you’re going to engage them in a conversation about something that you’re strong in and they’re not, for instance, to care moral Foundation, that’s never going to work. You’re just going to retract them, they’re just going to go back into the common enemy belonging. Where you’ve got to do is you’ve got to get them to slow down, which is hard. Okay, so I’ll go into another element of the psychology behind liberals and conservatives is that conservatives tend to have what’s called a high need for cognitive closure, they have low tolerance for ambiguity.
Karen Tibbals
So they want to jump to conclusions. They just want to, they need to.
Karen Tibbals
So getting them to slow down is hard. To do it, the best thing you can do is to ask questions, and to reflect back to them what you hear in terms of their values, and then they start to be able to feel like they’re being heard. And once they start to feel like they’re being heard, then you can start to change the color. conversation. But until you do that, for instance, you notice when I talked about my thought I said, it seems maybe I didn’t say this. But one of the things I thought about saying is, it seems like you know, what’s happening in our country is really important to you, and you care deeply about it. So there I would be reflecting back to her that I knew what was important to her, and then checking it out with her and saying, am I right? Do I have that right?
Heather Clark
Got it. And if you found that, at least in highly charged situations, that that is certainly reflecting people’s values. That’s very helpful. That’s an active listening technique. And it also helps kind of shift your own worldview and thought process. But if you found that that has helped kind of get through to people who appear to have their mind made up and kind of want to shut down further conversations.
Karen Tibbals
Well, it doesn’t always work. It works sometimes.
Heather Clark
Well, that’s better than some other tools. So
Karen Tibbals
Yes, and the other thing I discovered about this technique is that it also gives you lots of options. Because what you can do is you can start to brainstorm all the different moral foundations and all the different arguments you could make. And there’s so many of them, that once you start thinking in that way, I mean, I’ve been able to come up with, you know, four or five or six different options. I mean, I picked the one that I liked the best for my and because of that particular situation, but I could have chosen another one based on respect for authority or another one based on purity, or, you know, I could have done a lot of different things. For instance, and there’s lots of, there’s lots of examples in the real world of this being used, which is really interesting, because once again, once I started seeing this, I started seeing this everywhere. For instance, there’s a ad campaign that appears Texas I don’t know if you’ve driven in Texas and seen the billboards or seen any commercials that run for don’t mess with Texas for littering. I have. Okay, so the story goes is that the Texas Department of Transportation had a huge problem of littering in Texas over 30 years ago, and they didn’t know what to do about it. And you know, it’s similar to the mask issue because it’s an issue of liberty, I get to throw my garbage wherever, right. And, but what they came up with with the with was this campaign, which is don’t mess with Texas. So what that does is it personifies Texas, which is a belonging, part of the belonging moral foundation and Texas at the time being a very conservative state. This was very strong, and so and also gave up a bit of power to us. So good of authority that Texas had this authority to it. And it was a very powerful and very, very successful campaign that has run for 30 years.
Heather Clark
It really hits on all five, doesn’t it in one way or another?
Karen Tibbals
It does, but it doesn’t say care for the earth. Oh,
Heather Clark
no, not at all. But it’s it’s implied.
Karen Tibbals
But that’s part of the problem with environmentalism right now. And that environmentalism has pivoted to talk about care, and stop talking about the purity of the earth. And as that happened, I’ve charted this out as that that environmental issues pivoted to climate change and care for the people on the earth. support among conservatives dropped.
Heather Clark
Oh, that’s interesting.
Karen Tibbals
Stop talking about issues. You’ve stopped Talking about things in a way that conservatives could relate to, and they started being against it.
Heather Clark
What are some of the benefits that you could imagine? maybe perhaps you already know, but what are some of the benefits of continuing to talk for about care? That, you know, they’ve taken this position that have, you didn’t say alienated conservatives, but it had that vibe like conservatives just didn’t speak to them. So their support waned. What are the benefits of them continuing to do that? Are the people donating money to their causes? Is it really speaking to them?
Karen Tibbals
We’ve gained additional support from liberals. Yeah, liberals went way up. And you know, they themselves are liberal, so they don’t even realize they’re doing it. I mean, that’s part of this whole thing is we don’t even realize we’re doing this. The research that Willer in Feinberg did early on is they asked people to write an essay that would appeal to the opposite. political party. Now they did it. For both they did liberals to conservatives and conservatives to liberals. And they asked them again to write an essay on an issue. And it doesn’t matter what the issue is I don’t I think they did it on a number of different issues. And what they found was only 10% of the people were able to write an essay that drew on a moral value that was appealing to the opposite group. Instead, what they did and Willer says this in his TED Talk. Instead, what what both groups but both liberals and conservatives did is they wrote an essay as if they were writing it to themselves.
Heather Clark
So they end up essentially preaching to the choir, which converts
Karen Tibbals
no one. Exactly. Exactly. And I use an Aesop fable to describe what goes on, which is the fable of the wind and the sun. So the wind and the sun decided to start to see who is most powerful, and though the way they’re going to start Was which one got the traveler take off their cloak, in the wind went first, and it blew as hard as they could. And of course, the traveler held on to their cloak really tightly. The sun goes next, comes out and shines really brightly, and the traveler sits down to bask in the sun and takes off their cloak. So which one is most powerful? Of course, the sun. And how does that relate? Well, the wind is like what we are when we try to convince somebody by talking more loudly and more forcefully about our own values. And what it what happens is that people hold on to what they believe even tighter. So it actually causes a backlash and people actually believe things we believe what you what they think more strongly, the more forcefully you try to persuade them. But when you can get them to relax and have them believe that you’re listening to them and you know what’s important to them, then they can start to listen to the issue.
Heather Clark
Yeah, cuz so anytime you really fight against something, it actually just more deeply entrenches it. So yeah, that sounds like an excellent example of that. So this is really more about
being the sun
Heather Clark
and shining, but it sounds like it’s, it’s not only using this lens of speaking to the underlying values, talking about the issue, not the person and doing it through their value system and then finding which values are likely more important to them to make your case and to help them understand. Gosh, this is really so interesting. It’s, it’s also helpful for you to discern, well, what are my values here? And me beating this drum louder is actually working against me.
Karen Tibbals
And that’s what I think what happened with the Willard fiber study is that we are unaware of what our own values are. You know, we just they’re invisible to us. They’re like the air. So the first step I recommend is first of all to take the moral foundations quiz, which is online at your morals, your morals, org. Except I don’t like the version that’s up there now. And if you really want the one I recommend I can send it to you. Because they’re, they’re doing a new test of a couple different new things. And it doesn’t, it isn’t, well, it’s a research instrument. It’s not an instrument to do what I’m talking about doing. So what I’m talking about doing is using the, the questionnaire to really understand what your own values are. And then secondly, then to try to interrogate yourself to see the values that you’re low in to understand how they do play out in your life. Because even though You know, you may be higher in one than another, you still have the other ones and probably undervalue the other ones. And so you need to really understand how they operate in your life. And maybe what you don’t appreciate that you should.
Heather Clark
I love this. This is simply a different form of interrogating your own worldview. Instead of making everybody else wrong and obligating other people. This is huge for stress relief. So that’s fantastic.
Karen Tibbals
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then, let’s see, let me check my book.
Karen Tibbals
So I’ve got a bunch of questions in my book for how to how to interrogate them. And I’m working on a workbook which is going to talk about them more.
Karen Tibbals
But then, you know, I’ve written the book towards liberals, because that’s where I’ve come where I’m coming from. That was a that was most comfortable for me. And one of the disconnects that I’ve seen is that, you know, liberals value diversity and equality, and they say they value these things, but then they really don’t seem to value the opinions that disagree with them.
Heather Clark
I have noticed that too. Like you, you say you value it, but I don’t think so.
Heather Clark
So, is that simply a matter of Oh, maybe I don’t actually value it, or is it walking the talk or what’s been your discovery with that?
Karen Tibbals
Um, well, as part of this technique, I mean, you have, you have to, I think, you can’t do this unless you’re willing to admit him, that you might be wrong.
Heather Clark
Karen can you live life in a stress reduced way and being unshakable without being willing to admit you’re wrong?
Karen Tibbals
I don’t think so I think that you,
Karen Tibbals
but I know a lot of people who don’t do that. And, you know, because again, because these elements of your life are so invisible to us. And, and we take such a moralistic view, because these are our values. I mean, these are the things that people go to war over. So why would we expect that people wouldn’t feel moralistic over it. But to think that our morals might be wrong, that’s a that’s a tough road.
Karen Tibbals
That’s a tough road. Which is why I think other people don’t see what I’ve been seeing.
Heather Clark
And tell us more about what you’ve been seeing because I just I’m really getting the sense that this explains why people are taking things so personally. They’re feeling like not only the values but their morals are being attacked.
Karen Tibbals
That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. And it’s just
Karen Tibbals
it’s so sad.
Karen Tibbals
It’s just so sad that we can’t see
Karen Tibbals
that, you know, we’re all human, and we all make mistakes. Okay? And we all have things to contribute. And when we judge the other person’s morals as bad and wrong, and we don’t see what the good parts of the person and we don’t see what the good parts of their moral system are, then we lose the ability to value their contribution, and to see what’s they can offer. And I’ll get a little spiritual if I can for a minute.
Heather Clark
Oh, yes, please.
Karen Tibbals
Okay, so I’m a Quaker.
Karen Tibbals
And the core belief behind quakerism is that we each have a little bit of God within us. And the conundrum that I kept coming up with is, um, if we think that we each have a little bit of God within us, and we make these moralistic judgments about each other, then where’s that of God in that person? Where are we seeing it? And we’re not when we’re judging them. So this has become part of a spiritual practice for me for how I can see that of God within them.
Karen Tibbals
Enough of spirituality but
Heather Clark
Really, no, I like I want to hear a lot more about that. Like because how has that changed your life, to come at it from the lens of seeing the God in other people and even other people that are perhaps diametrically opposed to your point of view and what you value
Karen Tibbals
when they stopped becoming the enemy
Karen Tibbals
and they started having something available. You and I need to learn
Karen Tibbals
because it’s something that I’m weakened.
Karen Tibbals
And that just makes me much more peaceful.
Karen Tibbals
to not have enemies
Heather Clark
that just make life a lot easier.
Heather Clark
And it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to have them over for dinner either, I’m assuming,
Karen Tibbals
right? But I have relationships with people and not see them as a threat to myself and not see their views as a threat to mine and ask questions, and really learn what they’re about.
Karen Tibbals
And that’s just helped me be much more
Karen Tibbals
Wow. Okay. I’ll quote from a quicker leader walk cheerfully in the world.
Heather Clark
That’s beautiful.
Heather Clark
If I have this right, this is almost this isn’t. So what I’m hearing is this is a very simple but not simplistic. It’s a simple way of approaching the world understanding that people are complex, if you will, but not necessarily difficult, like fully fleshed out. There’s lots of different aspects to them. And instead of hope they don’t agree with me here and then they go in the not worthy category, like approaching world, everybody is worthy. Everybody has a contribution. And it sounds like there is an element of and I may not agree with everyone, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anyone is right or wrong.
Karen Tibbals
And that there’s something I can learn from that person I need to learn
Karen Tibbals
And that is important for me to do to become a fully functioning person.
Heather Clark
in different areas of spirituality that is considered a form of Shadow Work, like allowing what triggers you to just sit with it and really okay, well, what’s, what’s here for me like this is happening for me. What is that? And then taking those lessons and integrating them. And I don’t know if you see that as shadow work or not, but that’s at least one aspect of it. I just really appreciate that.
Karen Tibbals
I hadn’t named it as such. But yes, you’re absolutely right. You’re absolutely right. And you know, I mean, when we talk about people that I’ll change the conversation to cross culturally, and that we salt I’ll speak for myself in terms of the liberals the liberal community tends to value contributions from outside of their culture. But then they don’t know what to do with it. For instance, I had a friend in seminary, okay from Kenya, and a lot of Quakers in Kenya. But he came out as homosexual, inadvertently, he didn’t do it himself, somebody else outed him.
Karen Tibbals
And his family in Kenya
Karen Tibbals
get destroyed his possessions, his children disowned him, and he got death threats. So here we have this desire to have these relationships with people across the continents. But we run into these differences that we don’t know how to deal with. Now he has a it’s not a quite a happy ending, but he has a sign that he was granted asylum and he’s staying in the United States which is great. goal was always to go back to Kenya and work with homosexual youth. So he’s not achieving what he wanted to do. But
Karen Tibbals
you know that it was it’s a pretty sad story.
Karen Tibbals
But my faith community doesn’t know how to deal with those cross cultural differences. But the system allows you to say, Oh, well, the homosexuality is coming. The attitudes about homosexuality are coming from the purity
Karen Tibbals
moral foundation being violated.
Karen Tibbals
But here’s what we can do and money. Let me tell you a story about the US that talks about this issue.
Karen Tibbals
So the
Karen Tibbals
the gay rights campaign over the last 15 years, has taken an emphasis on gay marriage now before that, the emphasis was on gay rights but with the AIDS epidemic, it became clear that rights partners was very important in the way to do that was to go for marriage. Now, this was not a slam dunk. This wasn’t an easy thing. This was a fight within the gay in the gay community for what the emphasis should be. But they decided to go from gay marriage. focus to the campaign. And what they did inadvertently, I don’t think they knew about this, this theory. What they did is they ended up talking about the sanctity of marriage, which is part of the moral foundation of sanctity purity. And this campaign had the had the effect of over 15 years now it’s 2004 to 2019. If you look at the Pew study, attitudes doubled in terms of favourability from 30% to 60%. in favor of gay marriage in that timeframe. It was not related to any court decisions, it was not related to any events. It was, at least probably related to the change in the focus of the gay rights campaign.
Heather Clark
Because it was speaking more people’s language,
Karen Tibbals
it was speaking to the value of that that was important to them. So instead of what what homosexuality does is it violates the part of the sanctity purity in terms of people have a reaction called a disgust response, which is a physiological response that people have. And instead it It took the same value of sanctity purity, but it shifted it to the sanctity of marriage.
Karen Tibbals
And that was a very powerful shift.
Karen Tibbals
Same value, different interpretation.
Heather Clark
That’s fantastic. So just by simply Did you state that that was perhaps an unwittingly done? Or was that perhaps consciously done? What was your understanding of that?
Karen Tibbals
My understanding is that it was a battle that they fought, and they didn’t do. They didn’t know that they were using moral Foundation, their theory when they did it. I think it’s again, like the Texas Department of Transportation don’t mess with Texas campaign. It was one of those things that they fell into and it really worked. But the use of the value Yes, but there’s a there’s actually an emphasis a example I have, that I know people have used moral foundation theory, which was a billboard that I found in Utah now Utah’s a very conservative state. And the Mormons have about a history of using the latest psychological research I was when I was in Utah, I collected a bunch of examples of how they use latest psychological research and I found it can be Pay that they did for Brigham Young University for the recycling department that talked about use of that recycling was a way to use sacred resources. So I know that they used moral foundation theory for that because I know the history of the Mormons and how they used use psychological research.
Heather Clark
That is really interesting, too. I’d like hmm. There’s a lot of different directions that I’d like to take this but I think I’d like to come around to so as your sense of using this particular framework, and the methodology that you’ve developed in your book, and through your work. It’s the statement that when you’re communicating with someone, and then there’s an appearance of no common ground, is it your suggestion that that’s perhaps not true, and it’s a matter of finding which value to use.
Karen Tibbals
Yes, and there are predictable patterns. Like I said, the liberals tend to have one pattern, the conservatives tend to have a slightly different pattern. And just by knowing, and by keying into their words in which which words they’re using, there’s a, I don’t have in the book, but I have available if somebody emails me, there’s a dictionary of if they use this word, this is what they’re This is the foundation that they’re using. But I’ve gotten to such a point where I know these words so well, that I can key into them. But it takes it still takes me thought. I mean, it’s been years since I’ve been doing this, but it still takes me a while. So it’s not that easy. And so what I’ve done in the book is I’ve taken the, the major issues of the day, and I’ve analyzed them by the words that I see people using and you know, what I what values that I hear now, that doesn’t mean that I’m right, but I know that people who read the books that oh, well, now I understand things.
Heather Clark
Well, if I’m understanding correctly, it’s not even about Oh, I’ve got it right. It’s more about I have found a new onramp. I have found a new way of communicating with this person that could be more effective. Let me try it.
Karen Tibbals
Right. Well, I, in terms of is it right in terms of what I what I’m analyzing? So let me give an example. I’ve been recently posting in a group that I’m part of, that has people who are former evangelicals. And I was posting my theory about why I thought evangelicals, were having such a hard time with understanding that COVID-19 was real. And I posted my theory, and what I got was some comments that allowed me to see some other things that I hadn’t seen.
Karen Tibbals
So my analysis wasn’t wrong, it just wasn’t complete.
Heather Clark
Is that is your analysis developed enough that you feel comfortable sharing a little bit about it? Because I know that I have lots of personal friends where we’ve had some discussions about why aren’t people thinking this is a real thing that could really help flesh out. And and not only understanding this issue, but I think that information would then be portable to other issues.
Karen Tibbals
Yeah, I mean, I can share with you what I’ve, I’m going to be writing about this. I’m going to start a newsletter.
Karen Tibbals
tentatively titled ask Karen Why?
Karen Tibbals
Except I’m a little concerned about the Karen in the name because Karen
Heather Clark
thanks pop culture. Yeah.
Karen Tibbals
So So watch my website for the name of the app. name but anyway,
Karen Tibbals
what what I’ve come to understand first of all is that I think I said this at the beginning of the podcast common enemy belonging is driving so much of this. It is just such a driver of it, that it to get past it is tough. But what I initially thought when I thought about COVID-19, and conservatives response would was that because conservatives are higher in sanctity and purity, I thought they would be more flipped out about the disease. And of course, that’s not true. So common enemy belonging is overcoming that. But what I didn’t, what I what I posted in this group, which was a partial explanation is that evangelicals have a lot invested in the purity culture. They have a lot invested in
Karen Tibbals
being and being thought to be pure.
Karen Tibbals
which has all sorts of sexual implications for evangelicals. And what what came up was that if you end up getting COVID-19, then you’ve done something wrong and you’re no longer pure.
Karen Tibbals
So you’re someone to be avoided and not believed.
Karen Tibbals
And then the other thing that came up in my, in the group that I hadn’t ever thought of was that this person said that she thought there was pride involved. So pride that I’m not going to get it because I’m got this great belief. I’m so pure. So it’s sort of this belief that I’m pure. So therefore I’m I’m going to avoid it which is part of the fairness Moral foundation. So I think it’s common in belonging, the purity culture, and then the fairness and what i what i have earned. So I’ve earned this through my purity and through the group that I belong to.
Heather Clark
Oh, that’s fascinating. Do you think that respect for authority is playing a role here because many people in positions of authority have been downplaying this as an issue?
Karen Tibbals
It is, in the fact that respect for authority could have counteracted it and they’ve chosen not to,
Heather Clark
Oh, I see. So it’s not necessarily a cause or a contributor to the issue, but it’s not it could have perhaps balanced it and it wasn’t utilized.
Karen Tibbals
Right. Okay. people haven’t come out against masks. But they haven’t come out for masks either or the if they come out formats they’ve come out lukewarm in a lukewarm fashion for masks.
Heather Clark
Got it. This is very helpful. This is such a wonderful way to kind of break it down a little bit and be able to ponderable what’s truly going on here. Because I agree the idea, well, they’re just stupid. That’s not terribly helpful. It’s helpful and doesn’t really contribute to discourse. And yet I know a lot of people It feels like there’s a great deal of mudslinging on both sides. And then I’ve noticed in the spiritual community, there’s, there’s a lot of different factions that have some really interesting points of view about what’s going on. But I’m really liking this as feels very grounded. And whether or not it’s exactly what’s happening, I love it as a framework to start to explore what’s happening. Very helpful.
Karen Tibbals
And then it gives you ideas. I mean, that great part about it is you said, Okay, well now that’s going on. I can even maybe use the same or Foundation, I just need to switch it a little bit like the gay campaign did.
Heather Clark
And it feels like what’s really helpful is to have the a priori assumption that the other person has worth and value and be willing to really relate to them as a complex person. And if you’re willing to do that, it sounds like the rest of this is a lot easier. Is that what you found? Or is that not quite it?
Karen Tibbals
Oh, absolutely. I mean, it needs to be somebody that you really want to maintain relationship with. You know, you can’t do this with somebody on the street. Although you know what, once you get really good at it, you can sort of do it. I was in a conversation with some people in my neighborhood, including people I didn’t know. And the topic came up that I written a book and what it was about and you know, and this woman piped up and said, you know, somebody didn’t know not met 10 minutes before and she said something about she’s a kid. Think and she’s believes marriage is a sacrament and you know, gays can get married in a civil union, but why do they have to get married in this? And marriage, an actual marriage? And I said, Well, maybe they want the sacredness of the marriage for them also.
Karen Tibbals
Now, that came out of the fact that I’ve been rehearsing this.
Karen Tibbals
And so I could think on my feet, and you know, I, I don’t necessarily need to, to maintain this relationship with this woman. I didn’t know. But it was, it was, you know, it came out very quickly because I had practiced and that’s the thing you need to practice this. This isn’t something that comes easily. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of work. And it takes a lot of thinking and then practice and so what I’m hoping to do in September, well, I’ve had on the books to do a workshop, which will be several sessions, that people could do a deep dive into the different moral foundations and practice doing this from a deep level.
Heather Clark
Oh, that sounds great. Yeah, cuz
Heather Clark
I could see how learning about it is one thing, applying it as another. And I just want to check in real quickly. I think there’s a lot of people in there back in the minds that maybe would feel better if we pointed this out. These techniques are really useful for relationships you’d like to continue and maintain. This is not necessarily to try and get along with toxic people, correct?
Karen Tibbals
Absolutely. And it’s not going to everyone. And so your expectations have to be that you can make the relationship better but you you may never, you may never get there with with some people at all.
Heather Clark
Got it? I just want to be real clear and upfront about that and point that out up here. Tell me about what is your origin story? How did you come to be doing this?
Karen Tibbals
Well, one of the key elements in my backstory is that I’ve been in a support group for people who’ve been affected by someone else’s substance abuse for many years. And what I learned from that, decades of that is to not necessarily look to blame the other person, but to focus on myself and what I could do differently. And without that I couldn’t have
Karen Tibbals
taken this journey. It really was a major
Karen Tibbals
decision point in my life, to continue to attend this support group for many years. And it was through that work that I made lots of changes in my life. I worked in corporate America for many years, and my my experience was to understand consumer behavior. So I have lots of experience and understanding why people do what they do. But I was very focused on the products the company that I was working for made, and then I left that career in the end of 2000. When I had a religious calling to go to seminary, now what I thought I was going to do in seminary was I thought I was going to start a group to try to think about how to apply religion to a business life. And actually did start that group with some other people. But then I found it wasn’t, it wasn’t what I wanted to do long term. It wasn’t didn’t wasn’t a good fit for me. And then I was searching around for what was next. And this theory had had such a grasp on me that I started and again, it just changed the way I thought about the world. And I thought, well, I’m if nobody else is going to talk about how to apply this theory to the world. It’s got to be me. So this is my second book that I’ve written on this. And I’m doing workshops with people and giving talks about how this this works. And again, starting a newsletter I Oh,
Heather Clark
this is so important, because I can see so many applications of this but certainly creating those founders. Using the moral foundations theory in your work, the creating the foundations to have unshakable relationships, and maybe not rosy all the time relationships, but certainly unshakable, and that’s with people, you love people, you work with relationships that you’d like to maintain. And it really feels like coming at it in a way that’s completely authentic. It allows you to be the real you. It doesn’t feel like there’s any vibe of manipulation here. It sounds like it’s more about listening to what they’re saying, reflecting it back to them creating that opportunity, you can have that dialogue and then talking to them in a way that might change their mind and it might not but you get heard.
Karen Tibbals
Exactly. And I was very concerned about the manipulation point, because after all, you know, I went to seminary right.
Karen Tibbals
And, and I get that reaction sometimes when I do the presentations that that people feel it’s manipulation. And I, my answer to that became as I thought about it deeply is its manipulation is, if you’re doing it just to change the other person’s point of view, it’s not manipulation if you’re doing it to understand the other person on a deep level.
Heather Clark
I love that. And,
Heather Clark
you know, there’s a lot to be said for speaking to somebody who’s listening. Because if somebody is trying to talk to me about something, and is trying to use my, just pick one respect for authority, they’re probably going to have a harder time. They talk to me through the lens of fairness, it’s a lot easier for me to hear and then that gets them heard and I can still discern what they’re saying, but they’ve actually gotten my attention. Like this is now a dialogue instead of me tuning them out, because they’re speaking in a way that I can hear them. Exactly. That Yeah, I agree. That’s not manipulative. That’s just good communication. So beautiful. I would also like to know, Karen, what does it mean to you to be unshakable
Karen Tibbals
means knowing who I am,
Karen Tibbals
and having resilience for when things happen, that I can recover. Because I’m going to be shaken things are going to happen, things aren’t going to turn out the way I want them to.
Karen Tibbals
But being able to keep going and find another way.
Heather Clark
Beautiful. This has been absolutely lovely. I highly recommend people find Karen,
Heather Clark
get this book.
Heather Clark
I can just feel how even just interrogating your own worldview and discovering what are your values that can change your own stress experience. And really change the relationships and then to apply your techniques that feels like that would kick it up several levels. So that’s wonderful. Where can we find you Karen?
Karen Tibbals
So my website is persuade Oh preach no apostrophe www dot persuade don’t preach.com My email address is Karen at ethicalframes.com.
Karen Tibbals
I also am on LinkedIn and Twitter under those names and Facebook.
Karen Tibbals
And I also have a website for about marketing called www ethicalframes.com so several places.
Heather Clark
Fantastic and for those listening who didn’t get their pen in time it’s all in the show notes.
Karen Tibbals
Yeah, I’m also doing an introductory webinars where I’m where I’m asking questions. I’m taking questions from people if you have a difficult relationship and you want some tips, some ideas, you can sign up again at the persuade, don’t preach comm website for a webinar and I’ll take questions on that.
Heather Clark
How lovely Kurt, thank you so much. This has been so joyful. It’s been a
Heather Clark
pleasure talking to you.
Heather Clark
Thank you so much for listening to Unshakable Being. You’ll find more information in the episode shownotes at unshakablebeing.com. Subscribe to the podcast and share with your friends. May you be unshakable, unstoppable, and vibrant again. Until next time.