How to talk climate change at Christmas dinner without picking a fight with your uncle

We often struggle to meaningfully connect with those who have different political viewpoints from us. One of the barriers that prevents us from communicating successfully is what social psychologists call identity-protective cognition — a powerful psychological pattern in which a person selectively accepts or rejects evidence that reflects their core beliefs or group identity.

In an experiment in 2017, researchers presented subjects with data that they framed either as about a neutral topic, skin-rash treatments, or a politicized subject, gun control. Despite each data set being the same, subjects were better able to draw a valid conclusion when they thought they were looking at skin-rash treatment data. They became less accurate, and more partisan, when the data was presented as results from a study about gun control. Similarly, a 2021 study tracked the eye movement of participants while they observed global temperature graphs. They found that participants who identified as liberal tended to focus on the rising temperature curves, while self-identified conservative participants more frequently focused on the flatter portions of the graph.

It’s easy to understand why we behave this way. Plenty of research has shown that social support and strengthening social bonds increases resilience and improves mental and physical health. In other words, our survival depends on finding our tribe. According to researchers, our attitudes, emotions and behaviors are influenced by the group with which we self-identify, which often leads to political partisanship. Once that bias is established, we’re driven to protect that identity and the attached worldview by devaluing and rejecting anything that threatens it. This is why fact-throwing across the dinner table never works. If your facts oppose the other side’s social values, that person or group resists.

The drive to protect our group identity not only contributes to partisanship, it also reinforces political polarization. The 2017 study also found that once the data was presented as results about gun control, participant responses not only became more inaccurate but more polarized as well. Education oddly seems to make polarization worse. In the case of climate change, individuals with greater education and science literacy are more polarized in their beliefs. A Gallup poll from 2015 found that nearly a quarter of Republicans with only a high school degree said they worried about climate change a great deal. But that figure dropped to just 8% for Republicans with a college degree or more. Even more challenging, a 2018 study found that partisanship doesn’t just affect someone’s views in the moment, but that it appears to be able to alter memory as well, which only reinforces party loyalty and reliance on partisan information.

So how can you get past identity-protective cognition? Emphasize a shared connection.

Disagreement with those you identify with can be less threatening, which facilitates uncomfortable conversations. So, when that one family member brings up climate change at the dinner table, here are a few things you can try:

• Make a community-based appeal, connecting it back to your shared identity. Maybe you share relatives in Florida, where rising sea levels, induced by climate change, will inevitably displace thousands and cost billions in damage. You can share nonpartisan resources such as Science Moms, a group of climate scientists who are also mothers that root their climate change messaging in family values. Or, you can share your personal experiences with the local impacts of climate change, like the wildfires that have devastated homes and livelihoods in the Bay Area and continue to worsen in a warming climate.

• Appeal to their values. Most climate change messaging appeals to moral foundations such as harm prevention and fairness that are favored by American liberals. A study conducted at Stanford University found that reframing some environmental messaging in terms of alternative moral foundations, such as purity, respect and loyalty — like highlighting conservation as a patriotic value — encourages pro-environmental attitudes in American conservatives, decreasing climate-centered political polarization.

• Reframe loss. Climate policy is often framed in terms of loss — think higher taxes, energy reduction and diet changes — for little gain. Reframing climate action as a “gain” can help others embrace solutions, like emphasizing job growth and efficiency in the renewables industry. Additionally, highlighting losses associated with climate inaction, like the steep cost of climate-caused infrastructural damage, can appeal to someone who prioritizes economic values.

The holidays are about bringing family and friends together, despite our differences. By approaching the conversation differently, you can more effectively discuss climate change this year — and hopefully get to dinner before it gets cold.