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How to Disagree Better
304 pages, Hardcover
Published March 24, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
April 23, 2026
i think everyone should read this…
May 20, 2026
Psychology professor, Julia Minson, opens her provocative text, 'How to Disagree Better' by proposing:
“Trying to persuade people that they are wrong is a losing battle because they will simply conclude that you don’t get it… Instead, consider what information they might be missing… and what a smart and reasonable person might see differently.”
She emphasizes her point, “Trying to win an argument is a good way to start a fight.”
The author attributes this dilemma to a widely prevalent blind spot, she calls naive realism: “Most conflict stems from the simple fact that everyone thinks they are right.”
This ‘logic’ leads us to ask, Why doesn’t my opponent in this argument get it? Attributions of deficient intelligence, inadequate education, naivete, or even character flaws lead to implications of superiority and condescension that only harden resistance. Conflict is only one insult away.
Receptiveness is a better tactic – Minson urges readers to investigate the opinions of others. I find it helpful to consider the evolution of scientific knowledge: hypothesis formation, hypothesis testing, and hypothesis reformulation, in light of new observations and experiments. The scientific method requires us to embrace uncertainty and treat all hypotheses as tentative, rather than as laws. In these contexts, disagreement can be productive: No one knows all the facts, much less all of the perspectives. We all suffer from 'selective exposure' or 'congeniality bias' to our own ideas.
What does one need in this type of discussion? Intellectual humility and a tolerance of uncertainty can get us started toward learning something rather than fighting. Minson calls the combination of a curious mindset and respectful behavior receptiveness.
Receptiveness to opposing views includes a person’s willingness to access, consider, and evaluate both supporting and opposing views impartially. ‘Why would a thoughtful, reasonable, kind, decent person think that?’ Receptiveness is not the same as persuasion. It involves trade-offs: don’t lionize our own views, or villainize our opponent’s views. Minson suggests we need to consider four elements of our attitude as we try to develop receptiveness:
• Emotional equanimity – Don’t let other viewpoints make you angry, disgusted, frustrated, or annoyed.
• Intellectual curiosity – Be curious about the origins of other people’s beliefs, including conversations, reading, podcasts, and personal interactions with different perspectives or beliefs.
• Respect toward opponents – Examine your reactions to alternative ideas; what is really too extreme, not compelling, not fact-based, unscientific, ill-informed, or dishonest ?
• Tolerance of taboo issues – Which issues do I find: too offensive, not up for debate, immoral, illegal, dangerous, and/ or unholy (blasphemous)?
Receptiveness is about the mindset of curiosity and withholding judgment, and the behavior of listening with interest and without interrupting. Empathy is about feeling (and trying to understand) from another’s perspective. Feeling listened to and understood builds trust.
Responsiveness is contagious, “Acting receptively makes others do the same for you.”
In an argument, most people are likely to assume that their opponent only wants to convince them that they are right, not learn anything about their viewpoint. We have conversations for lots of different reasons, not just seeking a solution to a problem. Sometimes, we just want to feel heard. But most of us do not enter a discussion hoping to be proved wrong or lacking.
People in an argument feel much more positive about their opponent if they think their opponent is actually interested in their point of view. Convincing an opponent that you are listening is difficult; impatience, overconfidence, and pride all stand in the way.
Minson advises her readers to ask the right questions, specifically avoiding snarky or ‘gotcha’ questions – “A good mental rule of thumb is that if asking a question in a disagreement made you feel superior to your counterpart, you probably should not have asked it.”
Avoid 'boomerasking' where you fake curiosity, signal that you aren’t interested in their answer, and are only trying to set up your rebuttal – “Recipients recognize that a 'boomerask' is a fake question, which often makes this move backfire.”
Don’t be scared of sensitive questions, but be mindful of them. Elaboration questions and follow-up questions signal interest. Ask your conversation partner to develop her position. Be prepared to hear different views. Ask follow-up questions to clarify areas of difference and of agreement.
Minson describes the psychological construct of ‘perspective taking’ – the ability to see things from another person’s point of view. She tells readers that this is a difficult skill to learn, in part because even when we are trying to understand our fellow conversationalist’s point of view, we tend to fill in our knowledge gaps in their story with our assumptions and biases. She describes a mediation process between a citizens group and state officials where the two sides used ‘best available science’ to mean different things; eventually, they agreed that they were conflating data with science, and that what they really needed was some sort of agreement between groups on shared goals.
Psychologist Minson proposes a method she calls the ‘Listening Triangle’ to enable our curiosity and lead to understanding:
• Ask a question – We express the desire to learn.
• Listen to the answer - Resist the temptations to interrupt and to assume you ‘know’ their answer.
• Reflection – “So let me see if I ‘ve got this right…” or “Did I miss something?”
Repeat – “That’s what I think, but I’m curious to know how you see it.”
This mediation method is challenging to learn, and Minson suggests that we practice by asking friends or family questions that are neither controversial nor contentious in order to learn to not to interrupt our fellow conversationalists. Our goal is first curiosity, and then understanding.
The author proposes a mnemonic device, the HEAR framework, as a means of demonstrating receptiveness during a discussion:
• Hedge your claims
• Emphasize agreement
• Acknowledge your fellow discussant’s perspectives, and
• Reframe to the positive
Minson describes a number of studies of door-to-door canvassing used to elicit opinions and attempt to begin dialogue. Among the findings of these studies is the idea that telling a personal story can build trust and interest, as long as the story conveys the vulnerability and humanity of its teller. It is OK, she tells readers, to add facts and figures. But the human story helps establish the competence and trustworthiness of those ‘facts’.
Among the reservations expressed to Julia Minson regarding the notion of receptiveness:
o Why should I talk to crazy people?
o What if I’m actually right?
o Do we need to be receptive to immoral perspectives?
o What if being receptive makes people think I might change my mind?
o What if I’m being receptive, but they are being combative?
o What if I don’t want to have a miserable time?
o Does receptiveness vary between cultures?
o Doesn’t behaving receptively seem fake?
o What does courage have to do with it? What am I afraid of?
Minson tells us that many of these fears boil down to concern about how we will be perceived; she tells us that although courage may be required, usually our fears of what others will think are exaggerated. There remains the careful consideration of whether trying to solve the particular disagreement with the particular individual is worth the courage and effort needed.
Minson finishes her book with several suggestions for implementing her teaching into our conversational lives. Among my favorites are:
• Repetition – the mother of all learning
• Creating a practice plan with other conversationalists,
• Writing out before, during, and after conversation steps, and
• Identifying heroes of receptivity to emulate
I found How to Disagree Better useful, and I recommend it highly.
“Trying to persuade people that they are wrong is a losing battle because they will simply conclude that you don’t get it… Instead, consider what information they might be missing… and what a smart and reasonable person might see differently.”
She emphasizes her point, “Trying to win an argument is a good way to start a fight.”
The author attributes this dilemma to a widely prevalent blind spot, she calls naive realism: “Most conflict stems from the simple fact that everyone thinks they are right.”
This ‘logic’ leads us to ask, Why doesn’t my opponent in this argument get it? Attributions of deficient intelligence, inadequate education, naivete, or even character flaws lead to implications of superiority and condescension that only harden resistance. Conflict is only one insult away.
Receptiveness is a better tactic – Minson urges readers to investigate the opinions of others. I find it helpful to consider the evolution of scientific knowledge: hypothesis formation, hypothesis testing, and hypothesis reformulation, in light of new observations and experiments. The scientific method requires us to embrace uncertainty and treat all hypotheses as tentative, rather than as laws. In these contexts, disagreement can be productive: No one knows all the facts, much less all of the perspectives. We all suffer from 'selective exposure' or 'congeniality bias' to our own ideas.
What does one need in this type of discussion? Intellectual humility and a tolerance of uncertainty can get us started toward learning something rather than fighting. Minson calls the combination of a curious mindset and respectful behavior receptiveness.
Receptiveness to opposing views includes a person’s willingness to access, consider, and evaluate both supporting and opposing views impartially. ‘Why would a thoughtful, reasonable, kind, decent person think that?’ Receptiveness is not the same as persuasion. It involves trade-offs: don’t lionize our own views, or villainize our opponent’s views. Minson suggests we need to consider four elements of our attitude as we try to develop receptiveness:
• Emotional equanimity – Don’t let other viewpoints make you angry, disgusted, frustrated, or annoyed.
• Intellectual curiosity – Be curious about the origins of other people’s beliefs, including conversations, reading, podcasts, and personal interactions with different perspectives or beliefs.
• Respect toward opponents – Examine your reactions to alternative ideas; what is really too extreme, not compelling, not fact-based, unscientific, ill-informed, or dishonest ?
• Tolerance of taboo issues – Which issues do I find: too offensive, not up for debate, immoral, illegal, dangerous, and/ or unholy (blasphemous)?
Receptiveness is about the mindset of curiosity and withholding judgment, and the behavior of listening with interest and without interrupting. Empathy is about feeling (and trying to understand) from another’s perspective. Feeling listened to and understood builds trust.
Responsiveness is contagious, “Acting receptively makes others do the same for you.”
In an argument, most people are likely to assume that their opponent only wants to convince them that they are right, not learn anything about their viewpoint. We have conversations for lots of different reasons, not just seeking a solution to a problem. Sometimes, we just want to feel heard. But most of us do not enter a discussion hoping to be proved wrong or lacking.
People in an argument feel much more positive about their opponent if they think their opponent is actually interested in their point of view. Convincing an opponent that you are listening is difficult; impatience, overconfidence, and pride all stand in the way.
Minson advises her readers to ask the right questions, specifically avoiding snarky or ‘gotcha’ questions – “A good mental rule of thumb is that if asking a question in a disagreement made you feel superior to your counterpart, you probably should not have asked it.”
Avoid 'boomerasking' where you fake curiosity, signal that you aren’t interested in their answer, and are only trying to set up your rebuttal – “Recipients recognize that a 'boomerask' is a fake question, which often makes this move backfire.”
Don’t be scared of sensitive questions, but be mindful of them. Elaboration questions and follow-up questions signal interest. Ask your conversation partner to develop her position. Be prepared to hear different views. Ask follow-up questions to clarify areas of difference and of agreement.
Minson describes the psychological construct of ‘perspective taking’ – the ability to see things from another person’s point of view. She tells readers that this is a difficult skill to learn, in part because even when we are trying to understand our fellow conversationalist’s point of view, we tend to fill in our knowledge gaps in their story with our assumptions and biases. She describes a mediation process between a citizens group and state officials where the two sides used ‘best available science’ to mean different things; eventually, they agreed that they were conflating data with science, and that what they really needed was some sort of agreement between groups on shared goals.
Psychologist Minson proposes a method she calls the ‘Listening Triangle’ to enable our curiosity and lead to understanding:
• Ask a question – We express the desire to learn.
• Listen to the answer - Resist the temptations to interrupt and to assume you ‘know’ their answer.
• Reflection – “So let me see if I ‘ve got this right…” or “Did I miss something?”
Repeat – “That’s what I think, but I’m curious to know how you see it.”
This mediation method is challenging to learn, and Minson suggests that we practice by asking friends or family questions that are neither controversial nor contentious in order to learn to not to interrupt our fellow conversationalists. Our goal is first curiosity, and then understanding.
The author proposes a mnemonic device, the HEAR framework, as a means of demonstrating receptiveness during a discussion:
• Hedge your claims
• Emphasize agreement
• Acknowledge your fellow discussant’s perspectives, and
• Reframe to the positive
Minson describes a number of studies of door-to-door canvassing used to elicit opinions and attempt to begin dialogue. Among the findings of these studies is the idea that telling a personal story can build trust and interest, as long as the story conveys the vulnerability and humanity of its teller. It is OK, she tells readers, to add facts and figures. But the human story helps establish the competence and trustworthiness of those ‘facts’.
Among the reservations expressed to Julia Minson regarding the notion of receptiveness:
o Why should I talk to crazy people?
o What if I’m actually right?
o Do we need to be receptive to immoral perspectives?
o What if being receptive makes people think I might change my mind?
o What if I’m being receptive, but they are being combative?
o What if I don’t want to have a miserable time?
o Does receptiveness vary between cultures?
o Doesn’t behaving receptively seem fake?
o What does courage have to do with it? What am I afraid of?
Minson tells us that many of these fears boil down to concern about how we will be perceived; she tells us that although courage may be required, usually our fears of what others will think are exaggerated. There remains the careful consideration of whether trying to solve the particular disagreement with the particular individual is worth the courage and effort needed.
Minson finishes her book with several suggestions for implementing her teaching into our conversational lives. Among my favorites are:
• Repetition – the mother of all learning
• Creating a practice plan with other conversationalists,
• Writing out before, during, and after conversation steps, and
• Identifying heroes of receptivity to emulate
I found How to Disagree Better useful, and I recommend it highly.
Want to Read
March 20, 2026As heard on Self-Conscious with Chrissy Teigen - Julia Minson: Disagree Better: Hold Your Ground Without Lighting a Match
https://rss.art19.com/episodes/415aa5...
Harvard professor Julia Minson joins Chrissy to break down why most “conflict” isn’t about bad people—it’s about missing skills. She explains how disagreement turns toxic when we slip into judgment, certainty, and a win/lose mindset, and why “good intentions” don’t count if the other person can’t hear them. Then she gives a practical toolkit—naive realism, “listen with your mouth,” and her HEAR framework—to help you say what you mean, lower the temperature, and preserve the relationship for the next conversation.
Key Takeaways
Disagreement ≠ conflict: conflict starts when you judge the person (you’re ignorant / selfish / bad) instead of wrestling with the idea. Most fights are “missing skills,” not bad intentions: people aren’t trained to show curiosity, signal respect, or stay regulated when heat rises. Naive realism is the trap: we believe we’re seeing “objective reality,” so if you disagree, something must be wrong with you—and that’s how contempt enters. People don’t want to change their minds—so stop arguing like they do: we assume they’re threatened; really, they’re usually just annoyed you won’t accept their “obvious” truth. A good disagreement builds a bridge to the next one: success = the other person still wants to talk to you after, not “I won.”
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
https://rss.art19.com/episodes/415aa5...
Review of advance copy received from Goodreads Giveaways
In this book, the author - who is a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and a behavioral scientist - discusses something that we all run into (and probably now more than ever) - disagreement and how to handle it. Some people thrive on disagreement. Other people (me) try to avoid it whenever possible. But most of us can benefit from learning some tools to help us manage disagreement better.
What I like about this book is the author frames the idea of disagreement in a very practical way - whether at home, work or school. She also acknowledges that handling disagreement better doesn't necessarily mean ultimately agreeing with the person or persuading them to agree with your position. In fact, she admits that is typically not the result. The idea behind the book is how do we get to a place where we can disagree with someone and not end up in a bad place/relationship with that person. Using techniques such as listening better, asking questions to help you better understand why someone has taken the position they have, etc. can all be used to help diffuse situations.
In today's world where disagreement seems to be the norm, I think everyone could benefit from reading this book. While I think it does get a bit too detailed and might be easier for people to comprehend if it was a little more "to the point", I definitely got some good pieces of information out of it and some strategies that I plan to utilize.
I received an advance review copy for free and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
What I like about this book is the author frames the idea of disagreement in a very practical way - whether at home, work or school. She also acknowledges that handling disagreement better doesn't necessarily mean ultimately agreeing with the person or persuading them to agree with your position. In fact, she admits that is typically not the result. The idea behind the book is how do we get to a place where we can disagree with someone and not end up in a bad place/relationship with that person. Using techniques such as listening better, asking questions to help you better understand why someone has taken the position they have, etc. can all be used to help diffuse situations.
In today's world where disagreement seems to be the norm, I think everyone could benefit from reading this book. While I think it does get a bit too detailed and might be easier for people to comprehend if it was a little more "to the point", I definitely got some good pieces of information out of it and some strategies that I plan to utilize.
I received an advance review copy for free and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
May 26, 2026
This book has some useful advice. It's also pretty annoying.
I have some serious methodological critiques. On page xi, the third page of non-Table-of-Contents text, she writes, "A typical American experiences approximately 6.2 memorable disagreements every week. [. . .] Beyond the actual disagreement, people spend another 3.7 hours a week ruminating about and regretting their disagreements." There is NO citation for these numbers. Where did she get them? On page 52, she admits to p-hacking. On page 235, she makes a totally unsupported and non-specific claim about saving money.
I also have some unserious critiques. On page xxiv, she uses the idiotic term "thought partner". She doesn't really distinguish between small disagreements (who should pick up the kids from school tomorrow) and big ones (whether someone should change their religion). She uses her days as a ballroom dancer as an extended example from her own life and briefly mentions other people who work on the Middle East. Did those other people write a book? Their problems seem much more interesting. On page 94, she talks about research subjects struggling to do something in an experiment and then kind of says, "And these were Stanford students. Can you imagine dumb people trying to do this?" It did not surprise me to read on page 231 that after college she worked as a management consultant.
I have some serious methodological critiques. On page xi, the third page of non-Table-of-Contents text, she writes, "A typical American experiences approximately 6.2 memorable disagreements every week. [. . .] Beyond the actual disagreement, people spend another 3.7 hours a week ruminating about and regretting their disagreements." There is NO citation for these numbers. Where did she get them? On page 52, she admits to p-hacking. On page 235, she makes a totally unsupported and non-specific claim about saving money.
I also have some unserious critiques. On page xxiv, she uses the idiotic term "thought partner". She doesn't really distinguish between small disagreements (who should pick up the kids from school tomorrow) and big ones (whether someone should change their religion). She uses her days as a ballroom dancer as an extended example from her own life and briefly mentions other people who work on the Middle East. Did those other people write a book? Their problems seem much more interesting. On page 94, she talks about research subjects struggling to do something in an experiment and then kind of says, "And these were Stanford students. Can you imagine dumb people trying to do this?" It did not surprise me to read on page 231 that after college she worked as a management consultant.
April 8, 2026
I didn't want to like this book. Ms. Minson has a somewhat whiny authorial voice, and I'm suspicious of many findings in social psychology, a field that is rife with P-hacking and non-reproducible results. Plus, I came to it thinking that it had little to teach me. My entire career is about getting people to "yes". I have been doing this for years, and I'm pretty damned good at it, even if I am not as perfect in my practice of calm, reasoned, persuasive discussion as I would like to be.
But as I read, I tried to keep an open mind and get into the spirit of the book. If resolving disagreement constructively is tied to having a receptive attitude and projecting that to others, then didn't I owe it to Ms. Minson to be receptive to her point of view? Once I started thinking that way, I could feel my doubt and bad attitude about this book melt away. Even if I do already practice much of what she is preaching here, there are always a few new tricks for an old dog like me to learn, and doing the things that are advised here is sometimes counterintuitive, so it's good to have her suggestions as a mental checklist to steer me back in the right direction.
But as I read, I tried to keep an open mind and get into the spirit of the book. If resolving disagreement constructively is tied to having a receptive attitude and projecting that to others, then didn't I owe it to Ms. Minson to be receptive to her point of view? Once I started thinking that way, I could feel my doubt and bad attitude about this book melt away. Even if I do already practice much of what she is preaching here, there are always a few new tricks for an old dog like me to learn, and doing the things that are advised here is sometimes counterintuitive, so it's good to have her suggestions as a mental checklist to steer me back in the right direction.
April 6, 2026
Members of a family have to learn to live harmoniously even when they disagree. Citizens in a democracy have to find compromise with others with whom they disagree. This is hard, and there is always the temptation to decide others are crazy and to write them off. That sort of hostility leads, predictably, to the breakdown of a family or a democracy.
Julia Minson’s words are a breath of fresh air and sanity in a world beset by hositility toward those with whom we disagree. A shortage of curiosity about how they came to their beliefs and compassion for their perspective so often leads to dysfunctional conflict that leaves everyone worse off. Divorce and civil war are exceedingly costly processes for resolving disagreements between partners or citizens. Minson offers us hope we can do better.
Read this book and get it for all those in your life with whom you value having a positive relationship.
Julia Minson’s words are a breath of fresh air and sanity in a world beset by hositility toward those with whom we disagree. A shortage of curiosity about how they came to their beliefs and compassion for their perspective so often leads to dysfunctional conflict that leaves everyone worse off. Divorce and civil war are exceedingly costly processes for resolving disagreements between partners or citizens. Minson offers us hope we can do better.
Read this book and get it for all those in your life with whom you value having a positive relationship.
May 21, 2026
The book has got good intentions and made me cognisant of the need to be more receptive to other peoples’ point of views and be more prepared to listen and respond carefully and constructively before engaging in responses that without thought could end up in conflict and a race to the bottom. However I did not find it a particularly easy read as I found that there was a lot of repetition in the book and the narrow differences between the theoretical examples and experiments were at times difficult to separate. I will try to use the spirit of the book to engage more positively in conversations with both people who I agree and disagree with.
May 21, 2026
We live in a world where conflicting viewpoints are immediately written off because someone is perceived to be “too [insert political stance]”. This book offers ways to handle debates or discussions in a way that lets you actually have a candid discussion where no one leaves feeling disregarded or brushed off. Would highly recommend!
April 30, 2026
So yes it’s a great book and worth reading if you want to have better conversations and outcomes for all.
Do not sleep on the assessment tool on the website. This was very enlightening : bang there is my area I need to work on.
Do not sleep on the assessment tool on the website. This was very enlightening : bang there is my area I need to work on.
Want to Read
April 10, 2026Billerica Public Library 158.2/MINS 2026 Due 4/29/2026 33934005051520
Burlington Public Library XX(1702479.3) Being acquired by the library 1702479-3001
Lawrence Public Library 158.2 MIN
Burlington Public Library XX(1702479.3) Being acquired by the library 1702479-3001
Lawrence Public Library 158.2 MIN
April 15, 2026
Both interesting and informative, including practical skills to try. Very applicable in the current state of the world we find ourselves trying to survive in.
May 13, 2026
The author offers thought provoking insights and structures for methods for improving communication, perspectives and conflict resolution.
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