Relationships can be hard - whether they be romantic, platonic, professional or civic. Communication is key, but even two people talking calmly in good faith can have trouble really understanding each other’s perspective.

One silver bullet difference between unhealthy arguments and healthy communication is whether each person can bring themselves to grant valid points - to come round to agreement with the other person on important things. The problem is we all have an instinctual set of dirty tricks we can employ to avoid such concessions. Often we employ these tricks precisely at the moment when we might otherwise be compelled by reason and fairness to admit that our friend or partner or opposing political group is right about something.

Here’s a top 5 tricks we use to avoid conceding a valid point:

1. Straw manning - you make out your opponent’s position as something weaker and easier to knock over than what they actually said. You usually reach for this when you feel you don’t have a good answer to the real point. Straw manning is a particular case of the more general tactic of ‘disinterpretation’ - of misrepresenting your opponents position to gain advantage.

2. Process pivot - when you feel your opponent is making a strong argument that you have trouble answering, change the subject to how they’re making their point. You might criticize their tone or the timing of the conversation, for example. Addressing tone isn’t necessarily a dirty trick, it becomes one when you ‘pivot’ to process right when you might otherwise have to acknowledge a valid point of substance.

3. Whataboutism - this one is famous now as it’s so popular in politics. But when you’re accused of something you’re guilty of, rather than admitting it, you try to shift the discussion to something that the other side is guilty of. Both the process pivot and whataboutism are examples of the ‘change the subject’ tactic, where you just keep changing the subject whenever a line of argument starts to go against you.

4. Cherry picking - some arguments turn on questions of fact, like who does the dishes more often, or whether climate change is happening, etc. One way to avoid fairly assessing facts is to focus on the ones that are most convenient to your argument and avoid a holistic assessment. If you harp on an example but aren’t interested in how representative it is, you’re probably cherry picking. The same move works for arguments, not just facts. Focus on the single weakest thing your partner said (which is not straw-manning because they actually said it), ignore everything else, and you’re cherry picking which point to answer.

5. Last word dropping - another way to feel like you’ve won an argument is to choose the point at which it ends. You wait for your opponent to misstep, drop a zinger, and then walk away, pleased that you’ve “given them something to think about”. The movies love this tactic. But in real life, all that really only happens in your own mind, and your partner just sees you as dodging not only their point but the whole conversation.

The good news is, there are positive versions of communication that protect you against these. For example, saying back to someone an accurate representation of what they said and asking if you got it right is a great protector against virtually all of these tricks.

I think identifying when we do these and trying not to do them can really help humans have better communication. Of course, your emotion and your agenda matters - if you’re angry enough and you just want to win then this post will just give you more ammunition to accuse your interlocutor of straw manning etc. But I find it tragic when a couple is really trying hard to communicate but almost unconsciously doing these tricks. That’s one case where I think recognizing them can really help.

And even for those folks who are angrily arguing, say over politics, I think a vocabulary of these kinds of dirty tricks can be like a Geneva Convention rules of war, that allow you to fight more cleanly, which in turn gives you more hope of resolution.

Without these tricks, you’re much more likely to grant valid points, and there are few things that are more powerful for turning an argument into a conversation - whether it be in a marriage or a public debate - than saying “Yes ok, I agree, you’re right about that.”

Last pro tip - if you do grant a valid point, don’t follow it with “but…”. Try asking your partner what they agree with in what you’re saying.