How ASC Helps Groups Navigate Fragmentation:
Cracking Monster Masks
ASC’s cohesion processes help reframe “others” from threats with whom collaboration is all but impossible to fellow people with whom one may fiercely disagree but with whom work is possible. “We have not evolved to vilify and demonize others, but to respond adaptively to situations as we perceive them or as we have been led to perceive them,” writes Stanford psychologist Geoffrey Cohen. “If we perceive others as threats, we'll likely be more inclined to distance ourselves or be aggressive toward them. If we don't perceive them as threats, we'll be more receptive.”
This is worth unpacking.
There is a need for resistance: immediate cessation of harm to real people, families and communities. But there is also a need to reimagine ways of being together that help people and communities thrive more. That long-game is ASC’s role in ecosystems of change.
It is helpful to name key drivers of fragmentation, such as toxic polarization, that arts interventions like ASC address. Journalist/author Monica Guzmán articulates one core mechanism: The more under-represented a person is in one's actual life, the more over-represented they tend to be in one's imagination(1). And often we don’t imagine people. We imagine monsters. In part this comes from cognitive biases interpreting extremes (e.g., what headlines and social media show) as norms. These headlines often feature the loudest voices, frequently dominating public debates, from conflict mongers least interested in finding common ground because they profit from outrage and fear. Yet these are outliers — less than a third of the population (2).
Hidden in this dynamic are some two-thirds of Americans; “Ordinary people” — teachers, nurses, small business owners, retirees. Folks trying to live their lives. The values shared by this “exhausted majority” may be surprising. For example, in More In Common’s May 2025 national survey, Democrats estimated that just 26% of Republicans support US clean energy leadership. The actual number is 73%(3). In 2022, Republicans estimated that 43% of Democrats felt that, when studying US history, students should not be made to feel personally responsible for the errors of prior generations. The actual number is 83%(4). Such misperception is ubiquitous.
This doesn’t wash away real disagreements. Nor is there moral equivalence between Neo-Nazis and their opponents. The point is: When one assumes unified, bitter opposition to what one holds most dear, one feels threatened by monsters. When one feels more widespread agreement with “the other,” the monster-mask cracks. One senses greater possibilities out of stuckness, however much muck we still need to wade through.
Issue positions are like an iceberg’s tip. There are even more basic understandings below the surface: The values and beliefs that bring a person to these positions in the first place and the core experiences and relationships shaping those values and beliefs. Understanding these understories is not the same as agreement. These stories crack the monster-mask even further, so that we see a person’s actual features. This is a threshold for empathy and identification across differences. This is not endorsement. But it’s harder for one to disregard that person— and when that person feels better understood they usually become more open to listening.
Citations
(1) Guzmán, M. (2021, November). Mónica Guzmán: How Curiosity will Save us [Video]. TED Talks. https://www.ted.com/talks/monica_guzman_how_curiosity_will_save_us_jan_2022
(2)Hawkins, S., Yudkin, D., Juan-Torres, M., Dixon, T., & More In Common. (2018). The Hidden Tribes of America: A study of America’s polarized landscape. In https://hiddentribes.us/media/qfpekz4g/hidden_tribes_report.pdf. Retrieved November 14, 2025, from https://hiddentribes.us/
(3)More In Common US & More in Common. (2025). Americans’ environmental blind spot: Democrats and Republicans Underestimate Support for Environmental Issues . In More in Common. More in Common. Retrieved November 14, 2025, from https://moreincommonus.com/publication/americans-environmental-blind-spot/
Hawkins, S., Vallone, D., Oshinski, P., Xu, C., Small, C., Yudkin, D., Duong, F., & Wylie, J. (2022). Defusing the history wars: Finding common ground in teaching America’s national story. More in Common. Retrieved November 14, 2025, from https://www.historyperceptiongap.us/