Talking about what we support versus oppose affects others' openness to our views

People's unwillingness to engage with others who hold views that differ from their own-in other words, their lack of receptiveness to opposing views-is a growing problem globally. We explore the possibility that something as simple as how people frame their position can shape disagreeing others' receptiveness to them. Specifically, we investigate the role of support-oppose framing-that is, whether people frame their position in terms of what they support or what they oppose. In five main studies spanning 5,971 participants, we find a disparity in how communicators and disagreeing others perceive support- versus oppose-framed messages. Communicators believe that disagreeing others will be more receptive to them if they use support rather than oppose framing. One contributor to this effect is value congruence: Communicators perceive a message articulating their own position in support terms to be more value congruent. However, disagreeing others are actually less receptive to support-framed messages than to oppose-framed messages. We find that disagreeing others perceive support framing as less congruent with their values, which predicts decreased receptiveness. This effect manifests in self-reported receptiveness and a variety of downstream consequences and predicts greater attitude change following oppose- rather than support-framed messages. Thus, by framing their positions in terms of what they oppose (rather than support), people can elicit greater receptiveness from disagreeing others. Consistent with a value-congruence account, this framing effect fully reverses for people with the same values as the communicator. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).