In the early 1970s, researchers at the University of Cambridge discovered that kittens placed in a specially designed environment for a few weeks early in life — a container devoid of all vertical lines — matured without the ability to perceive these lines in the world.

I remember learning about this experiment in a psychology class, and wondering what life would be life without vertical lines. Would you walk into edges of buildings, for instance? And how would you explain the resulting bumps and bruises? And describing your edgeless life to others — how would that work?

Right and Wrong

The study of perception and how we represent the world in our brains has come a long way since then. Today, evolutionary psychologists and others involved in the study of emotional and cognitive development operate on the principle that all of our most basic concepts and representations — blue, square, sweet, shaky, better, pretty and vertical, of course — are determined by the way our senses record our experience, and the way the brain has evolved to process them.

If you go along with this idea, then even the basic value distinction of good/bad is, like vertical edges, a product of your brain, rather than intrinsic to things “out there.” Yet listening to couples argue (all couples, including those comprised of one or more psychotherapists), they sure seem to be arguing about something out there.

Most of us are pretty wedded to our concepts, and particularly to our concepts of right and wrong. But if you can accept that something as integral to your experience as verticalness is just a figment of your mind, and you can make the leap from there to the idea that your positions about right and wrong (at least in the context of your conflicts) are similarly insubstantial, then maybe you are now in a position to find a technique or method for escaping the powerful grasp of a damaging instinct — the instinct to be right.

If you find this unconvincing, think of it the opposite way: Without the ability to abandon or modify our stance in an argument, we are doomed to loop around forever in endless argumentation. Or, more likely, be forever finding new partners who will argue with us.

You’re Right. I’m Wrong. I’m Sorry.

Now, I’m going to suggest that the ability to abandon your position in an argument is a key — maybe even the key — to bringing tranquility to your relationship, reducing conflict and thereby increasing happiness. Let’s call this ability “making an effective concession.”

I’m making some other claims, too:

» When couples are in conflict, it only takes one partner to break the spell and bring peace.

» The skill set required to make an effective concession is roughly the equivalent of juggling three chainsaws.

» The key to an effective concession is retaining your sense of dignity and status, while restoring your partner’s full sense of dignity and status.

Here’s an experiment you can try: The next time you’re in a heated argument with a spouse or close friend, assess whether you will be better off conceding that you are wrong and ending the argument, or continuing to uphold your point of view — your truth — even though you know he or she is equally committed to his or her point of view. Now take the action that makes the most sense.

I’ve given myself this challenge enough times to know that, in the heat of the argument, there is a powerful, almost irresistible pull to hold the line. This makes no sense in a world where a cost-benefit analysis would so clearly show the advantage of conceding: “Of course, you’re right, honey. See you when I get back from the club!”

Why It’s So Hard to Just Say ‘You’re Right’

“In a week’s time, both sides have constructed deeply emotional stories explaining their roles, one-sided accounts that are offered with impassioned conviction, although in many respects they do not stand up, in either case, under careful scrutiny.” This could be a description of pretty much any fight between partners. In fact, it’s a quote from a 1990 New York Times article about the Palestinian conflict, which author Richard Wright uses to capture the evolutionary urge to be passionately right. “Feelings of enmity, of grievance, of righteous indignation,” he writes in the influential book The Moral Animal, “probably have their deepest roots in ancient conflicts within bands of humans and prehumans.”

We save our righteousness for those who are close to us, in other words, precisely because humans once relied on bonds of mutual trust for the basics of survival — hunting, foraging, war, etc. The protection of the ongoing bond of trust is what is at stake here, not the individual case or argument. Of course, modern humans actually don’t rely on a bond of trust with our family or friends for survival. We just open the fridge or make an appointment with the dermatologist, or in a real emergency, dial 9-1-1.

But in the middle of an argument, it sure feels like survival is at stake. When couples fight, they call this feeling “the principle of the thing,” and they fight as if their lives depended upon it. When you ask him why it matters so much that she failed to put gas in the car, or so what if he made that stupid faux pas at the party, they often come back with just that phrase: It’s the principle of the thing. I always take this to mean two things: (a) I’m not exactly sure why it matters so much, and (b) but I need know you have my back, just like I have yours.

How to Solve This Dilemma

Most dangerous sports have emergency routines that can be memorized as simple sequences. “Look, Reach, Pull” was one I learned many years ago as a skydiving procedure for when your main chute failed to open. We repeated it endlessly throughout the training, so that it would be burned into our neural circuitry, and available under the massively chaotic and stressful conditions of a malfunctioning chute. Fighting with your loved ones — mates, children, close friends or relatives — is similarly chaotic and stressful. Here is the emergency routine for couple conflict, no thinking required: “You’re right, I’m wrong, I’m sorry.” If you can’t hold onto that, “you’re right” will do the trick.

Cognitive psychologist David Burns, author of the bestselling Feeling Good, calls this the “disarming technique,” a term that I like because it addresses three problems at once. 1. It ends the argument. 2. It returns your partner to state of dignity. 3. It makes you the agent of change — the disarmer.

This last piece — putting you in the driver’s seat somewhat — addresses one of the chain saw issues of making an effective concession. Besides ending the argument and preserving the dignity of your partner, you must find a way to retain your own sense of status and respect in the relationship. This is an answer to the evolutionary problem of the bond of trust or social contract. At a primitive level, your effective concession must take into account your own need for assurance that this concession won’t be taken as evidence of your weakness, or your willingness to be taken advantage of in the future. Describing your concession (even if only to yourself) as part of a strategy or technique for disarming your partner acknowledges the truth that you are, in fact, the one controlling the action — determining when and how to end the conflict. You are the disarmer.

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

Getting rid of the tyranny of right and wrong requires patience and repetition. This is because, unbeknownst to you, your brain is running ongoing statistical analysis on your partner’s behavior. It’s checking on the bond of trust. Each instance of unreliability or domination goes in the “don’t trust” column. Unfortunately, the neural input analyzer responsible for coming up with the probability for partner unreliabilty grows more sensitive with each repeated behavior. The third time you get in a fight about putting gas in the car, in other words, might count more than the first two combined. There’s a pattern here, the input analyzer is telling you. He can’t be relied upon.

These neural mechanisms have been designed by evolution over millions of years, and they are finely tuned to the math. The only effective solution to the probabilities problem is brute numbers: many conflicts avoided or resolved. This might just mean many skillful apologies and effective concessions on your part, but a more likely outcome is that your effective concessions will, relatively quickly, elicit effective concessions from your partner.

Her brain has an input analyzer, too, after all, and your willingness to compromise and be influenced by her will activate primitive concepts such as “trustworthy,” “there for me” and “count-on-able.” When I am in the company of someone who cares more about me than the principle of the thing, I can let down my own guard and my attachment to being right.

You’re right, I’m wrong, I’m sorry. While notions of right and wrong are powerful enough to take nations to war, these three phrases, repeated often and with skill, can erase the hard edges of moral certainty and bring peace to warring couples.

— Russell Collins, Psy.D., is a Santa Barbara psychotherapist and divorce mediator. Click here for more information.