How to Actually Cooperate With Your Enemies

Don't settle fights by sitting down together. Stand up and move instead.

Photo by Sebastian Pichler on Unsplash

Let’s say you are having a conflict with someone. Your roommate won’t keep their music down after 10 p.m. like you both agreed. Your co-worker undermined you on a project. Your partner isn’t doing their share of the housework. Your relative won’t stop talking about Trump whenever you guys get together.

To fix the problem, you might naturally want to sit down and talk things out, face to face. This is how we often picture conflict resolution: People “coming to the table” so they can “see eye to eye.”

But in fact, this might be the exact wrong approach.

Instead, next time you have beef with someone, try taking a walk with them instead.

I learned this strategy from Peter Coleman, a Columbia University psychologist and conflict-resolution expert, and his book The Way Out: How to Overcome Toxic Polarization. “If you have a brother-in-law who just triggers you because you think he's an idiot politically, sometimes inviting somebody like that to go for a walk with you outside, side by side, particularly in nature, neurologically, it helps you connect,” Coleman told me in an interview.

I reached out to Coleman when I was working on the trait of agreeableness, or the nice, cooperative trait that helps you get along with everyone. At the start of my personality project, I scored pretty low on agreeableness, and I was looking to improve.

Coleman writes that physical movement can increase neuroplasticity, and, therefore, an openness to new ideas—including the ideas of your enemies. Thanks to the magic of mirror neurons—brain cells that fire when we see someone else doing something—walking synchronously with someone helps increase self-disclosure, connectedness, rapport, and empathy. Plus, physical activity in itself boosts positive mood, creativity, and our ability to focus on relevant information—all helpful tools when it comes to problem-solving.

“Physically moving in sync with others has been shown to enhance cooperation, prosocial behavior, and the ability to achieve joint goals, and it also increases our compassion and helping behavior,” Coleman writes. Walking together with others increases our willingness to make sacrifices that benefit the group, he adds.

What’s more, walking side by side seems to shift peoples’ focus from themselves to things that out there, in the environment. And as you walk, you and your walking partner are paying attention to the same trees, clouds, and birds, so you’re already agreeing on something. It’s like your brain is detecting that you two already have something in common—you’re walking in the same direction, at the same pace—so it looks for other ways to align. Coleman quotes the Bible’s Book of Amos: “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?”

Coleman cites a series of studies have found that when people move, rather than stop and assess a situation, they are more likely to resolve their interpersonal conflicts. But there’s also plenty of anecdotal evidence for the agreeableness boost of movement: Diplomats meeting in Dublin to discuss the situation in the Middle East—the Middle East—made major progress after taking a jostle-y road trip through Northern Ireland. (Coleman writes they even broke into song at one point.) In Botswana, a 1960s-era policy that required civil servants to physically move to a new community every few years is credited with helping prevent the sort of ethnic violence that has plagued neighboring African countries. During a tense meeting in 1982, American nuclear-arms negotiator Paul Nitze took an unofficial walk in the woods with his Soviet counterpart, Yuli Kvitsinsky, during which they reached a breakthrough.

You see the healing effects of movement not only in walking, but also in yoga classes and soccer teams. People who move together tend to get along better. “This happens in dance teams and combat troops and marching bands where there is a sense of bonding that can happen physiologically,” Coleman told me, “which doesn't solve, obviously, a pro-life/pro-choice dispute, but can put you in a place where you feel a little bit more connected, and compassion and cooperation, and a little bit more willingness to consider different points of view.”

So the next time you’re at a standstill, stop standing still and go for a walk instead. Sometimes that’s all you need to get that chore chart back on track.