YANSS 339 – How a new organization devoted to the science of debate, conversation, and deliberation plans to “save disagreement from polarization.”

Northwestern University just launched the Litowitz Center for Enlightened Disagreement, a real-world institution devoted to “research-backed approaches to cultivating open-mindedness, identifying one’s own cognitive biases, working collaboratively with others despite disagreement and more.”

In this episode, David McRaney details his time as a resident of the Center, teaching students how to ask questions that activate a person’s introspection. Then follow up with questions that evoke a person’s motivated reasoning. Then, keep going until the other side articulates things they may have never considered before, and, in so doing, reveals the deeper motivations and values generating disagreement.

You’ll learn about this and all the other modules of the Center’s pilot program. You’ll also learn about a new game they are designing to improve scientific literacy of news consumers and news creators.

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Eli Finkel is a professor at Northwestern University, with appointments in the psychology department and the Kellogg School of Management. He also serves as a founding co-director of the Litowitz Center for Enlightened Disagreement and as the Morton O. Schapiro Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research. His research topics range from marriage to political partisanship. He is the author of The All-or-Nothing Marriage, a co-host of the Love Factually podcast, and a guest essayist for The New York Times. The Economist declared him “one of the leading lights in the realm of relationship psychology.”

“I’m a social psychology professor who studies romantic relationships and political partisanship. I work at Northwestern, with appointments in psychology and Kellogg. I serve as founding co-director of the Litowitz Center for Enlightened Disagreement, the Morton O. Schapiro Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research, and co-host of the Love Factually podcast. My undergraduate degree is also from Northwestern (1997), and my MA (1999) and PhD (2001) degrees are from the University of North Carolina. I live in Evanston, IL, with my wife, two kids, and various pets. I’m curious, but not querulous.”

Nour Kteily is the Kellogg Chair in Enlightened Disagreement and a Professor of Management and Organizations at Northwestern University. He serves as co-director of the Dispute Resolution Research Center and the founding co-director of the Center for Enlightened Disagreement at Northwestern University. He specializes in negotiation, conflict resolution, and inter-group relations.

His research uses the tools of social psychology to investigate how and why conflict emerges between groups in society, and how to productively resolve it. He considers the role of power and status differences between groups, investigating how inequality and social hierarchy exacerbate conflict. His work spans conflict between racial and ethnic groups, conflict between political parties and ideological opponents, and international conflicts such as the conflict in the Middle East.

Brad Zakarin earned a B.A. in History (Amherst College) and a Ph.D. in History (Harvard University) before serving as Resident Dean of one of Harvard’s undergraduate houses. At the same time, he was a lecturer in the History Department and Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies.

Brad helped co-author Writing with Internet Sources, which became a staple of the universal composition course for first-year students. He also received multiple Gordon Gray Faculty Grants for Writing Pedagogy to develop projects ranging from a manual for senior thesis writers to an introductory guide for students in a core course in historical studies.

Upon moving to Northwestern University, Brad was Associate Director of Fellowships and a lecturer in the History Department. While continuing research into academic integrity, technology in education, and composition, Brad held a Hewlett Fund Grant for Curricular Innovation to produce a research guide for students preparing for honors research. Brad later became the inaugural Director of Residential Academic Initiatives, a new role focused on integrating undergraduate education, faculty engagement, and intellectual life into the residential experience. He taught in the Cook Family Writing Program for the first time in 2016-17.

Patti Wolter joined the Medill faculty in the spring of 2002. She was named the Helen Gurley Brown Magazine Professor in 2018 and a Charles Deering McCormick Distinguished Clinical Professor in 2020. Prior to joining the faculty, she spent a dozen years in senior staff magazine jobs in New York, San Francisco and Chicago. She served as managing editor as well as acting editor at Mother Jones magazine and oversaw the award-winning health investigations team at Self magazine. She also worked as the managing editor and editor-in-chief of The Neighborhood Works, a non-profit magazine that covered community organizing and public affairs. Her freelance writing on women’s health and nutrition has appeared in a range of publications since joining the Medill faculty, and she has served as an editorial consultant for a variety of media outlets.

Wolter’s teaching focuses on the magazine industry, fact-checking, science writing and narrative, especially in relationship to feature writing and multimedia storytelling. She teaches courses in magazine editing, feature writing, health and science reporting, and narrative structure for undergraduate and graduate students. Wolter regularly partners with consumer media in her classes, and students in her courses have placed their reporting in a wide range of national media outlets. She has also co-taught Medill’s investigative journalism course, taught advanced science writing to master’s students, and worked with Medill’s Knight Lab instructors integrating digital storytelling with narrative feature writing.
Since 2015, Wolter has been involved in transforming writing instruction for STEM PhD. students. Wolter was part of the team that developed a writing-for-consumer-audiences class for STEM+ Ph.D. students, eventually taking the lead instructor role.