Bridging the perspectives gap: How can research help us to communicate better?

Bridging the perspectives gap: How can research help us to communicate better?

By Dr. Philippa Lloyd, Vice-Principal, Policy and Strategic Partnerships, Queen Mary University of London

From views on Brexit to climate change, polarisation is on the rise on a national and international scale  – across the media and wider society. Any named issue sparks a reaction; views are more entrenched than they have ever been. Increasingly it seems that opinions can only ever exist when diametrically opposed: there is only a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ – an ‘us’ and a ‘them’. We are facing a lack of nuance: a fundamental perspectives gap.

But how do universities encourage respectful and healthy debate in an academic setting,  where researchers and people across higher education, industry and policy must come together to solve large-scale issues?

For universities, it is more vital than ever to be able to move beyond a singularity of perspective. To drive meaningful change in society, people of opposing views must be able to come together and find a shared understanding – even if they still don’t agree.

Opening up the conversation

Relating to one another starts with discourse and open conversation that challenges and bridges our gap in perspectives. But language can so easily divide as well as unite. Affiliations to a political party or issue are now worn as badges of honour, or identifiers for who we are: somebody is a democrat or a republican, a leaver or a remainer.

Queen Mary’s Professor of History, Thomas Dixon, explores the very concept of language and perspectives in his research, focusing on how we describe emotions, and construct their meanings. He has explored how we have used the language of emotions throughout history, and whether we can ever really communicate our feelings accurately; can we ever really say how we feel?

Anger is just one of the emotions that Dixon has analysed in depth. Throughout history the word ‘anger’ has been ascribed to a range of different states. Dixon describes Achilles’ rage as being ‘a kind of long-lasting hateful sulk’ and contrasts this with the instinctually aggressive depiction of the emotion in the 2015 animated Disney Pixar film Inside Out.

This snapshot of Dixon’s research demonstrates that emotions are acutely complex. As Dixon puts it, “We learn that what we feel now, how we feel it, and what we think our feelings reveal and express, is historically contingent and far from universal”.

What can we learn when we apply Dixon’s research to today’s polarised world? When we speak about emotions, or concepts, are we accurately understanding what the people we are talking to are trying to say? When your friend tells you they are angry, do they mean anger in exactly the same way you feel it, or are they trying to convey a different emotion – sometimes stronger, sometimes softer than you experience yourself.

Similarly, when we speak about contentious issues around politics, poverty, or climate change, we can learn from Professor Dixon’s work. We can learn that we need to take time to understand whether those we talk with are looking at the world with the same lens that we are; learn whether their beliefs are forged on the same or different information; and learn how to understand that there is no right and wrong in our perspectives of the world, just differences – and sometimes even a middle ground.

The valuable insight from Dixon’s research has gone on to influence wider social and cultural conversations surrounding emotions and discourse around mental health in relation to our emotional vocabulary, reaching across education and healthcare.

Reaching across the divide

In terms of polarisation, the research reinforces just how individual our perceptions and perspectives can be. To make any discourse effective, it is paramount that we recognise inherent biases, value systems and the different experiences of emotion.

This may never be more important than in solving research issues. No problem can be tackled effectively alone, or within a single community or school of thought. Engaging with different people, with different communities and different world views is a fundamental part of any university’s role. At Queen Mary University of London, diversity of perspective is a core facet of our identity. And bridging the perspectives gap is something that is built into our structures.

We have found that research thrives without departmental siloes, and we challenge our academics to co-create knowledge with each other and with their impacted communities. This comes together in our Research Highways – five interdisciplinary themes to guide our research.

What diversity of thought brings

We need set structures in place to ensure that our own perspectives do not mar or misdirect our work, and the only way to ensure this is to take time to understand as many perspectives as possible, and to speak to those at the centre of any issue. By doing this we recognise and validate different world views, enabling stronger discourse and the possibility of compromised outcomes and agreement over a middle ground.

Diversity of thought is vital to this and has enabled us to unlock greater value within our own research. For example, Dr Maggie Inchley, Queen Mary’s Senior Lecturer in Performance and Director of Schools Engagement (Drama) worked directly with care-experienced young people, working to communicate their direct experiences to councils and policymakers. Her work helped to articulate feelings and public awareness of this group of young people beyond faceless statistics and assumptions, opening doors to greater opportunity.

We need to ensure that we continue our work to bridge the gaps between us, to challenge our assumptions with exposure to a multitude of perspectives, in order to truly engage within, and across, communities. There, we will develop true understanding, to form common ground for discourse and debate: there we can ensure our research and its outcomes are truly beneficial.

Discover how we are bringing diverse perspectives together to deliver real world impact here.