The Need to Be Right: How Winning Arguments Can Cost Us Connection
The Need to Be Right: How Winning Arguments Can Cost Us Connection
One of the most subtle threats to relationships is not anger, conflict, or even disagreement. Rather, it is the need to be right.
At first glance, the desire to be right seems harmless. After all, we all want to understand reality accurately. We all want our perspectives to be heard and our experiences to be acknowledged. The problem begins when being right becomes more important than understanding, more important than curiosity, and ultimately more important than connection. When that happens, relationships quietly suffer.
Many people have experienced conversations where neither person was truly listening. Instead, both were preparing their next argument, gathering evidence, building a case, and defending a position. The conversation may have ended with one person technically ‘winning,’ but both people walked away feeling disconnected. This is because relationships are not courts of law. They are spaces of human connection.
Why We Become Attached to Being Right
The need to be right is often much deeper than intellectual certainty. For many people, being right feels connected to safety. What appears to be an argument about facts is often an argument about identity. Many arguments continue long after the facts are exhausted because the real issue was never the facts. It was the fear underneath them.
The Science Behind the Need to Be Right
Psychological research has demonstrated that human beings are vulnerable to confirmation bias (Nickerson, 1998). Neuroscience suggests that when deeply held beliefs are challenged, the brain may respond as though it is confronting a threat (Kaplan et al., 2016). In this vein, from the inside-out paradigm, the need to be right is rarely about the other person. It is usually about what is happening within us.
SWEET Four Layers Applied to the Need to Be Right
- Conscious: Notice the moment you become attached to proving a point.
- Preconscious: Pay attention to subtle signals.
- Unconscious: Ask: What would it mean about me if I were wrong?
- Existential: Choose: I value understanding more than certainty.
This Week’s SWEET Practice
The Curiosity Challenge
During your next disagreement, replace one statement with one question.
THE SWEET Insight
The strongest relationships are not built by two people who always agree. They are built by two people who value understanding more than being right.
SWEET Call to Action
The SWEET Healing Circles for Relationships help participants learn how to move from defensiveness to curiosity, from reaction to reflection, and from argument to understanding.
Saturdays from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM.
Contact us: contact@sweetinstitute.com
REFERENCES
- Brown, Brené. Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. Random House, 2018.
- Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.
- Kaplan, Jonas T., Sarah I. Gimbel, and Sam Harris. “Neural Correlates of Maintaining One’s Political Beliefs in the Face of Counterevidence.” Scientific Reports, vol. 6, 2016, article no. 39589. DOI: 10.1038/srep39589.
- Nickerson, Raymond S. “Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises.” Review of General Psychology, vol. 2, no. 2, 1998, pp. 175–220. DOI: 10.1037/1089-2680.2.2.175.
- Siegel, Daniel J. The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are. 2nd ed., Guilford Press, 2012.
