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I once took a comms class that had a tiny section in a unit on persuasion & cognitive bias that completely altered the way I communicate with people in crucial conversations. Given the divisive state of everything, I'd like to share. Bear with me pls, I'm not an expert on this 1/
The theory is called Social Judgement Theory and it states that on any given topic, people have an anchor point where their view/belief on that topic is, and a level of ego involvement or how intertwined that view is with their identity
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Usually there can be a range of views/ beliefs on a given topic, and an incoming message on that topic will be judged by the recipient fall into a latitude of acceptance, a latitude of non-commitment, or a latitude of rejection based on how far it falls away from their anchor. 3/
It looks like this. The closer your message is to a person's attitude anchor, the more likely you are to be able to shift that anchor. Because a message on the edge of the acceptance range is likely to be percieved as closer to the anchor than it is.
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But, a message too far outside the acceptance range is more likely to be percieved as FARTHER away than the actual message, and can have the effect of shifting the anchor point away from the message you're giving.
Another diagram (thanks Google images)
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Another diagram (thanks Google images)
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So basically, it's important to understand where another person's anchor point currently sits on a given topic if you actually hope to persuade them and shift the anchor closer to your own. You need to figure out how much of your attitude will be accepted by the other person. 6/
If you go all in with a message well outside their acceptance range, the person will definitively reject the message, and their attitude or views may even shift slightly away from the message view. 7/
If you're REALLY far outside their acceptance range, they may not even listen to your message and you will be written off as a fool, but this will have little impact on their current anchor position. 8/
The best place for a message to fall for persuasion is on the outer edges of the acceptance range. When the anchor shifts toward the message view, it will shift the acceptance range too.
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The bigger the ego involvement or attachment to the view, the closer the message will have to be to the anchor point. 10/
People can change their attitudes, but unless an extreme event happens to radically shift their thinking, that change will typically be very slow and incremental and require consistent messaging to shift the anchor point.
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I probably got some of this wrong, so I'll apologize now to the experts on this. But the point is, sometimes when you want to discuss something meaningfully with someone, you have to first meet them where they are or they may not even hear what you have to say.
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Obviously if being heard isn't your goal, then none of this applies, but thanks for reading it anyway 
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