The conclusion of this work is that emails are commonly misunderstood because of the “inherent difficulty of moving beyond one’s subjective experience of a stimulus and imagining how the stimulus might be evaluated by someone who does not share one’s privileged perspective.”

One of the ironies of dialogue is that when there’s a difference of opinions, the more convinced and forceful you act, the more resistant others become. Speaking in absolute and overstated terms does not increase your influence; it decreases it. The converse is also true—the more tentatively you speak, the more open people become to your opinions.