Shelley Egley is Intermountain's director of patient advocacy.
When it comes to influencing people who are mask non-believers, learning to listen is more important than developing flawless counter arguments aimed at helping others see the world as you do.
That’s the advice from Shelley Egley, Intermountain’s director of patient advocacy, and Cherie Frame, infection prevention director. They’ve both had their share of experiences looking into the eyes of upset mask non-believers or fielding phone calls from people offended by Intermountain’s mask mandates.
They offered these tips on how to talk with people who don’t believe in wearing masks:
NOTE: These tips are for encounters outside the workplace. While these principles may be helpful for those caregivers tasked with explaining mask mandates to people who do not want to comply, those interested in more applicable and detailed training for such Intermountain encounters should click here.
If the individual is open to talking, be genuinely curious and ask questions. If you are willing to listen and you’re trying your best to understand another’s point of view, they may be more open to hearing your insights.
“Finding out the reasons someone has for not wearing a mask is important because it’s easy for us to put our own judgments and our own stories about this person out there, and we may be totally wrong,” Shelley says.
You must really want to understand where they’re coming from for questions to be effective.
“We need to build trust; we need to ask questions; we need to be non-judgmental,” Shelley says.
“And we should be able to check our emotions at the door,” Cherie says.
Cherie Frame, is Intermountain's infection prevention director.
Don’t let it become an argument. It’s important not to get into a philosophy discussion about mask mandates or the science behind such directives, but instead keep it a simple talk about how they feel about protecting the people important to them.
“If we start making it about autonomy and rights, we're going to have a problem,” Shelley says. “We should say instead, ‘I’m doing this to keep you safe,’ or ‘Do you want to keep your mother or your spouse safe?’ If you talk about someone you know they care about, you're going to have more success than if you make it about an issue.”
Even if you think you have the perfect counter argument, if they feel you’re trying to prove them wrong, you won’t be effective.
“If you continue to argue or push your points to them, they’re going to dig in their heels and you’ll get nowhere,” Cherie says. “Once you go that direction, you’ve lost even the ability to talk anymore.”
Look for cues that they aren’t ever going to be open to listening to you. In some cases when people are quite adamant and vocal about their mask beliefs, you need to realize you won’t be able to change their views. There’s a good chance they’ve come under fire for their beliefs already. Shelley has learned from experience that when people have already made a decision on this subject and they feel strongly about it, no matter what we say, it won’t make a difference. Cherie agrees.
“Nothing you can say will change those feelings or thoughts,” Cherie says of such situations. “Continuing the discussion will only cause issues. With a case like this you can say something like, ‘I realize you feel that way. I feel the other way.’ And then you have to just let it go.”
Cherie says you can check the temperature of the conversation by noticing the body language and the tone of voice.
“When you’re assessing a discussion based on nonverbal cues and it’s feeling like it isn’t going to be a safe conversation, that's not a conversation you want to have because sharing your opinion or new information isn’t likely to be something that’ll help them come on board,” Shelley says.
Know your own limits. Shelley says some people may be able to recognize they aren’t yet ready to have civil conversations on this sensitive topic. If you’re just coming home from the hospital where you watched someone in pain struggling against the virus, for example, that might not be a good time to have a discussion with a mask non-believer.
“I think if you find yourself being judgmental or don’t find you can be objective about the conversation, then you shouldn’t have that conversation,” Shelley says. “There's nothing wrong with saying, ‘I’m not in a good place right now and this conversation would be really difficult for me, so I'm going to choose not to have the conversation.’”
Practice having civil conversations. Cherie says if you find yourself failing to be civil, take the time to sit and think it through and find out why this topic makes you so emotional.
Cherie says you can ask yourself, “Why am I so passionate about this?” “And then you can try to find a better way to say it without getting so passionate that every word becomes more dangerous,” she says. “We can practice. We often have to have crucial conversations like this. One of the greatest things you can do is practice those conversations so you can get better at them.”
She says if you do have a bad conversation, you can take the time afterward to figure out how to keep your emotions from leading your words the next time the topic comes up.
The bottom line, Shelley and Cherie say, is to be curious, really listen to people, and then, if people seem open to it, share information that might give them additional insight.
Click here to share your ideas about how to have effective conversations about sensitive subjects.
Click here to find what Intermountain’s research has revealed about why people don’t wear masks.
Click here to learn effective ways to respond to mask non-believers on social media.