Stories of Impact brings back some of our favorite conversations this season. Today, we continue our series about how citizens can understand and heal polarization, with a conversation with Dr. Sean Westwood. Dr. Westwood studies American politics and how partisan conflict manifests in the United States, its consequences and its origins.

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Supported by Templeton World Charity Foundation

We're back this episode for our second timely interview focusing on political polarization, wrapping up in conversation with Dr. Kurt Gray, professor of moral psychology and neuroscience at UNC Chapel Hill, and the director of the Deepest Beliefs Lab in the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding. Moral psychology is the descriptive understanding of our moral judgments, or concern with not just how people should make moral decisions, but how they actually do. Why does this matter?

In Dr. Gray's words:
"To understand our contentious and divided political moments where people are unwilling to discuss politics across the aisle or entertain even that the other side is a reasonable human being in the way that you feel about yourself and your own side.

We do disagree already when it comes to politics. But where does this political disagreement come from? …Once you get that, then you can understand where this political animosity comes from. But it's really a question of moral disagreement. And for that you need to understand our moral psychology."

Read the transcript of this episode

Subscribe to Stories of Impact wherever you listen to podcasts

Find us on Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and YouTube

Share your comments, questions and suggestions at info@storiesofimpact.org 


Supported by Templeton World Charity Foundation

Our intention on the Stories of Impact Podcast, whether flora, fauna, homo sapiens, or otherwise, the variety of subjects we've featured across 120+ episodes has underscored our commitment to people's progress and well-being. (It's certainly enriched our wellbeing to tell each story!)

But is well-being the same as flourishing, or does one lead to the other? How do we know what flourishing is? What do people actually need to flourish? Times are tough; IS anyone actually flourishing?

To answer those questions, we're turning today to two international researchers who are leading a ground-breaking study on human flourishing: Dr. Tyler VanderWeele, John L. Loeb and Francis Lehman Loeb professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Dr. Byron Johnson, director of The Institute for Studies of Religion and a distinguished professor of the social sciences at Baylor University.

• Read the transcript of this episode
• Subscribe to Stories of Impact wherever you listen to podcasts
• Find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube
• Share your comments, questions and suggestions at info@storiesofimpact.org
• Supported by Templeton World Charity Foundation