Linking this with the rest of their paper, Fisher and colleagues mention that there may be some important similarities between the arguing-to-learn and arguing-to-win mindsets and being high or low in objectivism. That is, people high in objectivism and those who use ATW mindsets seem like they’d be less inclined to consider and entertain opinions that differ from their own—they both seem to be dead-set on being right and in thinking that their answer is that right answer. People low in objectivism and those with ATL mindsets, however, would seem to be more inclined to entertain different opinions—they appear to be unconcerned with making sure that their answer is the right one. They’re in it to learn.

This leads Fischer’s central research question: Does the mindset one has towards arguments lead to differences in whether they think that there is a single, objective truth to the issue and hence whether they’ll entertain different opinions on the issue? Fischer and colleagues hypothesized that when a person adopts an arguing-to-win mindset, they’ll be more likely to be objectivists about the issue, and hence more intolerant towards other divergent opinions.

In other words, if you approach arguments with intent of learning something about the issue and not just beating people, then your liable to think that 1) the issue in question has no single right answer and 2) that you’ll be more willing to entertain opinions different than your own on the matter.

Experiment 1(A)

To see if how we understand the truth of an issue can be altered by how we approach arguments, Fisher and colleagues had participants interact in an online chat room on a variety of contentious issues. Upon their arrival at the lab, participants were given a selection of contentious topics on which they needed to state their position. These topics were vetted in advance to ensure that they’d be likely to lead to a heated debate under normal circumstances, such as the reality of climate change or the wage gap between men and women. Once this was done, the experimenters put participants in pairs of two, where each participant took an opposing stance to their partner on at least three issues to ensure that the two wouldn’t simply agree with one another.

Here, participants were split into two conditions: a “cooperative” condition, where they were encouraged to adopt an ATL mindset, and a “competitive” condition, where they were encouraged to adopt an ATW mindset. In the competitive condition participants were told that they would need to justify their position on three issues to a participant who has a strong stance on each of the issues.

Then, a moderator in the online chat room would introduce the topic that the participants would be discussing and ensured that the participants stayed on topic. Each of the conditions were given a maximum of four minutes to discuss the topic.

Once the four minutes were up, participants in all the conditions were sent the following message by the moderator and asked to rate the extent to which they agreed or disagreed it: “Earlier studies show that people take opposite positions on the issue of [issue]. Given that people have opposite views, at least one side must be wrong.” Higher scores of agreement would mean that participants are objectivists about the issue at hand, thinking that there is only a single, objective truth to the matter; lower scores of disagreement would mean that they are closer to subjectivists about the issue and think that there may be a variety of answers to an issue.

As expected, they found support for their main hypothesis. When participants approached an argument as a cooperative exchange that was intended to facilitate learning and depth of understanding (i.e., approach it with an ATL mindset), they were less likely to believe that there is a single, objective truth to the issue at hand. But, when participants adopted an arguing-to-win mindset, where their main goal was to simply win the argument rather than learn, they were more likely to believe that there was a single truth to the issue and hence were less likely to accept opinions that diverged from their own.

Experiment 1 (B)

As a follow-up, Fisher and colleagues found that people’s natural starting point, without being given any sort of mindset prompts, was indistinguishable from the competitive (i.e., argue-to-win mindset) condition in study 1a. This means that people’s default view on contentious issues is that there is a single objective truth to the issue, and may seem to automatically adopt arguing-to-win mindset.

To summarize the main finding:

People’s default assumption for contentious issues is that there is a single objective truth to the issue. When people adopt an argue-to-win mindset about an issue, where their main focus is to simply win the argument at hand, they are even more likely be objectivists about that issue. When people adopt an argue-to-learn perspective towards an issue, however, they are less likely to objectivists about the issue at hand and more so more likely to be tolerant of differing opinions.

The results applied

1. Get on the same page

Contentious arguments often run afoul of the rule that interlocutors should always be arguing about the same thing—else the two of you end up talking past one another and at times not even disagreeing with one another but simply failing to notice that you’re on separate pages. This may be the case with arguing-to-win and arguing-to-learn mindsets, where you may be trying to learn as much as you can from the discussion, but your colleague may be more interested in simply winning the argument without an ounce of concern for learning anything.

As a result, the argument may seem to benefit only one person, or simply leave unchanged opinions that should probably be changed. Thus, it would be more beneficial for all those involved in such discussions if you subtly hint that you’re not here to “win” anything, but simply to understand and learn as much about the issue as possible. Doing so may help in getting your opponent to adopt an arguing-to-learn mindset to make them less of an objectivist and so more willing to hear other opinions on the matter.