As 2025 came to a close, Oxford University Press chose the phrase "rage bait" as its word of the year. Its use had tripled over the previous 12 months, a clear sign that a growing number of people were aware of how they were being manipulated online through outrage.
As we doom-scroll into a new year - with the familiar anger, despair and political division - the University of Alberta offers a new course designed to unpack those divisions. It will teach students how to spot misinformation and polarization, understand the group dynamics that drive conflict and navigate difficult conversations without exploiting emotions.
"With a lot of the issues and complex challenges we face in our society at the moment whether something like the energy transition or dealing with the drug-overdose crisis we tend to react with one position over another," says Pieter de Vos, the instructor of Engaging Division: Consensus and Confrontation in Civic Life.
Addressing complexity, however, requires "working with tensions and paradoxes," says de Vos, an adjunct professor in the School of Public Health with an extensive background in facilitation, negotiation and community engagement.
Co-designed by political science professor Jared Wesley, the course is offered to students across campus through the Peter Lougheed School of Politics and Democracy. They will study a range of approaches to conflict, "from finding common ground to embracing opposition," says de Vos, learning how to "apply these lessons in their own lives and communities."
"My motivation is to get people thinking about what kind of leaders they're going to be in the world. We'll talk about what it takes to build pro-social learning environments with practical facilitation tips and tricks that students can use in groups."
Students will explore the psychology of polarization and groupthink, and will be encouraged to take a hard look at their own cognitive biases to create a space of humility.
"Even at the best of times, humans can be tricked by a series of biases that we're all vulnerable to."
De Vos offers five recommendations for developing our skills as "conflict-intelligent leaders":
- Get fluent in your own conflict pattern.
- Separate content, emotion and identity.
- Listen for needs and values, not just positions.
- Use process interventions, not persuasion.
- Turn conflict into learning and agreements.
We might not be able to shift the cultural winds that drive world politics, says de Vos. "But what we can do is better equip future leaders to recognize the spaces that they'll be moving into, and develop skill sets to navigate that terrain."
