How can two people talk about big beliefs without it turning into a fight?

What does research say about arguing and correcting?

A well-known 2010 study reported a “backfire effect,” where correcting someone’s facts made some people hold a false belief harder, and it was often read as showing that this is common. Thomas Wood and Ethan Porter tested it in five experiments with more than 10,100 people across 52 polarizing issues and found no correction that backfired. Brendan Nyhan, who co-wrote the 2010 study, wrote in a 2021 article that later research suggests backfire effects are “extremely rare in practice.” Corrections usually improve accuracy a little, though the gains often fade as people drift back toward views that fit their group. We label the idea that corrections usually backfire Not supported.

So share facts honestly, but a correction is not a conversation, and these studies tested politics and public issues, not faith. A 2022 review of intellectual humility notes that people are unlikely to show it when their political, religious or ethical values seem challenged.

In a 2002 study, Leonid Rozenblit and Frank Keil had people rate how well they understood everyday things like a zipper, explain step by step how each works, then rate again. Their ratings dropped, a pattern they called the illusion of explanatory depth. (See also our guide to common thinking traps.) In 2013, Philip Fernbach and colleagues reported that explaining how a policy works also softened people’s positions. But three preregistered replications in 2021, studies whose plans were filed in advance, found no such softening. Explaining still lowered people’s sense of understanding, and a well-established finding held: justifying a view you already hold tends to strengthen it.

What helps a hard conversation go better?

Listening that lowers defenses. Guy Itzchakov, Avraham Kluger and Dotan Castro ran four lab experiments that varied the quality of listening people got while talking about their attitudes. Speakers who got empathic, non-judgmental listening felt less social anxiety and became less defensive. They noticed more of the pros and cons in their own views and held those views less extremely.

Asking instead of guessing. Tal Eyal, Mary Steffel and Nicholas Epley ran 25 experiments on perspective-taking, imagining yourself in someone else’s shoes. It did not reliably make people more accurate about others, and it sometimes raised confidence without raising accuracy. In a final experiment, perspective-getting, simply asking the person, did improve accuracy.

In three preregistered field experiments, Joshua Kalla and David Broockman had 230 canvassers talk face to face with 6,869 U.S. voters about contentious topics. In the first test, talks with arguments alone had no measurable effect. Otherwise identical talks that added a non-judgmental exchange of personal stories shifted views slightly for at least four months. A follow-up found that hearing a story about another person’s experience was enough, without asking voters for stories of their own; its canvassers asked for views without showing approval or disapproval. Those talks aimed to change minds on public issues, which is not the goal here, but the listening part may carry over: ask for stories and listen without judging.

Humility about what you know. Intellectual humility means recognizing that your beliefs might be wrong. In four studies, Mark Leary and colleagues found that people higher in it were more open and curious. They were less sure their beliefs about religion were correct, and they judged others less by their religious opinions. Tenelle Porter and Karina Schumann found that more humble people were more open to learning about opposing views. The 2022 review cautions that much of the research on humility’s benefits is correlational, showing links rather than cause and effect, with little evidence beyond Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic societies.

Habits borrowed from counseling. Motivational interviewing, a counseling style set out by Miller and Rollnick, helps people explore their own reasons for change. Its trainers teach open questions, reflections (saying back what you heard), summaries and asking permission before offering information, and stress that it is “not a way to ‘get people to change.’” Its record as a treatment is modest: a 2018 review of 104 reviews rated most of the evidence low or very low quality, with moderate-quality evidence of small, mostly short-term benefits for a few outcomes. We borrow only its listening habits.

We label listening, asking and humility Supported, still debated: each has careful studies behind it, but most were done in labs, workplaces or politics, not in talks about faith.

What does a better conversation look like, step by step?

No study has tested this exact script. The steps draw on the research above.

1. Set the goal out loud. “I’m not trying to change your mind. I’d like to understand how you see this.” Then mean it.
2. Ask for the story, not the position. “How did you come to believe that?” or “What does your faith, or your doubt, mean to you on a hard day?”
3. Say back what you heard before you answer. “So for you, prayer feels like a real conversation with someone who listens?” Or: “So for you, not believing feels like being honest with yourself?” Keep going until they say yes.
4. Ask before you share. “Can I tell you how I see it?” Then speak for yourself: “Here’s where I’ve landed, and why,” not “Here’s why you’re wrong.”
5. Check your own depth. Could you explain, step by step, what you believe and why? Use this test on yourself, not as a trap.
6. Name real common ground, such as love for family, a wish to be honest or awe at the universe, without pretending the difference is gone.
7. Stop when it stops helping. If voices rise or someone feels cornered, try: “I care about you more than this argument. Can we come back to it another time?” Stepping back is common: in a Pew survey reported in 2016, 18% of U.S. evangelical Protestants and 30% of atheists and agnostics said they avoid discussing religion with someone who disagrees.

If the talk is about your own changing beliefs, see how to tell your family you have doubts and whether it is okay to question what you were raised to believe. If fear or guilt makes these talks painful, see why those feelings can linger, and our care page.

Can you respect someone’s faith while disagreeing with it?

Yes. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes two kinds of respect, a distinction widely regarded as fundamental. Recognition respect means giving proper weight to something in how you act, and every person, simply as a person, can be owed it. Appraisal respect means thinking highly of something. Applied to faith, you can give someone full recognition respect, treating them and their faith with care, without thinking highly of a belief you reject.

Several traditions teach this from the inside.

• Christian. The First Letter of Peter tells believers to be ready to explain their hope, “but do it with gentleness and reverence” (1 Peter 3:15–16, New American Bible).
• Muslim. The Quran says, “There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion” (2:256), and says to invite others to God’s way “with wisdom and good instruction, and argue with them in a way that is best” (16:125, Sahih International).
• Jewish. The Talmud recalls three years of dispute between the schools of Hillel and Shammai, ended by a divine voice: “Both these and those are the words of the living God.” The law followed Hillel’s school because its members were “agreeable and forbearing” and taught their rivals’ views too, even putting them first (Eruvin 13b).
• Humanist. The American Humanist Association’s Humanist Manifesto III (2003) says humanists “respect those of differing yet humane views.”

What is the strongest objection, and what do people often get wrong?

The strongest objection is that this puts niceness above honesty. If you think a belief is false, or that it matters for someone’s life or soul, shouldn’t you say so? Yes, and nothing here asks you to hide what you think. The research is about how, not whether: in the first canvassing study, arguments alone had no measurable effect, while the same talks with a non-judgmental exchange of stories did. And humility may have limits: the 2022 review notes that researchers are still working out when it becomes “too much of a good thing.”

• “I already know what they think.” Imagining someone’s view can raise your confidence without making you more accurate. Ask.
• “If they don’t change their mind, the talk failed.” Understanding each other is a real result.
• “Making them explain will expose them.” Explaining can reveal gaps in anyone’s knowledge, including yours, and in the replications it did not soften views.

Where can people of faith and skeptics agree, and how can you check this yourself?

• People matter more than winning. Most evangelicals, atheists and agnostics in Pew’s survey said they try to understand and agree to disagree.
• Coercion is out. “No compulsion,” “gentleness and reverence” and respect for “differing yet humane views” point the same way as the research on non-judgmental listening.
• Anyone can be wrong about something. Intellectual humility is a habit for every side.

To check this yourself, try the zipper test: rate how well you understand something, write out step by step how it works, then rate again. Next time you disagree, sum up the other person’s view until they say, “Yes, that’s it,” before you reply. And when you read a study, ask who took part and what the topic was. Most studies here involved voters, lab participants, workers or people in health care, not families talking about God.