Does Feeling Heard Improve the Experience Worldview Conflict?

Abstract

We commonly encounter conflicting attitudes and opinions. Past research finds that engaging in such worldview conflict elicits temporarily lowered mood and psychological well-being (Brandt et al., 2019). Understanding how to mitigate these consequences of worldview conflict may help improve well-being. In close relationships feeling heard in a conflict can increase well-being (Gordon et al., 2013; Reis et al., 2017). We aim to extend these findings to the study of worldview conflict. Participants will complete series of open-ended and closed-ended questions to recall and describe a recent political discussion. We will focus on their recollection of the following: how the discussion went, whether they felt any of a range of specified emotions during and after the discussion, how they perceived the other, and whether they felt heard by the other. We expect to find a negative correlation between feeling heard and negative emotions, such as other-condemning emotions and agitation. On the other hand, we expect to find a positive correlation between feeling heard and contentment. We do not expect to find an association between feeling heard and feelings of dejection or excitement. The results of this study could help guide future research on how to alleviate the most difficult reactions to worldview conflict.

Department: Psychology

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Craig Blatz