1-Page Summary

We all struggle with conflicts, both on a smaller scale—in our businesses and families—and on a grand scale—politically and intergovernmentally. In all spheres of our lives, we see people embroiled in bitter, cyclical conflicts that appear to resist all efforts toward resolution. The Anatomy of Peace, by the Arbinger Institute, discusses the ways in which we perpetuate conflict by misunderstanding its cause and acting inappropriately as a result.

First, we’ll explore the ways in which we approach conflict from the wrong angle, and the mechanics of the mindset that leads us to do so. Then, we’ll discuss how to replace that mindset with one more conducive to resolving conflict, and how to build resilient relationships.

What’s Going Wrong

Regardless of your circumstances, the first step toward resolving conflict is to be open to the possibility that you’re contributing to the problem. Even if your position is right, your mindset may lead you to behave in a way that inflames those around you. Accept the possibility that your mindset, behavior, and strategy may need to change. (We’ll discuss changing your mindset further in the coming sections.)

Arbinger explains that when our conflicts drag on, it’s because we’re working against each other, rather than together. In other words:

  1. We try to correct someone else’s behavior, or force them to change.
  2. We refuse to correct our own behavior.

A combative approach like this can generate results, but only if we have the power and authority to force compliance. And whether we have that power or not, when we force others to do what we want, contrary to their needs and desires, we lose their trust and respect.

Furthermore, Arbinger explains that once a conflict gets hostile, it’s too late to demand change—the other party isn’t interested in what we want. Instead, Arbinger recommends we get involved with other people before things go wrong, and before they shut us out.

(Shortform note: Arbinger’s approach to solving interpersonal conflict—addressing the conflict’s underlying causes—is a bottom-up approach. Many analysts and mediators of large-scale conflicts have begun to shift toward a bottom-up approach to conflict. Instead of applying fixes and corrections—aiming for the nail that sticks up—they address the underlying, hostility-fueling aspects of a conflict system; that is, what pushed the nail out in the first place. In The Anatomy of Peace, Arbinger explains that the “underlying aspect of the system” that we need to address in our interpersonal conflicts is the way we treat people whose interests conflict with ours. To do this, the authors recommend adopting a new mindset—one centered around being respectful of the humanity of others—thus addressing the underlying cycle of hostility that drives these conflicts.)

Lead by Example

Instead of forcing compliance, Arbinger says, we should lead by example: By adopting a cooperative mindset and aiming to work together, we’ll encourage others to do the same.

We’ll discuss how best to correct others in the section titled “The Cooperative Strategy.” For now, let’s examine the ways in which changing our own behavior and mindset can improve our approach to conflict.

Personal Change Is Contagious

According to some authors, changing your own behavior is the key to getting others to change. Art Markman, author of Smart Change, says that hypocrisy doesn’t work here; you can’t demand a behavior from someone that you don’t effectively embody yourself.

But, Markman says, if you can show others, by your own actions, how to be better—and the benefits of being that way—your behavior becomes contagious. Markman particularly emphasizes visibility; the people whose behavior you want to change need to see you embodying the principles you want them to adopt.

Some researchers note that when others trust you, your goals become contagious as well. This is particularly noteworthy in ongoing conflict—if your goal is to find a healthy, equitable resolution to the conflict, make sure your words and actions show that.

The Two Mindsets

The Anatomy of Peace describes two mindsets: the combative mindset and the cooperative mindset. Whether we succeed at resolving conflict depends on which we embody.

Ideally, you embody the cooperative mindset; you make a conscious effort to always see others as people, with needs, challenges, hopes, and fears as real and important as your own. When you see others as people, you’re innately aware of how to treat them appropriately and resist any pressure to betray that sense. This mindset proactively mitigates and minimizes conflict by accepting a personal responsibility to change and by building relationships in a way that encourages cooperation.

(Shortform note: Treating others compassionately provides two powerful benefits: For ourselves, being able to see that the cruelty, anger, and aggression others show us comes from a place of misdirected pain humanizes them in our eyes. It shows us that we don’t have to survive a world filled with evil monsters—just people, like us, who make mistakes. Additionally, when you allow a person to be heard—really heard, without judgment or criticism—they find themselves willing to hear others, as well. All it takes to begin resolving a conflict is for one of us to listen openly.)

In contrast, the combative mindset sees others as objects and obstacles in your way. It’s an inward-focused mindset that ignores the nuanced circumstances of those around you. This mindset actively resists seeking a cooperative resolution to conflict by refusing to see what’s really causing it; it hides behind blame and justification to avoid accepting responsibility for the way your behavior affects those around you.

(Shortform note: If you often feel angry, resentful, and self-righteous, consider what those feelings are doing for you, and why you cling to them. It can feel good to be angry. When others wrong us unjustly, it’s easy to indulge in feelings of self-righteousness, of, “how dare they,” and, “I’m so much better than that!” Those emotions provide an escape, a rationale, and a justification for avoiding the hard work of empathizing, communicating, and challenging yourself to improve. If you decide the conflict is someone else’s fault and you’re not the one who needs to apologize, it can continue forever and you’ll never feel obligated to participate in resolving it.)

Let’s examine the combative mindset further, to understand how it hinders us and how it works.

The Combative Mindset

According to Arbinger, the combative mindset is characterized by biased, self-focused viewpoints that lead us to worsen conflict instead of cooperating to resolve it. First, we’ll examine how we make conflict worse, and the biases that lead us to behave that way. Then, we’ll explore self-betrayal and justification, the behaviors that lead to those biases.

Objectification Leads to Collusion

As we’ve noted, when we embody the combative mindset, we see others as objects and obstacles rather than people. As a result, we constantly treat the other party as if they were less than human and are shocked and offended when they respond in kind. The Arbinger Institute calls this mutual mistreatment-and-response cycle “collusion.”

(Shortform note: In both of the above cases, we’re avoiding the conflict instead of working to resolve it. Because we don’t communicate clearly and openly, others assume we’re fine with things as they are, or—worse—that we’re hostile and can’t be reasoned with. Either way, the conflict can only fester and worsen, increasing in scope.)

The Four Biases

The Arbinger Institute explains that when we embody the combative mindset long-term, we develop biases that damage our ability to create relationships in which conflict is managed well. In this section, we’ll explore the four biases Arbinger says are often held by those who find themselves in constant conflict.

(Shortform note: Each of these biases helps you avoid doing the work to solve a conflict—whether that work involves communicating, self-examining, standing up for yourself, or helping others. The biases justify taking an easier way out that doesn’t involve confronting the fact that you’re doing something wrong: In sum, they’re avoidance strategies.)

1. The Superiority Bias

2. The Entitlement Bias

3. The Performative Bias

4. The Inferiority Bias

If you find the feelings, behaviors, or thought patterns associated with the four biases familiar, Arbinger suggests that’s a sign you may be holding those biases yourself. To improve your management of conflict, you must understand how these biases are formed, and dismantle them. Once you’ve done that, you can move on to building healthier, more resilient relationships that are conducive to cooperative conflict resolution.

Biases Arise From a Lack of Interpersonal Security

Studies suggest that many of the behaviors and feelings associated with the four biases arise from a lack of interpersonal security. To be secure interpersonally means you feel safe, physically and emotionally, when you relate to and interact with others. This sense of safety arises from secure relationships with others—from knowing you have someone to turn to in times of stress, and to whom you can return after leaving your comfort zone.

When we’re not secure interpersonally, our interactions with others are often driven by fear, defensiveness, and an inability to be open or genuine. We become bitter, disdainful, and entitled—because we can’t turn to others for help, confrontations make us feel alone and cornered. We’re driven toward a combative mindset that damages our relationships. We justify our behavior by dehumanizing others—often becoming trapped by one of the biases above—and choosing to believe that our world is horrible and that we have no choice but to be this way.

The power of the Arbinger method lies in escaping this cycle, which in turn helps us to eschew self-justification. The cooperative mindset is the core of a secure relationship, and the more of those you build, the less you’ll need a bias to protect you from conflict.

Self-Betrayal and Justification

Biased thinking results from justifying our self-betrayals. Arbinger explains that the concept of self-betrayal relies on understanding that humans have certain innate desires. Evolutionary scientists often argue that the success of our species is largely the result of a desire to help, protect, and care for one another. According to Arbinger, when we choose to behave in a way that doesn’t align with this desire, we self-betray.

Generally, Arbinger says, we make the choice to betray ourselves because we think it’ll cost us less time, energy, or effort—or because we think honoring our desire to do the right thing will lead to some discomfort we’d rather avoid. Maybe we choose not to help when we know we could. This is the core issue of the combative mindset; we lie to ourselves and refuse to see the truth of the situation.

(Shortform note: In many ways, self-betrayal equates to going against our conscience: acting in a way that doesn't align with what we know is right. In Stephen R. Covey’s book First Things First, he emphasizes the importance of living according to your conscience. The more you excuse acting against your principles, the deeper you bury your integrity beneath a pile of rationalizations and justifications. In order to live with integrity, Covey says, you must pay attention to your conscience, as well as the way you respond to its messages. Your conscience will always point you toward your greatest quality of life, by recommending genuine, wholehearted actions that support your principles.)

How We Justify Betraying Ourselves

The authors explain that when we betray ourselves, the choice we’ve made doesn’t feel right to us, so we seek to justify it. It’s uncomfortable to know we’ve done something we don’t believe in, so we convince ourselves that the betrayal was unavoidable.

The Institute lists three ways in which we usually justify our self-betrayals:

  1. By changing the way we see ourselves (for example, telling ourselves that we’re fundamentally “bad,” so can’t help behaving badly)
  2. By changing the way we see others (for instance, deciding that they deserve our bad behavior)
  3. By creating a false reality in which our choice was right, necessary, or inevitable

(Shortform note: We may justify unethical behavior in dozens of different ways that aren’t logically consistent or reasonable. Arbinger focuses primarily on self-serving justifications—in which we rationalize our behavior as being “not that bad,” or twist the circumstances in a way that allows us to feel morally justified. We want to believe that we’re still good people, or that it’s okay if we do wrong “once in a while.” The trouble is, when we betray our conscience, we don’t feel we can believe either of those things anymore, so we justify until we can.)

Each time we justify our self-betrayal, our perspective shifts, making it more likely that we’ll justify again. The more you justify, Arbinger says, the more sure you are that you’re right, and the more likely it is that you’re actually mistaken—this is how you develop a bias.

(Shortform note: When you justify in any of the three ways noted above, you also become susceptible to confirmation bias. This is a tendency to seek evidence that supports what you already believe—in this case, your justification—and to ignore evidence to the contrary. You can’t afford to see your justifications disproved, so you do everything you can to avoid reality and “confirm” your point of view—which can lead to embracing broad stereotypes, refusing to give second chances, or attacking those you disagree with before they can explain themselves. In other words, it leads to long-running, pervasive biases like the four we discussed previously.)

Changing Our Mindset

To dismantle our biases, we must escape the cycle of self-betrayal and justification. To do this, we must change our mindset to one that’s conducive to cooperation; in short, we must practice seeing others as people, instead of as objects. This is the core of the collaborative mindset.

Mindset Adjustment and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Mindset adjustment, like that which the Institute advocates, is a common vehicle used by therapists and psychiatrists to aid in the growth of their clients. In each case, the goal of the adjustment is to mitigate or eliminate the negative effects of a person’s current perspective. This method of shifting mindset is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT.

David D. Burns, M.D., author of Feeling Good—a seminal work in the field of CBT—explains that we feel the way we think. We develop habitual ways of thinking—mindsets—that determine what things mean to us. Our brain must process the inputs it receives and filter them through our mindset before we can feel any kind of way about an event—and if our mindset is biased, our feelings will be, too.

Further, strong negative feelings are often caused by ways of thinking called cognitive distortions. These distortions, according to Burns, can take many forms, but they usually lead us to believe firm statements or claims that aren’t entirely true. One such distortion is jumping to conclusions: for example, deciding we’re headed for certain doom based on one negative experience.

To look at Arbinger’s ideas through a CBT lens, the Institute teaches us to shift our mindset and see others as whole people because doing so helps us avoid a host of cognitive distortions that make managing conflict more difficult. A people-focused mindset makes it feel less reasonable to respond to interpersonal conflicts with violence, criticism, and judgment—distorted responses that fuel hostility and prevent cooperation.

Escape the Combative Mindset

To approach conflict in a healthier way, you need to escape the combative mindset. To do that, you first need to become aware that your justifications have biased you.

Step 1: Notice Your Bias

There are a variety of signs that you may be biased. If you find yourself blaming others, justifying your behaviors, making the world or the people around you look horrible, or feeling any of the emotions associated with each of the Four Biases, you can recognize that you’re biased.

(Shortform note: This first step requires us to practice self-awareness. Self-awareness theory tells us that we are not our thoughts and feelings—rather, we are the beings that observe them. This allows us to examine ourselves, evaluate our responses, and change our patterns of thought and behavior. Understanding how biases, justifications, and self-betrayals work arms you with the ability to see these things happening in your own mind—and once you see them, you can interrupt them.)

Step 2: Set Aside Your Bias

Once you’ve recognized that you’re biased, you can step out of your biased perspective. The Institute tells us that the first step to removing a bias is to find a space where you’re not biased at all and to take note of how it feels to be there. Setting your bias aside can be as simple as recalling a memory of a time when you weren’t biased, or doing something that lets you be genuine.

When you remember what it’s like to be genuine, open, and accepting toward someone, your perspective automatically shifts. Memories of brighter relationships and calmer times lift you, emotionally and mentally, out of the present moment, and they allow you to step out of the negative perspective your conflicts have trapped you in. From this more positive space, you’re able to reexamine the situation that had previously restricted your view.

(Shortform note: A simple way to escape the emotional turmoil that comes with a biased perspective is to intentionally activate your parasympathetic nervous system—the part of your body that’s responsible for the calm-down response. To activate this system, think about a person you feel safe around—someone who accepts you. Imagine them walking into the room and making eye contact. They notice you’re upset and give you a long hug. Maybe you sit down with them and they let you talk through what’s bothering you. The calming “presence” of a safe person makes you feel safe, allowing your body’s threat response to slowly dissipate.)

Step 3: Rethink the Situation

From your unbiased perspective, reexamine your conflicts. Ask yourself what the challenges, struggles, burdens, or pains of the other party are, how you’re contributing to them, and how you could be helping instead of hindering.

(Shortform note: Taking the perspective of another party—whether you’re in a conflict or not—offers numerous benefits. It lets you see what you’re missing and choose actions that better serve everyone involved. It helps you understand not only how others are thinking and feeling, but why. Most importantly, it enables you to think considerately, constructively, and cooperatively, and shifts your focus toward what you can accomplish together.)

Step 4: Act According to Your Conscience

Once you’ve got a sense of what you should do to help rather than hinder, act. Acting according to your conscience is key; if you don’t act, despite now knowing what’s right, you return to justifying and immediately reclaim your bias. By acting, you honor your internal compass and embody the cooperative mindset. You begin to form a habit of considering more than just your own needs.

(Shortform note: Your conscience isn’t an impartial ethical or moral compass—instead, it simply guides you toward actions that are consistent with your beliefs. The above method helps us return to seeing others as people, and to believing that they deserve to be treated as people. Because we’ve returned to believing this, our conscience drives us to treat others better.)

The Cooperative Strategy

Early on, we mentioned that we spend too much of our time and energy trying to correct what’s wrong instead of focusing on making sure things go right. What follows is the method by which the Institute recommends we help things go right: by building cooperative relationships. The following image summarizes that process:

anatomyofpeace-influencestaircase.png

Its bottom-up structure conveys the following lessons:

  1. Each higher step relies on the previous steps to succeed.
  2. If our efforts on a particular step are resisted, we need to revisit previous steps.
  3. Cooperative relationships only succeed while you hold a cooperative mindset.

In short, we’ll strengthen our relationships enough that everyone’s comfortable sharing the details of their struggles with us. That communication enables us to prioritize their needs and identify appropriate lessons to share with them.

Building Secure Relationships Takes Time

What follows is essentially a primer for building secure relationships. When you humanize people, approaching them openly and without judgment or criticism, they learn that it’s safe to be around you: in short, that you’ll respect their needs and personhood, that you won’t hurt or attack them, and that you really do have their best interests in mind. You build relational security by showing, repeatedly, that you can be trusted to help instead of hurt.

As you work to build healthier, more secure relationships, be patient and gentle. Most people want to be cared for, but experience has led some of them to believe it’s not realistic, or even possible. Kindness, acceptance, and genuine communication can be powerfully healing, but they can also be terrifying—people may respond in strange ways. Remember that everyone’s been through something difficult, as you have, and you can’t know what they’ve learned to expect because of it.

The Steps of Building a Cooperative Relationship

If you find yourself in conflict with someone, or if you’re working with or living with a person with whom you’d like to either avoid conflict entirely or proactively mitigate it, work to build a cooperative relationship by following these steps:

1. First, maintain a cooperative mindset. Stay unbiased. Everything that follows is predicated on this.

(Shortform note: Keep in mind that when you act cooperatively, everyone benefits. As Adam Grant states in Give and Take, you should aim to give more than you get: When you focus on the success of everyone involved, rather than just yours, people trust your motives. They can safely share with you without fear of exploitation or retaliation, and will value your presence.)

2. While you’re unbiased, build relationships with those who have influence with the person you want to connect with. If that’s your child, build relationships with their friends, teachers, and other guardians. In showing respect and consideration for the people they care for, you show respect and consideration for them.

(Shortform note: Respecting relationships is especially critical with children. Engaging positively with your child’s friends keeps you aware of their connections and reduces the risk that they’ll pursue unhealthy relationships as a means of rebellion. Support your child’s social growth by being openly welcoming and friendly to, and interested in, their friends.)

3. Next, work on building the relationship with the person you want to connect with. Find out what they like to do, and do it with them. Be involved, interested, and engaged. Give them a judgment-free space where they can be genuine, and show them that you value their openness. Trust them, and show them that they can trust you.

(Shortform note: If you want lasting, stable relationships, it can’t be your goal to win arguments, exercise power, or be in control. When you’re fighting with the goal of exerting your will, establishing your authority, or forcing other people to change, others learn that you care less about their needs than you do about your own desires. As you treat them combatively, you lose their trust, respect, and cooperation. They stop sharing their needs, desires, and burdens with you, and you stop getting to know them. In a healthy relationship, individuals hold a very different goal: to enhance the relationship and each other. When you prioritize that, you naturally communicate differently and you teach those around you that their feelings, needs, and values are important to you. They become more willing to share, and you get to know them better.)

4. As your relationship with the other party grows, be sure that you’re listening, and that you’re learning from and about them. What are their needs and struggles? What are their hopes, dreams, and goals? What can you change about the way you’re behaving to make life easier for them? The more open you are with someone, the easier it will be to learn from them, as they’re more likely to be open in return.

(Shortform note: Openness is about more than saying what you think; it’s about honestly externalizing your internal world. Nobody can hear the monologue inside your head; when you’re stressed, angry, afraid, or hurt, communicate that verbally. Put aside your fear of rejection and be direct: If you’re tired of doing all the dishes, express what you actually want—don’t ask, “why don’t you ever wash the dishes?” Be clear, and say: “I feel like I end up washing all the dishes myself, and I want to see you do your part, too.”)

5. At this stage, you can begin teaching what you know. The understanding you’ve gained from listening will show you where the other person needs help and how you can be involved. The trust and communication you’ve built allows you to teach your mindset, share your experience, and demonstrate what you’ve learned. Through your teaching, you can show them why change is important.

(Shortform note: Teaching will benefit you as well as the other person: It helps organize information in your mind, leading to a deeper understanding and keeping you motivated, engaged, and self-aware as you grow into the cooperative mindset. Remain open to learning as you teach, from your students as well as from the process of teaching itself.)

6. Finally, if necessary, correct. Because of the way you’ve built the relationship, you can suggest behavioral and mindset changes from a position of trust and care. The other person will be more open to receiving guidance and feedback, and they’ll understand that your goal is to cooperate and learn from each other.

If you find that correction isn’t working, return to the previous steps and make sure you’re following them closely. Ensure you’re not missing or misunderstanding something, and that the change you’re asking for is genuinely good for the person you’re correcting, and then try again.

(Shortform note: In many ways, correcting someone is a form of giving feedback. Giving feedback—especially negative feedback, as in the case of correction—can be tricky: People can react badly and be dismissive. Douglas Stone, author of Thanks For The Feedback, identifies the triggers that cause us to dismiss feedback. We refuse feedback when it’s brought to us by someone who routinely mistreats us, because we don’t see a problem with our behavior, or because we interpret the criticism as an attack on our personhood. By building safe, reliable relationships in which we always see others as people—and treat and speak to them as people—we avoid these triggers.)

Aim for Growth Over Perfection

As you try to correct a person’s behavior or address ongoing conflicts—and, more broadly, as you try to engage with others and build relationships—keep in mind that it’s natural to stumble and fail. You’ll make mistakes, and so will those you’re trying to connect with or correct. Don’t expect perfect success, and don’t be discouraged if progress is slow. In fact, don’t focus on winning and succeeding at all: In your attempt to master the cooperative mindset, focus on growing and improving over time.

Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive, says that mastery requires a growth mindset. He explains that people with a growth mindset believe they have the potential to get better at anything they want to do. As a result, they see effort as the driver of improvement, focus on progress over results, and examine their failures for useful feedback. He points out that it’s not possible to achieve total, effortless mastery, no matter the skill. There’s always more to learn and new situations to apply your knowledge to, and improving isn’t easy.

As you apply your cooperative mindset to the relationships and interactions in your life, remember the benefits of perspective-taking, the value of secure relationships, and the importance of following your conscience. Continue to practice self-awareness and, as your relationships develop, pay attention to changes in the way you’re treating others and how they respond. Take pride in incremental progress; improvement is success.

Shortform Introduction

In The Anatomy of Peace, the Arbinger Institute offers an outward-focused perspective on interpersonal conflict.

Conflicts, the Institute explains, arise when a lifetime of self-deception—of mentally re-framing events until they justify our actions—leads to a twisted worldview in which we see others as obstacles, rather than people. When we divorce those around us of their personhood, we no longer consider their needs, burdens, hopes, and fears, instead focusing only on our own. The authors argue that this leads to conflicts in which we’re so sure we’re in the right that we refuse to listen or negotiate. Because being mistreated “justifies” mistreating others in return, we behave in ways that incite further mistreatment from those we conflict with.

To resolve our ongoing conflicts and prevent a cycle of increasing hostility, The Anatomy of Peace teaches us to re-examine our perspectives, challenge our biases, and return to seeing others as people. In doing this, we develop a cooperative mindset, enabling us to pursue inclusive, unifying solutions and to encourage those around us to follow suit.

About the Author

The Arbinger Institute is a leadership training and consulting firm. It hosts workshops for individuals, teams, and organizations, focusing on mindset change. Specifically, its purpose is to teach an “outward-focused” view that prioritizes seeing others as people and focusing on cooperative, goal-oriented strategies. Arbinger’s headquarters is in Utah, but it boasts partner institutions in 26 countries around the world, including Germany, the U.K., Israel, China, and Sweden.

C. Terry Warner, who founded the Arbinger Institute in 1979, holds a Ph.D. from Yale University and served as chair of the Brigham Young University Philosophy Department. He is an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and served as the first director of the Institute of Religion at Yale.

Arbinger itself is composed of professionals trained in business, law, economics, philosophy, education, coaching, and psychology. The Institute has worked with multiple organizations, such as defense corporation Raytheon, the Kansas City Police Department, Staples, and CenturyLink.

The Arbinger Institute’s books predominantly cover the topics it’s become an institutional leader in teaching: self-awareness, conflict management, team building, and goal-oriented performance improvement in larger-scale organizations. Leadership and Self-Deception, The Outward Mindset, and The Anatomy of Peace bring its philosophy to the consumer market for layman-accessibility.

Arbinger’s books have been a staple on their publisher Berrett-Koehler’s bestseller list; by 2017, Leadership and Self-Deception had sold over 1.9 million copies.

Each of the Institute’s books is written by a team of multiple authors with differing responsibilities and degrees of input. On Arbinger’s website, it’s explained that none of its books are attributed to particular authors because it prefers its audience to focus on the books’ ideas and principles, rather than the personalities presenting them. Further, Arbinger’s expressed view is that writing is one of many tasks an Arbinger employee performs, and that it shouldn’t be considered any more or less important than the rest of each writer’s work. Writing for Arbinger is a cooperative process, the Institute says, and the pitfalls of ego are avoided by attributing each work to the Institute as a whole.

Connect with The Arbinger Institute:

The Book’s Publication

The first edition of The Anatomy of Peace was published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. in 2006. Since then, the book has been expanded, revised, and republished twice; this third edition was published in 2020. The third edition includes appendices with additional diagrams and discussion to aid the reader in understanding the book’s concepts, as well as an explanation of the Arbinger philosophy.

The Anatomy of Peace delves more deeply into the principles laid out by Arbinger Institute’s previous bestseller, Leadership and Self-Deception, which was first published by Berrett-Koehler in 2000. Leadership and Self-Deception describes how managers and employees misunderstand the causes of workplace conflict, leading to misattributed blame and inappropriate punishment. The Institute explains how to foster a culture that’s respectful of the humanity and needs of each employee, enabling open-minded, cooperative problem-solving. The Anatomy of Peace expands that scope, applying the concepts of self-deception and justification more specifically to interpersonal, family, social, and political dynamics.

The Book’s Context

The Book’s Impact

The first edition of The Anatomy of Peace sold over 300,000 copies and has been translated to almost 30 languages. By the time the third edition was released in 2020, the second edition (released in 2015) had sold over 225,000 copies.

The Anatomy of Peace is credited by the United Methodist Church (UMC) for playing a key part in helping its assembly determine a way forward for an organization that had become fractured in its interpretation of contemporary social issues. The UMC council recommended its members read the book before meeting, and after the fact many of the attending bishops credited it for their ability to keep in mind the personhood of those they disagreed with.

It could be argued that the impact of The Anatomy of Peace is also visible in the results of Arbinger’s training program, since the program teaches broadly similar principles to those in the book. The program has led to a host of high-profile success stories among corporations, non-profits, and civil services.

For instance, by implementing the philosophy detailed in The Anatomy of Peace, as presented by Institute trainers, employees of Raytheon learned to prioritize the humanity of their coworkers, and to pay more attention to each others’ needs. As a result, they say, everything from union negotiations to supplier connections were handled more easily, more quickly, and more equitably than ever before. Discussions which were once deadlocked for weeks were resolved in an hour. At a time when a 5% growth in profits looked impossible, the value of the company doubled.

The Book’s Strengths and Weaknesses

Critical Reception

The Anatomy of Peace has enjoyed a broadly positive reception, with many reviewers praising the book for the strength of its principles. Those who praise The Anatomy of Peace highlight the life-changing effect of its principles on their personal relationships, their perspectives, and their view of themselves. Some readers also laud the book’s narrative, saying that it humanizes the principles and makes them easier to connect to.

Common complaints about the book are that the narrative feels contrived and that the book takes too long to get to the point. Many have claimed that the principles are buried under the narrative, and that they’d prefer principles to be presented more directly. Some readers, especially women, describe feeling put off by some concepts in the self-deception and collusion sections of the book, saying that the principles espoused feel uncomfortably similar to the kind of gaslighting and victim-blaming perpetrated by sexual and emotional abusers.

While the United Methodist Church, as an organization, has embraced and promoted the book, one member of the UMC clergy, Reverend Hannah Bonner, has accused the Institute of performing what she terms 'literary blackface.' Bonner argues that the authors, white Mormon men, inappropriately speak through Black and Middle-Eastern characters in an attempt to make potentially controversial views on racial justice protests and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more palatable and credible to a wide audience. They speak through these characters so often that some readers reported forgetting that the book was actually authored by white men.

For instance, at one point, the book’s principles are attributed to a fictional African-American scholar, Ben Arrig. Arrig’s contribution to the narrative occurs toward the end of the book, in a segment about the 1967 race riots in New Haven, CT. In the book, Arrig explains that the protestors want to be tear-gassed as much as the cops want to gas them, because being gassed validates their false narrative of one-sided oppression. Furthermore, according to Arrig (and thus, the Institute), by seeing their oppressors as obstacles instead of as people with their own needs, hopes, and dreams, the protestors become oppressors themselves. Bonner states that in using a Black mouthpiece to voice this perspective, the Institute weaponizes fictional Black voices against real Black protestors.

Commentary on the Book’s Approach

The Anatomy of Peace is written in narrative form. It follows a fictional group of parents attending a seminar for parents of “problem children.” The seminar is led by Avi Rosen and Yusuf Al-Falah, a fictional pair who forged an unlikely alliance from opposing sides of the Jewish-Muslim conflict over the establishment of Israel. If these two men can form a partnership, the book suggests, the same should be possible for anyone.

The book is presented as a third-person view of one character’s experience at an Arbinger seminar. It occasionally meanders as Lou, the main character and father of a “problem child,” introspects. Throughout the book, we see him resisting the idea that he needs to change, while trying to understand what to do about his conflicts at work or at home. While this approach adds a degree of relatability, Lou’s perspective is very specific: He’s the founder of a large, successful business who doesn’t spend enough time with his wife and child, leaving them largely to fend for themselves and occasionally stepping in as disciplinarian. Thus, not all readers will see themselves in Lou.

As a whole, the narrative framework makes the book easy to read and digest; principles are presented in a conversational style that’s easy to follow. Characters often offer common-sense resistance to those principles—especially in cases where it’s suggested that the reader needs to take responsibility or change—allowing for deeper explanations and exploration of side-points and niche cases.

As the narrative progresses, the book introduces its principles and connects them to illustrative examples that drive home the point in relatable ways. To explain what it means to have a cooperative mindset, for example, the Institute uses several parables: a flashback in which main character Lou confronts his father after sinking the family truck in the local river, a story from Lou’s wife about his gentle support as she recovered from an eating disorder, and a few smaller one-off examples.

Commentary on the Book’s Organization

The book’s seminar-style organization has its positives and drawbacks. As some critics have noted, the lengthy narrative, which includes character backstories, adds bulk and fluff to a book that could otherwise be much shorter and more focused. On the other hand, the seminar style creates natural breakpoints for readers to pause, walk away, and consider how the principles apply to their own lives, as the characters do the same. Such pauses generally come at times when a reader might find themselves with much to ponder.

Our Approach in This Guide

To prioritize logical flow and highlight the connections between one principle and the next, we’ve reorganized the book’s content to put the principles first and divorce the principles from the narrative.

Much of our commentary on the text comes from the field of psychology, as that’s where the bulk of conflict research originates. In many cases, the research supports Arbinger’s principles as well as providing additional nuance. The field of cognitive behavioral therapy, for example, is focused on exactly the kind of mindset change advocated in The Anatomy of Peace, and it offers an explanation of how that’s done and why it’s helpful.

Similarly, the cycle of self-betrayal and justification, and the four biases Arbinger highlights, involve behaviors and beliefs typically exhibited by those lacking in interpersonal security. In addressing interpersonal insecurity, psychologists and therapists generally recommend clients focus on building trust and safety in their relationships. Arbinger’s strategy for relationship-building is essentially a primer on doing exactly that.

In Part 1 of this guide, we’ll take a big-picture look at what’s wrong with our approach to conflict and what we need to change. Then, in Part 2, we’ll examine the conflict mindset and how it corrupts our view of ourselves, of others, and of the world around us. Part 3 will explore what we can do to escape that trap and adopt a more cooperative mindset that helps us approach conflicts from a better angle. Finally, in Part 4, we’ll discuss how to encourage others to adopt this healthier mindset themselves and how to build our relationships in a way that will minimize our difficulties with conflict resolution.

Part 1: What Is Conflict and Why Does It Matter?

The Arbinger Institute notes that we all struggle with conflicts, both on a smaller scale—in our businesses and families—and on a grand scale—politically and intergovernmentally. Often, the Institute says, we find that conflicts grow out of our control and sometimes spread so far outside of ourselves and our opponents that they drag in everyone around us. Therefore, as the world grows more complex and connected, it becomes increasingly important to know how to manage conflict well. Despite the need, we rarely see it handled equitably, considerately, and proactively.

(Shortform note: Even when an accord is met, conflicts often reignite; there’s evidence that over a third of the ceasefires and peace agreements made since the 1950s have fallen apart within five years.)

In this chapter, we’ll identify what Arbinger says our goal should be in a conflict, examine what it argues is wrong with our approach, and highlight what it recommends we focus on in seeking to improve our methods.

The Problem of Conflict

Arbinger tells us that being able to manage conflict efficiently and effectively is critical. Very quickly, a conflict begins to affect more than the relationship in question. It gets in the way of your work, and it puts a strain on your other connections. When you’re stressed and unhappy in one area of your life, the Institute says, you carry those feelings with you. Further, Arbinger notes that the longer a conflict continues, the more time and energy you spend worrying about it, and the more that conflict interferes with the rest of your life. As the cycle continues, conflicts tend to expand and drag in the people around you as well.

(Shortform note: James Clear notes in his book Atomic Habits that prolonged stress shifts your whole outlook, twisting your perspective until even the little things become stressful. Over time, it gets harder to stay calm and reasonable. This likely contributes to the tendency of conflicts to worsen over time.)

According to the authors, a conflict can only be resolved when at least one side seriously considers how they might be wrong. Even if your position is correct and your intentions are good, the Institute stresses that you can still be wrong in your approach to conflict—your words, behaviors, and mindsets speak louder than your position. And it doesn’t matter how good your position is if the way you express it creates further conflict. We’ll explore this in more detail in Part 2.

First, let’s take a big-picture look at the two primary things Arbinger says most people do wrong when they approach interpersonal conflict.

1. We Try to Correct the Behavior of Others

The authors suggest that we often have trouble resolving conflict because we approach the problem from the wrong angle. In conflict, we tend to focus our interactions with others on trying to get them to change by correcting their behavior, and that doesn’t work.

According to the Arbinger Institute, there are two main problems with trying to correct the people you’re in conflict with:

  1. It’s not helpful to correct someone who’s upset with you because they don’t want to listen. They’ve already decided you’re wrong, so even if you feel their reasons are foolish or invalid, arguing with them doesn’t help. (Shortform note: Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People, notes that criticizing others makes them defensive and prone to rationalizing their actions. Carnegie recommends using praise and appreciation when suggesting change.)
  2. You’re trying to correct things that have already gone wrong instead of being proactive and preventing them from going wrong in the first place.

We’ll discuss how to help others change in Part 4. For now, just remember that resolving conflict requires a proactive approach; get involved before things go wrong, and before the other person shuts you out.

Dynamic Systems Research Shows that a Bottom-Up Approach to Conflict Works Best

The Arbinger Institute takes a bottom-up approach to interpersonal conflict. Instead of attacking top-level behavioral problems by trying to correct what’s going wrong, the Institute focuses on mitigating the underlying causes that lead to those behaviors. The Institute discourages prioritizing correction because when you aim for the nail that sticks up, you miss the factors that pushed the nail out in the first place. Taking drugs away from a teenage addict won’t prevent them from accessing more, but a stronger support network and a more loving home might neutralize their need for drugs in the first place.

According to science writer Dan Jones, analysts and mediators of large-scale conflicts around the world have begun to shift their attention to a bottom-up view similar to the one Arbinger recommends. Jones explains that in long-running conflicts like the one between Israel and Palestine—which has been ongoing for more than 70 years—broad fixes and corrections are doomed to fail. A ceasefire, a peace accord, or a change in leadership doesn’t address the underlying causes of the hostility that generated the conflict in the first place.

Jones interviewed mediation expert and dynamic systems researcher Robert Ricigliano, who says that it’s important to see an ongoing conflict as a system of pressure dynamics. Ricigliano and his team use complex computer simulations to model the actions of the different agents in a competitive system, all of whom are influenced by many smaller-scale pressures—such as resource availability, local allegiances, and social dynamics. As the simulated agents work to satisfy their individual needs, they compete and cooperate, forming alliances and making enemies. Because the agents “remember” how they’re treated by other agents, the whole system occasionally ends up locked in an aggressive cycle of recrimination.

Like these digital agents, Ricigliano says, humans hold grudges and carry hostility forward, leading to intractable conflicts that resist resolution. When we intervene in such conflicts, he argues, we have to adjust our perspective: Addressing the result of the hostility isn’t enough to prevent future conflict. Instead, the goal is to shift an underlying aspect of the system so that hostility begins to naturally decrease over time. If we can do that, Ricigliano suggests, we can consider the intervention a success, because the conflict begins to wind down as well.

In The Anatomy of Peace, Arbinger explains that the “underlying aspect of the system” that we need to address in our interpersonal conflicts is the way we treat people whose interests conflict with ours. To do this, the authors recommend adopting a new mindset—one centered around being respectful of the humanity of others—thus addressing the underlying cycle of hostility that drives these conflicts. Additionally, treating others with respect builds mutual trust, allowing us to resolve future conflicts cooperatively rather than competitively.

2. We Refuse to Correct Our Own Behavior

The Institute says that if it’s been a while and a conflict hasn’t been resolved, it’s important to accept the possibility that you’re misunderstanding something and are partially at fault. If your actions aren’t at least leading toward a resolution, examine them. (Shortform note: Jordan B. Peterson, author of 12 Rules for Life, explains that we should do this regardless of how we feel: In any dead-end conflict, he says, we should assume we’ve done something wrong along the way, even if the error was small, or long ago.)

To resolve conflicts fairly, Arbinger explains, it’s important to approach them cooperatively. That means you need to act and change, too—you can’t just suggest corrections and wait for the other person to do all the work.

Personal Change Is Contagious

According to some authors, changing your own behavior is the key to getting others to change. In Smart Change, Art Markman says that hypocrisy doesn’t work here; you can’t demand a behavior from someone that you don’t effectively embody yourself.

But, Markman says, if you can show others, by your own actions, how to be better—and the benefits of being that way—your behavior becomes contagious. Markman particularly emphasizes visibility; the people whose behavior you want to change need to see you embodying the principles you want them to adopt.

Some researchers note that when others trust you, your goals become contagious as well. This is particularly noteworthy in ongoing conflict—if your goal is to find a healthy, equitable resolution to the conflict, make sure your words and actions show that. We’ll explore this in more detail in Part 4.

Your Mindset Fuels Your Conflicts

In the following sections, we’ll examine the mindset that Arbinger says leads us into cyclical conflicts, learn how to escape that mindset, and explore a different approach to relationship-building that the Institute claims leads to lasting peace.

Defining “Mindset”

The Arbinger Institute suggests that in improving our approach to conflict, the first and most important step is always to change our mindset. Everything about the way our conflicts happen, Arbinger says, rises from our mindset, so it’s important to understand what the authors mean by this term.

Arbinger describes a mindset as running deeper than just the way you think; it’s the way you see yourself, others, and the world—and the conclusions you come to and the behaviors you choose as a result. The authors note especially that the undercurrent of our thoughts, words, and actions has a strong impact on how we come across to others.

You can’t just fake a positive mindset, either; it’s important to actually mean what you say and do. As Arbinger notes, when others can see that your words and actions don’t match the way you think and feel, it doesn’t matter how good your strategy is or how right you are. Until you address the way you’re failing in your mindset toward others, your efforts will fall flat.

(Shortform note: It’s critically important to be genuine due to the harm disingenuous behavior can do. In the long run, disingenuous behavior damages trust in relationships. Most people have a sense for when another person is being insincere, and it leads to feelings of being manipulated, lied to, and used.)

The Two Mindsets

The authors describe two primary mindsets. One perpetuates conflict and one eases it:

1) The Combative Mindset:

(Shortform note: If you often feel angry, resentful, and self-righteous, consider what those feelings are doing for you, and why you cling to them. It can feel good to be angry. When others wrong us unjustly, it’s easy to indulge in feelings of self-righteousness, of, “how dare they,” and, “I’m so much better than that!” Those emotions provide an escape, a rationale, and a justification for avoiding the hard work of empathizing, communicating, and challenging yourself to improve. If you decide that the conflict is someone else’s fault and you’re not the one who needs to apologize, the conflict can continue forever and you’ll never feel obligated to participate in resolving it.)

2) The Cooperative Mindset:

(Shortform note: Responding to others with empathy provides two powerful benefits: For ourselves, being able to see that the cruelty, anger, and aggression others show us comes from a place of misdirected pain humanizes them in our eyes. It shows us that we don’t have to survive a world filled with evil monsters—just people, like us, who don’t manage to be as perfect as we’d all like to be. The other great benefit of showing empathetic compassion is that when you allow a person to be heard—really heard, without judgment or criticism—they find themselves willing to hear others, as well. All it takes to begin resolving a conflict is for one of us to listen openly. Arbinger asks us to be the one who listens first.)

Arbinger points out that the cooperative mindset is a much more useful mindset in approaching conflict of all kinds and is thus the mindset that you should shift to. Taking into account the needs of others lets you treat them better and find resolutions that are more satisfying to all parties—for example:

Maintaining a cooperative mindset doesn’t mean avoiding conflict entirely, Arbinger says; instead, the cooperative mindset seeks a method of resolving conflict that’s respectful of the humanity of all participants.

We’ll discuss how to embody the cooperative mindset in Part 3, and how Arbinger recommends we make use of it and encourage others to adopt it in Part 4. For now, we’ll move on to Part 2, where we’ll take a closer look at the combative mindset and examine the behaviors the Institute says lead us into conflict.

Mindset Adjustment and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Mindset adjustment like that advocated by the Institute above is a common vehicle used by therapists and psychiatrists to aid in the personal and social growth of their clients. In each case, the goal of the adjustment is to mitigate or eliminate the negative effects of a person’s current perspective. This method of shifting mindset is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT.

David D. Burns, M.D., author of Feeling Good—a seminal work in the field of CBT—explains that we feel the way we think. For various reasons, Burns says, we develop habitual ways of thinking—mindsets—that determine what things mean to us. Our brain must process the inputs it receives and filter these through our mindset before we can feel any kind of way about an event, and if our thinking is biased, our feelings will be, too.

Further, strong negative feelings are often caused by ways of thinking called cognitive distortions. These distortions, according to Burns, can take many forms, but they usually lead us to believe firm statements or claims that aren’t entirely true. Here are a few examples of cognitive distortions we may make in a conflict:

These distortions, Burns says, negatively affect our feelings, thinking, and behavior moving forward, but in each case, we’re feeling and acting based on an inaccurate assumption. Instead of accepting the distorted thoughts, Burns tells us to examine them; to find the inaccuracies and correct them. This shifts us toward a more positive mindset. In making the shift, we free ourselves to see the world as it really is and broaden our options.

To look at Arbinger’s ideas through a CBT lens, the Institute teaches us to shift our mindset and see others as whole people because doing so helps us avoid a host of cognitive distortions that make managing conflict more difficult. A people-focused mindset makes it feel less reasonable to respond to interpersonal conflicts with violence, criticism, and judgment—responses that fuel hostility and prevent cooperation.

According to Arbinger, cognitive distortions help us justify choosing to act against our internal desire, or conscience. For instance, personalizing and seeing your partner as a lazy bum helps you justify shouting at him, slacking on your own chores, or giving up on trying to resolve the conflict at all. We’ll examine the mechanics and effects of justification in more detail in Part 2.

Part 2: The Mechanics of the Combative Mindset

You can be right in principle, the Institute says, but if your mindset is wrong, it doesn’t practically matter that your position is technically correct. Arbinger notes that while there may be a lot we disagree with others about, the way we disagree affects how we see each other going forward. In this part, we’ll examine how the combative mindset causes failures in our approach and behavior in conflict. Specifically, we’ll address three elements of the combative mindset: collusion, self-betrayal, and justification.

Collusion

As we’ve noted, when we embody the combative mindset, we see others as objects and obstacles rather than people. We ignore their needs, circumstances, and feelings, and approach them dishonestly, focusing only on what we want from them. The result is that we constantly treat the other party as if they were less than human and are shocked and offended when they respond in kind. The Arbinger Institute calls this mutual mistreatment-and-response cycle “collusion.”

(Shortform note: In both of the above cases, we’re avoiding the conflict instead of working to resolve it. Because we don’t communicate clearly and openly, others assume we’re fine with things as they are, or—worse—that we’re hostile and can’t be reasoned with. Either way, the conflict can only fester and worsen, increasing in scope.)

Collusion: What About Inequality?

The idea that we “collude” with our “enemies” in creating our own unhappiness is a foundational idea in The Anatomy of Peace. Studies support the argument that the way we interpret and respond to negative events or interactions often makes bad situations worse.

However, there are limitations to this argument that The Arbinger Institute doesn’t address. In fact, some critics claim that the Institute applies this principle beyond its appropriate scope. For example, they argue that it should not be applied to situations in which there is a large power difference—something that Arbinger tries to do in the book.

In describing collusion, Arbinger gives an example in which Yusuf and Benjamin Arrig, a Black professor, witness an August 1967 clash between Black protesters and police. Arrig claims that both the protesters and the police are fighting oppression.

Arrig explains that the way these protesters embody their cause ignores the needs and safety of the police officers, bystanders, and other residents, and thus is arguably oppressive too. Their behavior forces the police to respond aggressively, inciting further oppressive treatment. “The desire for tear gas is visible on both sides,” he says, because being gassed by the police helps protesters justify objectifying the officers and choosing violence. In other words, they’re colluding with the officers to make the situation worse. Arrig argues that even when there’s a power imbalance, the oppressed have a responsibility to ensure that they don’t “become oppressors themselves.”

In reference to this passage from the book, Rev. Hannah Bonner explains that when a systematically-oppressed minority is being dehumanized and mistreated, it's not valid to argue that they resist that oppression only because they're "creating a false reality" in which resistance is justified. Being routinely abused itself justifies resistance, she says, and for the group which holds greater power—or perpetuates the abuse—to claim that the oppressed minority’s resistance constitutes collusion is victim-blaming. It’s not the black protesters’ fault that the system which oppresses them doesn’t afford them more “cooperative” means of advocating for their rights, and it’s inappropriate to blame them for the police’s violent response to their advocacy.

Self-Betrayal

As we’ve discussed, it’s impossible for us to resolve a conflict if we’re not seeing others as people. This is the core issue of the combative mindset, according to Arbinger: We know people aren’t objects, but we choose to treat them as objects anyway. We lie to ourselves and ignore the truth of the situation. The Institute tells us that this mindset is a result of self-betrayal. Understanding self-betrayal helps us identify the ways in which we are feeding our conflicts.

Arbinger explains that the concept of self-betrayal relies on understanding that humans have certain innate desires. Evolutionary scientists often argue that the success of our species is largely the result of a desire to help, protect, and care for one another. According to Arbinger, when we choose to behave in a way that doesn’t align with this desire, we self-betray.

Generally, Arbinger says, we make the choice to betray ourselves because we think it’ll cost us less time, energy, or effort—or because we think honoring our desire to do the right thing will lead to some discomfort we’d rather avoid. Maybe we choose not to help when we know we could, or we don’t speak up for ourselves or others when we feel we should.

(Shortform note: In many ways, self-betrayal equates to going against our conscience: acting in a way that doesn't align with what we know is right. In Stephen R. Covey’s book First Things First, he emphasizes the importance of living according to your conscience. The more you excuse acting against your principles, the deeper you bury your integrity beneath a pile of rationalizations and justifications. In order to live with integrity, he says, you must pay attention to your conscience, as well as the way you respond to its messages. Your conscience will always point you toward your greatest quality of life, by recommending genuine, wholehearted actions that support your principles.)

Justification

The authors explain that when we betray ourselves, the choice we’ve made doesn’t feel right to us, so we seek to justify it. It’s uncomfortable to know we’ve done something we don’t believe in, so we convince ourselves that the betrayal was unavoidable—even when that’s not true.

The Institute lists three ways in which we usually justify our self-betrayals:

  1. By changing the way we see ourselves
  2. By changing the way we see others
  3. By creating a false reality in which our choice was right, necessary, or inevitable

(Shortform note: We may justify unethical behavior in dozens of different ways that aren’t logically consistent or reasonable. Arbinger focuses primarily on self-serving justifications—in which we rationalize our behavior as being “not that bad,” or twist the circumstances in a way that allows us to feel morally justified. We want to believe that we’re still good people, or that it’s okay if we do wrong “once in a while.” The trouble is, when we betray ourselves, we don’t feel we can believe either of those things anymore. So, we justify until we can—even if the justification is, “well, maybe I’m just not a good person!”)

For example: Steve is watching football late on a Sunday night when he sees a notification on his phone. It’s a missed call from his mother, and he suddenly realizes it’s Mother’s Day. He knows he should call her back right away, but the game’s in full swing and he doesn’t want to miss it. He tucks the phone under a couch cushion and forgets about it. When he calls his mother the next day and finds she’s upset with him, he gets defensive and frustrated.

Let’s take a look at what might have happened in Steve’s head as he worked to justify his behavior:

  1. Steve changes the way he sees his mom by telling himself that…
    • She’s unreasonable; it was just a phone call, and he calls her every week anyway.
    • She’s annoying and clingy; he’s an adult, and she should let him do his own thing.
    • She thinks she should get a trophy for having a kid.
  2. Steve changes the way he sees himself by telling himself that…
    • I never have any time to myself; someone always wants something from me.
    • I’m forgetful, and that’s not my fault.
    • I’m just a bad son; I can’t live up to my mom’s expectations.
  3. Steve changes the way he sees the world by telling himself that…
    • It’s full of stupid obligations that only exist to stress him out.
    • It’s unfair that he never gets to have an evening to himself.
    • It’s like the world conspires to make sure he doesn’t have any fun.
  4. As a result, Steve feels…
    • Resentful and defensive
    • Frustrated and bitter
    • Justified in his behavior

Each time we justify our self-betrayal, our perspective shifts, making it more likely that we’ll justify again. The more you justify, Arbinger says, the more sure you are that you’re right, and the more likely it is that you’re actually mistaken. Notice that if you honor your true desires, you don’t have to twist the world into a place that justifies betraying them.

(Shortform note: When you justify in any of the three ways noted above, you become susceptible to confirmation bias. This is a tendency to seek evidence that supports what you already believe—in this case, your justification—and to ignore evidence to the contrary. You can’t afford to see your justifications disproved, so you do everything you can to avoid reality and “confirm” your point of view—which can lead to embracing broad stereotypes, refusing to give second chances, or attacking those you disagree with before they can argue their point.)

The Four Biases

Next, we’ll take a look at four biases that Arbinger says prevent us from seeing others as people, and how they affect our emotional experience of being in the world. It’s important to note that the four biases aren’t justifications themselves—they’re the result of constant justification; the twisted perspectives we end up holding when we self-betray often. According to the Institute, to change our approach to conflict, we need to understand how each bias traps us and learn how to escape that.

According to Arbinger, holding a bias blinds you to the fact that you’re part of the problem. You’ve chosen to see a fake problem instead of the real one, and now you can’t resolve the conflict because you’re blind to its cause. As a result of these biases, we continue mistreating others in ways we’ve justified mistreating them before. (Shortform note: Each of these biases helps you avoid doing work to solve a conflict—whether that work involves communicating, self-examining, standing up for yourself, or helping others. They justify taking an easier way out that doesn’t involve confronting the fact that you’re doing something wrong: In sum, they’re avoidance strategies.)

1. The Superiority Bias

2. The Entitlement Bias

3. The Performative Bias

4. The Inferiority Bias

Bias Behaviors Arise From a Lack of Interpersonal Security

Studies suggest that many of the behaviors and feelings associated with the four biases explored above arise from a lack of interpersonal security. To be secure interpersonally means you feel safe, physically and mentally, when you relate to and interact with others. This sense of safety generally arises from secure relationships with others—from knowing you have someone to turn to in times of stress, and to whom you can return after leaving your comfort zone. Secure relationships aren’t conditional: You’re confident that you’ll be supported when you need it, regardless of the circumstances.

When these relational needs are met, they lead to feelings of belonging and self-worth, and the belief that one’s life is meaningful and controllable. We’re more likely to humanize others—to be attentive and forgiving of their needs and circumstances. We feel safe, so we extend that safety to others: In short, we’re more likely to embody the cooperative mindset.

On the other hand, when we’re not secure interpersonally, our interactions with others are often driven by fear, defensiveness, and an inability to be open or genuine. We become neurotic, close-minded, and aggressive—because we can’t turn to others for help, confrontations make us feel alone and cornered.

Furthermore, we behave in self-serving, inward-focused ways, betraying our sense of what’s right because we don’t trust others to support us. We justify that behavior by dehumanizing others—often becoming trapped by one of the biases above—and choosing to believe that our world is horrible and that we have no choice but to be this way. We end up blind and biased in a twisted world, feeling disdainful and entitled, bitter and stressed, and we lash out to defend ourselves from the threats we think we’re surrounded by.

Our lack of safety drives us toward a combative mindset, and as we hurt others to protect ourselves, the effects of those behaviors ripple outwards, diminishing the ability of those around us to feel interpersonally safe. We also continually damage our own relationships, maintaining a cycle of interpersonal insecurity.

The power of the Arbinger method lies in escaping this cycle, which in turn helps us to eschew self-justification. As we’ll discuss in the following parts, keeping in mind the humanity of others and extending them your unconditional respect is key. The cooperative mindset is the core of a secure relationship, and the more of those you build, the less you’ll need a bias to protect you.

Part 3: Escape Bias

Now that we’ve seen how we adopt biases and make conflict worse, Part 3 will explore how to recognize when we’re biased, how to remove that bias, and how to cultivate a cooperative mindset. According to Arbinger, this is a key component in escaping the combative mindset and learning to approach conflict from a healthier direction.

Address the Problem: Embody the Cooperative Mindset

The following four-step process is the core of the cooperative mindset. Arbinger recommends you repeat it as necessary:

  1. Notice you’re biased.
  2. Remove the bias.
  3. Rethink the situation from your unbiased perspective.
  4. Act on the resulting desire and sense of what you should do.

Let’s examine that process in a little more detail, and try it out.

1. Notice You’re Biased

Arbinger explains that if you find yourself blaming others, justifying your behaviors, making the world or the people around you look horrible, or feeling any of the emotions associated with each of the Four Biases, you can recognize that you’re biased.

This is a good time to put the principles to work. At the end of Part 3, you’ll find an exercise under the heading “Identify Your Bias.” Use this exercise to find one of your biases now. We’ll revisit the results in an upcoming section to show you how to remove that bias, and what you can do from there.

Why Self-Awareness Is Step One

In explaining that the first step to improving our management of conflicts is to notice our bias, Arbinger asks us to practice self-awareness—to pay attention to what we’re feeling and how we’re thinking.

The core of self-awareness theory is that we are not our thoughts and feelings—rather, we are the beings that observe them. This allows us to examine ourselves, evaluate our responses, and change our patterns of thought and behavior. It enables us to feel proud of ourselves and our work, practice self-control, and see things from the perspectives of others. (On the flip-side, when we’re too critical in our self-awareness, that can lead to depression, dysfunction, and anxiety.) Self-awareness is the key to personal change because it allows us to see the gears turning in the machine whose output we wish to change.

So far, we’ve noticed that something’s wrong in our approach to conflict and examined how our mindset provokes inappropriate responses to conflict. This step, and the ones that follow, rely on being self-aware from moment to moment. When we notice ourselves blaming, justifying, horrible-izing, or feeling powerfully negative, we’ll know it’s time to try the next step: to remove the bias.

2. Remove the Bias

The Institute tells us that the first step to removing a bias is to find a space where you’re not biased at all and to take note of how it feels to be there. An unbiased space is anywhere you can be your genuine self without having to worry about how others see you or how well you’re performing. This is another key reference point. According to Arbinger, when you don’t feel this way around someone, you’ll know you’re biased against them somehow.

Finding an unbiased space can be as simple as recalling a time when you could be totally unbiased—perhaps a time you were with a person who made you feel “safe.” When you remember what it’s like to be genuine, open, and accepting toward someone, Arbinger points out, your perspective automatically shifts. Memories of brighter relationships, and calmer times in general, lift you, emotionally and mentally, out of the present moment, and they allow you to step away from the negative perspective your conflicts have trapped you in. From this more positive space, you’re able to reexamine the situation without the emotional baggage that would normally keep you biased.

Perhaps you remember a time when someone was particularly kind to you, especially when you didn’t deserve it. Maybe there’s a place in the world that triggers an open-minded perspective for you, or an activity that allows you to let it all go.

Removing your bias is remarkably easy, and that should give you hope. In future, remember that all you really need to do to be unbiased again is to take a moment to try. The act of trying is itself a behavior that counters the combative mindset and shifts your perspective.

Remove Your Bias by Activating the Parasympathetic Nervous System

Arbinger explains that the goal of removing our bias is to return to calm and balance so we can think and see clearly again. One way to feel calmer is to activate the parasympathetic nervous system to counteract the effects of the sympathetic nervous system.

The parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems control most of our body’s automatic responses to stimuli. They determine how we physically feel in a conflict situation—how hotheaded we get or how cool we stay—and understanding them can be helpful in planning our conflict management strategies.

The sympathetic nervous system is reactive; it responds almost instantly to dangers and threats by dialing up everything we need to fight or flee and tuning everything else down. This is very helpful when we’re physically in danger, but in a verbal conflict or a disagreement it keeps us from thinking straight, acting calmly, and making considerate decisions.

The parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for calming us back down. It can be activated by touch and by the faces and voices of those we feel safe around. It works much more slowly than the sympathetic nervous system, which is why it can take us a long time to wind down after a stressful encounter—but we can activate it intentionally.

One of the most powerful ways to activate the parasympathetic nervous system is to think about a safe person, someone who accepts us without judgment—something which Arbinger recommends we do above. When you find yourself caught up in feelings of anger, fear, bitterness, and so forth, pause for a moment. Imagine your safe person walking into the room, looking you in the eyes, and giving you a hug. Maybe they sit down with you and talk through your stress with you. By doing this, you activate the parasympathetic nervous system—and keep it activated until the arousing effects of the sympathetic nervous system have worn off. Once that happens, you’ll be able to think clearly and calmly again, and you’ll be ready for the next step.

3. Rethink the Situation

As Arbinger explains, once you’ve discarded your bias, you’ll no longer see the situation from the same twisted perspective as before. You’ll be open to the possibilities your justifications had previously blinded you to; you’ll have access to new information, thoughts, and ideas. This will allow you to understand how much you’ve distorted your view, return to seeing others as people, and dismantle your justifications.

In pondering the situation anew, ask yourself:

The two exercises at the end of Part 3 encapsulate the process at the core of the cooperative mindset. Use them any time you find yourself biased or in a conflict.

The Benefits of Perspective-Taking

In this third step, the Institute asks us to take the perspective of the other party in our conflict. It’s necessary to do this because without a realistic assessment of everyone’s needs, interests, and investment, we can’t arrive at a mutually beneficial resolution. Perspective-taking lets you see what you’re missing and choose actions that genuinely improve the circumstances of both parties.

In taking the perspective of another party, keep in mind each person’s perspective...

When we understand how others are thinking and feeling by taking their perspective, we can…

4. Act According to Your Conscience

Once you’ve removed your bias, the Institute says: Act on what you discover, and do what you’re feeling you should do. Taking the perspective of the other party in a conflict and giving genuine consideration to their weights and needs is eye-opening. What felt appropriate before from your one-sided, self-focused perspective may no longer make sense. Instead, your conscience will prompt you with a new sense of what’s right—one that takes both perspectives into account. Don’t betray this new sense; make the effort to see everyone as people, and act according to your conscience.

According to Arbinger, staying unbiased is key to resolving and preventing conflict. It’s easy to fall back into the habit of justifying and end up biased again. But if you find yourself stuck, remember that all you need to do is remove the bias. Be curious about what you were missing, and make an effort to learn what other people are going through and how you can help.

Asking the questions from this Part’s exercises will allow you to escape the cycle of blame and justification. It’ll give you a broader perspective for a while, and help you to see those around you as people. That clearer view will lead you to new ways of moving forward that you couldn’t see before.

What Is Conscience, and How Trustworthy Is It?

The Institute’s suggested method for determining what’s “right” to do in situations of conflict relies, essentially, on gathering information and evaluating it conscientiously. In short, the method primes our conscience with humanizing information about those with whom we’re in conflict and assumes we’ll choose kinder, more considerate behaviors as a result. Arbinger doesn’t explain why our conscience can be trusted to drive us toward more cooperative behavior, so let’s examine that here.

Conscience is a self-assessment mechanism that provides motivation to act according to external or internal moral knowledge. While conscience appears to have access to moral knowledge, in that its conclusions seem to be based on our deeply-held beliefs, its judgments are conveyed to us purely through feeling—for instance, feeling that something is right or wrong. We can’t assess the validity of those feelings directly, or see the reasoning process that leads to them. It could be argued, then, that the trustworthiness of conscience-feelings depends primarily on the source and validity of the “moral knowledge” they’re based on.

Today, the common belief is that our moral sense is determined by our upbringing and social environment. In other words, we’re taught what’s right and wrong, and we eventually develop the capacity to critically evaluate those lessons and discard or adjust them. This ability to learn, critique, and adjust is key: We may be taught, for instance, that it’s morally correct to be racist, in which case our conscience would drive us toward racist behavior. If we later evaluate that and change our beliefs, our moral “sense” will adjust to that change and judge us accordingly, driving us in a new direction.

In other words, the conscience doesn’t drive us toward universally, morally “correct” behavior—just toward what we believe is right. The key to a trustworthy conscience, then, is to make sure that our deeply-held beliefs are genuinely worth acting in support of—and when it comes to conflict, that they’re conducive to cooperative behavior.

The Institute asks us to accept—and hold deeply—the belief that others deserve to be seen as humans. It asks us to recognize that others have challenges, burdens, and pains—and, critically, that the needs of others should be attended to, respected, and accommodated. This belief then informs the judgments of our conscience, and makes those judgments worth trusting.

Removing Biases in Abusive Situations

Sometimes it’s particularly easy to justify objectifying someone because they’ve done terrible things: for instance, they’ve abused you. In this case, Arbinger asks you to remember the following: You’re not responsible for the behavior of others. But you are responsible for your own behavior and for how you choose to treat others. Others may hurt you, but that doesn’t mean you have to despise, belittle, or objectify them. You can still escape the bias that’s making you want to do so.

The authors highlight that just because someone is difficult or has behaved horribly doesn’t mean they’re not a person. You can still make the conscious decision to see them as one. This doesn’t mean you have to excuse their behavior or even forgive them. But when you engage in the combative mindset, you hurt yourself more than you hurt them—when you believe that monsters exist, you live in fear of them.

How Does the Cooperative Mindset Apply to Abusive Situations?

Arbinger notes that resisting the combative mindset even if someone has mistreated you is helpful to those recovering from abusive relationships or who have escaped abusive situations. When you’re no longer being actively abused, the energy you spend hating and objectifying your abuser is better spent elsewhere; on your new freedom and opportunity to grow. It’s important to be able to let go and move forward, and seeing that your ex-abuser is just a person instead of an insurmountable obstacle can help with that.

But, as UMC commission member Matt Berryman notes, the cooperative mindset falls short in situations where one group has far more power than the other: in other words, when the abuser still has power over their victim. Because abusers aren’t interested in cooperating, a victim of abuse is not helped by thinking, “what have I done to make this worse?” or, “how am I failing to meet my abuser’s needs?” The bias victims hold isn’t the source of their abuse, and seeing their abuser as a person won’t make him stop treating them as an object or convince him to cooperate with them to come to a peaceful resolution. Rather, the abuser is more likely to capitalize on the victim’s admission that they may not be meeting the abuser’s needs and use it to justify the abuse.

In fact, some survivors of abuse argue that humanizing their abuser perpetuates the abuse. In an effort to mitigate the amount and severity of abuse, victims must empathize with their abusers and work to keep them emotionally balanced. They’re forced to focus on accommodating the weights and needs of their abusers, to humanize and protect them, because when their abuser is unstable, they suffer greater abuse. As a result, many victims become so aware of their abuser’s personhood that they find it difficult to justify leaving their abuser behind and escaping the situation. Instead, victims are best served learning to humanize themselves, and to put their own needs and safety first.

Exercise: Identify Your Bias

Use this exercise to identify one of your biases. This is the first step; once you’ve found the bias, you’ll be ready to remove it.

Exercise: Remove the Bias and Rethink the Situation

Revisit the situation you described in the previous exercise. What follows are the second and third steps at the core of the cooperative mindset: Remove the bias, and rethink the situation. Repeat this process whenever you find yourself holding a bias, or in a conflict; it’ll help you to maintain a cooperative mindset, and prime your conscience to give you an actionable push.

Part 4: How to Replace Conflict With Cooperation

The Institute asserts that once you’re able to embody the cooperative mindset by removing your biases, focusing on seeing others as people, and acting according to your conscience, you can have a powerful impact on others.

It may seem at times that there’s not a lot one person can do, but, as we’ll see in this chapter, when you embody the cooperative mindset you become a voice that helps things go better instead of making them worse. That can go a long way. After all, if one party in a conflict is trying to help things go right, that’s already a big improvement over a cycle of collusion.

In Part 4, we’ll first discuss how to encourage others to leave their biases behind and embody the cooperative mindset. Then, we’ll address the requirements for asking others to change and explore a long-term cooperative strategy.

How to Help Others Remove Their Bias

First, we’ll talk about what it takes to help others eliminate their biases. While tempting, Arbinger emphasizes that it’s not helpful to tell others they’re biased. If you do try that and they reject the accusation, it’s not helpful to punish them or withhold privileges. In both of these cases, we’re ascribing blame and demanding change instead of inviting cooperation. We already know that doesn’t work.

Instead, the Institute explains that the most helpful thing we can do is to be unbiased toward them—show them how it feels to be seen and treated as a full person. Put yourself in their shoes; learn what their experience looks and feels like, and try to share it. When you stay unbiased and see others as people, you humanize yourself in their eyes as well. They’ll get curious about you, wonder why you’re doing this, and open up to learning from you.

There’s an additional benefit to putting yourself in another person’s shoes—when you show someone you’re willing to join them in their limitations and hold yourself to the standard you hold them, you humanize yourself in their eyes. They see you stepping off your high horse and joining them on their level, and that tells them you’re willing to meet them where they are. It startles them into re-examining their view of you, and makes them question their biases against you.

Creating Secure Relationships Helps Others Remove Their Biases

The Institute suggests that to manage conflict better—or minimize its impact and occurrence—we should focus on seeing the personhood of those we build relationships with and treating them accordingly. This focus on being reliably attentive to the needs and struggles of others, and genuine in our communication and behavior, is key to secure relationships, according to scholars of attachment theory.

In a secure relationship, it’s safe to engage in conflict because both parties can rely on each other to work cooperatively; there’s no need to fear rejection, judgment, or ridicule. You’ve proven, over time, that you don’t respond to each other with a combative mindset. In fact, if you’re reliably, visibly attentive to the needs and struggles of others, and consequently make them feel secure around you, you can balance or mitigate much of their insecurity, helping them escape their biases by giving them a safe space to explore from.

In the long run, whether the relationships you build are with your children, spouse, friends, or business partners, providing others with relational security is powerful. When you show others that sharing their burdens, thoughts, and feelings with you is worthwhile and safe, they begin sharing and listening elsewhere. This allows the positive impact of your mindset to ripple out, potentially affecting your entire circle, business, or community.

How to Build Cooperative Relationships

The remainder of Part 4 will focus on the process that allows us to invite change in others. Everything that follows builds on the foundation of maintaining a cooperative mindset: eliminating our biases, seeing others as people, and acting on our resulting sense of what’s right. It is the base requirement for building cooperative relationships that resist cyclical conflict.

The Cooperative Strategy

Early on, we mentioned that we generally spend too much of our time and energy trying to correct what’s wrong, instead of focusing on making sure things go right. What follows is the method by which the Institute suggests we can help things go right by building cooperative relationships. The following image summarizes that process:

anatomyofpeace-influencestaircase.png

As we climb the staircase, keep in mind that:

  1. Each higher step relies on the previous steps to succeed.
  2. If our efforts on a particular step are resisted, we need to revisit previous steps.
  3. The entire structure of a cooperative relationship relies on maintaining a cooperative mindset; without that, the strategy can’t succeed.

Our goal, in short, is to strengthen our relationships enough that everyone’s comfortable sharing the details of their struggles with us. That communication enables us to prioritize their needs and identify appropriate lessons to share with them. Ideally, you’ll approach every relationship in this way, but it’s especially critical you’re doing this for people you feel a responsibility to guide or correct.

Building Secure Relationships Is Tough

What follows is essentially a primer for building secure relationships. When you humanize people, approaching them openly and without judgment or criticism, they begin to learn that it’s safe to be around you. In short, they learn that you’ll respect their needs and personhood, that you won’t attack them, and that you really do have their best interests in mind. You build relational security by showing, repeatedly, that you can be trusted to help instead of hurt.

Relational security takes time to build—first, because you’ll have to practice treating people in a new way; habits aren’t formed overnight. Second, because you may have years of negative interactions reinforcing the perception that you aren’t a safe person to communicate with or rely on, and you’ll have to show, over time, that you’ve changed. And third, because many of the people you’ll interact with will have never experienced relational security, and they may find it difficult to adjust to.

Indeed, those who’ve experienced a history of trauma, abuse, or relationships characterized by judgment and criticism may feel uncomfortable when you treat them like people instead of objectifying them. They’re used to being pushed around and manipulated, having their needs ignored, or being abandoned when they’re having a hard time—and they’re trained to expect it. For them, being treated with genuine openness and respect can feel threatening—they “know” it’s all a sham, and the longer they wait for the hammer to drop, the more they fear it’ll hurt when it finally does.

As you work to build healthier, more secure relationships, be patient and gentle—with yourself and those around you. Understand that what you’re giving people—when you unconditionally accept, humanize, care for, and support them—is love. Most people are desperate to be truly loved, but experience has led them to believe it’s not realistic, or even possible. Kindness, acceptance, and genuine communication can be powerfully healing, but they can also be terrifying—people may respond in strange ways. Remember that everyone’s been through something difficult, as you have, and you can’t know offhand how that’s affecting them or what they’ve learned to expect because of it.

Let’s look at each step of the strategy in detail.

1. Maintain a Cooperative Mindset

Per Arbinger, this is the first step: See others as people, not as objects.

Every following step is a behavior. As such, the Institute explains, they each can be done from a biased or unbiased perspective. If you try to do these things when you’re biased, you’ll invite resistance. What you want is cooperation. Always focus on staying unbiased.

(Shortform note: Keep in mind that when you act cooperatively, everyone benefits. As Adam Grant states in Give and Take, you should aim to give more than you get: When you focus on the success of everyone involved, rather than just yours, people trust your motives. They can safely share with you without fear of exploitation or retaliation, and will value your presence in their life.)

2. Build Relationships With Those Who Have Influence

Sometimes, it’s easiest to help someone by recruiting the aid of others who care for them too. For instance, if the person you want to help is your child, recruit their siblings and your partner.

(Shortform note: The friend of your friend is your friend: Someone else might be better able to provide a particular kind of support than you are, and it’s worth leveraging that. Strengthening another person’s support network aids their interpersonal security, and that benefits you as well.)

Arbinger explains that you can’t build a relationship with the person you want to help if you’re disdainful of those who have influence over them. Respect their relationships and work to understand why they pursue them so you can understand what needs those relationships fulfill—even if you don’t personally like those people. For example, your children’s needs will not be best served if you have an antagonistic relationship with your ex-partner.

(Shortform note: Respecting relationships is especially critical with children; peer influence can be supportive as well as negative. Engaging positively with your child’s friends keeps you aware of their connections and reduces the risk that they’ll pursue unhealthy relationships as a means of rebellion. Support your child’s social growth by being openly welcoming, friendly, and interested around their friends.)

3. Grow the Relationship

According to Arbinger, unless you’re close enough with someone that they’re willing to be open and honest with you, you’ll never get a chance to learn what’s really important to them. You’ll remain blind to the truth and details of their experience because they won’t share it with you and that prevents you from learning what’s holding them back. Build a relationship that’s conducive to your ability to listen and learn.

In this vein, make sure that the relationships you’re building are well-rounded and genuine. If you only talk to a person when there’s a problem, that’s not a strong relationship. Arbinger recommends you spend time with the people around you, especially outside of conflict.

The Institute points out that if you’ve been in extended conflict with someone, there’s probably a lot you don’t know about them. The people around you are constantly learning, growing, and experiencing new things. If you stop growing a relationship, you’ll start to miss all kinds of things. And your ignorance of those changes will feed your misunderstandings.

Ensure Your Goals are Conducive to a Cooperative Relationship

As you work to humanize others and grow your relationships, be sure to examine your goals when communicating with the people you want to grow closer to. It’s important to spend time with others outside of conflicts, but it’s even more important to ensure that your goal in doing so is beneficial. You’re not spending time with people to learn how to manipulate them better; you’re doing it to learn who they are, to show them who you are, and to practice cooperatively seeking shared joy, success, and connection.

If you want lasting, stable relationships, it can’t be your goal to win arguments, exercise power, or be in control—especially when those relationships are with members of your family. When you’re fighting with the goal of exerting your will, establishing your authority, or forcing the other party to change, you communicate the wrong lesson. Others learn that you care less about their needs than you do about your own desires. As you continue to treat them combatively, you lose their trust, their respect, and their cooperation. They stop sharing their needs, desires, and burdens with you. And you stop knowing who they are.

In a healthy relationship, individuals hold a very different goal: to enhance the relationship and each other. These individuals want to grow, mutually, toward a state in which both parties are healthier, happier, and more successful; to share each other’s burdens; and to aid in the fulfilment of each other’s needs. When you prioritize enhancing your relationships, you naturally communicate very differently and you teach those around you that their feelings, needs, and values are important to you. They become more willing to share, and you get to know them better.

4. Listen and Learn

It’s easier to guide someone when you know what their needs are. If your goal is to be a mentor or a reliable support, remember: The more you listen to and learn about those around you, the better you’re able to help them. Arbinger asks: How can you know that you’re teaching someone useful lessons and communicating helpful things if you don’t know what they need because you haven’t listened to them?

Arbinger highlights that listening and learning provides another important function: It helps you keep in mind that you may be mistaken, and that those you seek to invite change in may not be the only ones who need to change. It reminds you to check your views and opinions against reality, and provides you with access to the information you need to confirm or re-evaluate them.

Perhaps the objective you’ve set at work isn’t feasible, or the strategy you’ve taken with your child is hurtful; you can’t find that out if you aren’t listening. You’ll only know whether the corrective change you ask for is reasonable and appropriate if you’re seeing the other person clearly, cooperatively, and without bias.

Listening Carefully Makes Others Feel Valued

Arbinger isn’t alone in highlighting the importance of listening to others. Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life places great emphasis on paying attention to and accepting what others have to say. When you listen to another person, Peterson says, assume they’ve reached a thoughtful conclusion based on valid experiences, and try to understand what led them there.

As you listen, Peterson suggests occasionally summarizing the other person’s message. Say something like, “let me make sure I have this right: What I’m hearing is…” This technique lets you be certain you’ve understood the other party fully, gives them a chance to correct you, and signals that you’re listening carefully. It’s particularly useful in a conflict or argument, Peterson says, because it prevents you from arguing against or getting upset about a point you’ve misunderstood.

On the whole, people prefer to talk to a listener, Peterson says, because it helps them clarify their thinking and figure out how they feel. It may be that just speaking their problem aloud is enough to help them discover the solution they’re looking for, or that all they need is a common-sense sounding board. What you’re communicating, when you listen carefully, is that the other person’s thoughts and feelings matter: that their experiences are valued, and they’re not alone.

The desire to be heard, seen, and accepted is part of what drives us to form relationships in the first place. Thus, give your full attention as a gift to the people you care for; it’ll help them grow confidence and security. You’ll benefit, too: There’s much to learn from the experiences of others, and listening to them talk about theirs opens a door for you to share your own later.

5. Teach and Communicate

Be as open with others as you want them to be with you. A relationship of trust is a two-way street; when you refuse to share your own burdens, you show those around you that you don’t trust them or value their input. Invite the communication you desire by extending it to others.

(Shortform note: Openness is about more than saying what you think; it’s about honestly externalizing your internal world. Nobody can hear you monologue inside your head; when you’re stressed, angry, afraid, or hurt, communicate that verbally. Put aside your fear of rejection and be direct: If you’re tired of doing all the dishes, express what you actually want—don’t ask, “why don’t you ever wash the dishes?” Be clear, and say: “I feel like I end up washing all the dishes myself, and I want to see you do your part, too.”)

Furthermore, it’s critical, Arbinger says, to teach those around you how to be unbiased by example: Be unbiased toward them, toward the people around them, and let them see what that looks like. However, don’t let yourself fall into a superiority bias just because you’ve learned this before they did. Be patient, supportive, and forgiving; remember that stumbling is natural and that you, too, are not infallible.

(Shortform note: Teaching helps refine and master your skills: Explaining a concept helps organize the information in your mind, leading to a deeper understanding. Remain open to learning as you teach, from your students as well as the process of teaching itself. As you grow into the cooperative mindset, learning as you teach will help keep you motivated, engaged, and self-aware.)

6. Correct

Let’s put all of the above together.

Arbinger’s lesson is that your power to correct others relies on the strength of your relationship—and that any relationship in which you want the power to connect deeply, to learn and teach, and to correct when necessary, must be built in the way described above.

Once you’ve built that relational foundation, you’ll find that correction is necessary less often than you’d expect—as we’ve discussed, having a secure relationship to rely on helps people avoid all kinds of pitfalls and misunderstandings. The corrections you do need to make are easier for others to stomach when it comes from someone they trust, who they know cares deeply for them and sees them as a person. As Arbinger asserts, their respect for you comes from the way they see you behave, and reinforces their willingness to accept your guidance.

Further, for correction to be accepted, people need to understand why correction is necessary and important. That understanding comes from your communication and teaching. The lessons you teach need to be appropriate to their situation, which you’ll only learn about by listening. To learn what matters to someone, you must grow your relationship with them until they feel safe enough to communicate openly. That openness becomes possible when you make it clear that you value both them and the people who matter to them. At the deepest level, none of this is possible unless your mindset is cooperative.

How Can We Ensure Our Feedback Is Accepted?

In many ways, correcting someone is a form of feedback: We’re giving the feedback that a person needs to amend their behavior. Giving feedback—especially negative feedback, as in the case of correction—can be tricky: People are generally resistant to criticism and often respond to it either by dismissing it, or by lashing out at the person giving the feedback.

How can we minimize the chances that the person we’re correcting responds badly to our feedback? Douglas Stone, author of Thanks For The Feedback, has addressed this question. He identifies three categories of “triggers” which cause us to dismiss feedback or get upset about it—triggers that, as someone who wants to give well-received feedback, you should avoid stoking.

Let’s address each category in turn:

1. Relationship: We don’t respect the person giving us feedback because they routinely mistreat us, or because they don’t have the authority to give it.

Arbinger’s recommendations regarding how to build our relationships and treat those around us already help minimize the effect of the “relationship” trigger. As we build trust and respect, people become more willing to listen to us.

2. Truth: We’re blind to the problem: The feedback applies to a behavior or trait we don’t realize or believe we exhibit. We may be blind to the problem because we’re justifying our behaviors or blaming the results on others, or on our circumstances.

In examining the way we’ve contributed to our conflicts—the ways in which we’ve self-betrayed, justified, and ended up biased—we’ve learned the mechanics of the “truth” trigger, too. We know that when we approach those around us cooperatively, they’re more receptive to the idea that it’s worth examining their biases, not least because we’re willing to examine ours, too.

3. Identity: We take criticism personally, and tie it to our sense of self. We can’t accept feedback because we take it to mean something’s wrong with us, not just our behavior.

We can avoid the “identity” trigger by treating others as people, instead of objects—and speaking to them as people. We should say, “I need you to start doing your own laundry,” instead of, “Stop being so lazy! You’re not a child anymore, so do your own laundry!” The first statement identifies the desired behavioral change without judgment. In the second, we objectify the person we’re correcting, calling them a lazy child. That objectification sets up all the right conditions for them to develop an inferiority bias—perhaps the next time they don’t do their laundry, they’ll justify it like this: “I know I should do it, but I’m just a lazy child. Nobody will be surprised if I don’t.” Be aware of the meaning your words carry, and the lessons they teach.

Aim for Growth Over Perfection

As you try to correct a person’s behavior or address ongoing conflicts—and, more broadly, as you try to engage with others and build relationships—keep in mind that it’s natural to stumble and fail. You’ll make mistakes, and so will those you’re trying to connect with or correct. Don’t expect perfect success, and don’t be discouraged if progress is slow. In fact, don’t focus on winning and succeeding at all: In your attempt to master the cooperative mindset, focus on growing and improving over time.

In Drive, Daniel H. Pink says that mastery requires a growth mindset. He explains that people with a growth mindset believe they have the potential to get better at anything they want to do. As a result, they see effort as the driver of improvement, focus on progress over results, and examine their failures for useful feedback. He points out that it’s not possible to achieve total, effortless mastery, no matter the skill. There’s always more to learn and new situations to apply your knowledge to, and improving isn’t easy.

As you apply your cooperative mindset to the relationships and interactions in your life, remember the benefits of perspective-taking, the value of secure relationships, and the importance of following your conscience. Continue to practice self-awareness and, as your relationships develop, pay attention to changes in the way you’re treating others and how they respond. Take pride in incremental progress; improvement is success.