Lately, disagreements can feel pretty contentious–if you’re not with us, you’re against us. This increasing polarization isn’t so awesome. But Freestyle Socials are! It’s a conversation based “serious” game with fun questions and surprising rules that help us bridge divides so we can think better together.

We’re planning an awesome event featuring Dr. Aviva Philipp-Muller, a researcher whose work on deeply held, hard-to-shift attitudes has landed her in the Wall Street Journal. We’ll explore how depolarization might actually start with perceptions of our own in-group, how those same cognitive shortcuts are exploited by snake oil marketing, and what actually works when the facts don’t seem to matter.

We’ll do this through well-crafted, two-sided questions. Players pick sides and share their reasoning. Sounds simple enough–but the twist? If the other side’s reasoning surprises you or makes you laugh, you have to switch sides! Peppered between questions are conversations with CBC’s Anthony Morgan and Dr. Philipp-Muller that provide further insights and spark even more discussions. Disagree. Laugh. Learn. Repeat.

What makes this game even more awesome? It’s supported by research. It may feel counterintuitive to ask black and white questions but under the right circumstances, disagreements can turn into laughter, connection and even wisdom. A lot of research (https://www.anthonymorganscience.com/thescience) suggests there are things we can do to have better conversations, like identifying shared values, practising curiosity, and having more informal contact. Freestyle Socials was developed in response to this research to help us get unstuck from the polarization cycle.

This live, interactive, and energizing event will leave people laughing and thinking differently about the information we consume, the divisions that feel impossible to bridge, and our own role in all of it – without losing faith in humanity!