Ep 142: Good Troublemakers

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With so much fake news flying around on social media and the internet  becoming more and more politically polarizing each day,  it’s easy to be worried about whether or not our teens can think for themselves.  On top of online influences, teens are also susceptible to pressure from their peers in real life, who threaten to paint them as outcasts if they hold a minority opinion. With all these forces against us, raising independent thinkers with their own opinions, values, and moral codes is not easy.

To make matters even more challenging, psychological studies inform us that humans are fundamentally wired to abandon our own thoughts and observations to conform to majority opinion. Not only that, but we tend to only associate with those who agree with us–keeping us from questioning our assumptions and challenging our own perspectives. If we want to raise teens with strong critical thinking skills, it might be time to teach them the value of disagreeing with others.

That’s why we’re sitting down With Charlan Nemeth this week. Charlan is the author of In Defense of Troublemakers: the Power of Dissent in Life and Business, as well as a professor of psychology at the University of California Berkeley.  After working as researcher and consultant specializing in influence and decision making, Charlan has become an expert on the ways dissent can  be a powerful force in changing the world.

In our interview, Charlan and I discuss how even one dissenter can deeply influence the way a group of people approaches an issue. We also talk about why it can be so hard for teens to present dissenting opinions to their peers, and what parents can do to raise  kids who are unafraid to disagree with the majority.

Click for full show notes, exercises, and parenting scripts from this episode