Poland Talks – the takeaways
In January 2024 we invited people from all over Poland to join an experiment: having a conversation with a total stranger, holding opposing political views. 1,122 people signed up to participate. Poland Talks was delivered jointly with My Country Talks and funded by a grant from the Robert Bosch Foundation. The core of the project was a nationwide communication campaign that invited Poles to step out of their ideological bubbles and engage in conversations with those holding opposing views on abortion, immigration, the EU, and other divisive issues.
Three key takeaways:
There is a sub-group of citizens in Polish society who are deeply concerned about polarization and willing to talk across the aisle. These bridge-builders, as we call them, are not numerous but are highly engaged and ideologically diverse, including right and left, conservative and liberal citizens.
According to participant reports, there are three clear benefits from talking across ideological divides: being heard with one’s own views which entails a sense of respect, seeing someone else’s perspective and reflecting on one’s own beliefs, in order to better explain them to the other side.
Drawing on participants’ experiences, we identified five conditions for productive exchanges across the aisle: being curious of the other side, talking about personal experiences instead of quoting political narratives, suspending judgement of opposed views and people articulating them, saying what we think and feel and not expecting others to change their views after the conversation.
To see the full project report on Poland Talks, please visit the impact report page. This project was funded by the Robert Bosch Foundation.
