Speaking to a virtual classroom of future leaders, I said, “We have to figure out how to manage the costs of listening to the other side.” I was encouraging them to engage with people they disagree with amid the contentious 2020 election. But, as I explained, speaking to people you vehemently disagree with will cost you something.

Being willing to listen and ask questions of your ideological opposites will, at best, cost you a little bit of your pride. Or it’ll cost you credibility with people who share your viewpoint and think dialogue will compromise you. At worst, it can cost you your safety as political disagreements seem to be turning violent more frequently.

How do we know when dialogue or compromise is worth it? When do we walk away from the table and turn to protest or direct action? There’s a time for both.

Talking Across Boundaries

Take, for example, a developer who wants to build a new affordable housing project in her community. She does the preliminary work on the project only to find herself at odds with neighbors who raise environmental concerns about paving over the only green space in the neighborhood. Both sides have a choice to engage or disengage with the other.

Research shows that poorly managed disagreement can lead to avoidance, bias and escalation. By learning to disagree well, the parties in conflict can counteract those impacts and form mutually beneficial relationships that will strengthen their communities in the long run. So how can our developer and her neighbors disagree productively?

First, one or (ideally both) parties need to focus on managing their emotions. Whether we know it or not, most of us avoid engaging with opposite viewpoints, in part, because we expect to experience negative emotions. But in testing Republican and Democratic voters, this study found that participants overestimated their negative emotions and underestimated levels of agreement. Recognizing that the thing you dread isn’t as bad as you think is a good place to start.

Of course, negative emotions will naturally arise over the course of difficult conversations. When they do, decision scientists have found a few strategies that work if you’re willing to put in the effort. One is to reframe the thing that’s upsetting you. For example, if our developer’s neighbors call her a “sell-out” at a town meeting, she should actively remind herself that it’s not about her. Her neighbors are concerned about changes to the community they love.

In addition to reframing, scientists found that if you know your emotions can bias your interactions and decision-making, you’re likely to evaluate the situation and choose your responses more carefully. If the neighbors in this scenario want to maintain a productive conversation, they could strategize in advance to understand and monitor each other’s emotional responses to help avoid making statements that could heighten tensions.

After focusing on their own emotions, disagreeing parties should work to communicate receptiveness to the other side’s point of view. Acknowledging the other person’s perspective by listening then restating their position is one strategy. Another is to emphasize agreement. Even if they can’t agree on this issue, the developer and her neighbors are probably looking for something similar – they want a community they can thrive in. Centering a conversation on agreement, regardless of whether it leads to compromise, helps dissipate conflict, prevent long-term biases and build relationships for work in the future.

Protest And Resistance

Dialogue works best when both parties have enough structural power or grassroots momentum to bring people to the table. Historically oppressed communities and groups facing overwhelming systemic biases may find more success engaging in nonviolent resistance to build critical mass for change.

The protests against the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea are a good example. Our system of government has repeatedly disregarded Native Hawaiian rights and ignored their claims to sacred lands. In response, they rightly built a movement that could shift the power balance, ensuring their voices are heard.

Research on nonviolent resistance shows that “movements that were able to mobilize at least 3.5 percent of the populations were uniformly successful.” Creating a large, diverse base of supporters was also key.

Successful movements were also able to create shifts in loyalty among power elites, such as business leaders and law enforcement, vary their methods of resistance beyond protest and maintain organizational discipline in the face of repression without turning to violence or collapsing. From arrests of elders to celebrity endorsements to diverse support, the movement to protect Mauna Kea has the markings of a movement that will last.

Disagreement and political conflict are both inevitable and necessary for change. Our arguments over how we handle the resources we share are important, so we must handle them well. Sometimes that means raising awareness about an injustice that’s been allowed to go on too long. Sometimes it means sitting around a table and finding a compromise.

Often, a productive conversation over a heated public issue will include both approaches, which can benefit from each other.

In my time at the Legislature, I found that allies who might agree on an issue often found themselves frustrated with those who took a different approach. Activists protesting a policy may not respect a less vocal advocate’s decision to remain behind the scenes and work for incremental change. A quiet advocate may feel that protesters are asking for too much change at once.

But neither works well without the other. We need protests, direct action and other forms of nonviolent activism to raise the temperature of debate and surface the need for change. And we need insiders who can bring key decision-makers to the table and push reforms that wouldn’t gain traction otherwise. These are rarely the same people.

If both types can recognize each other’s roles and strategize together, I’m convinced we’d make more progress on every change we seek.