Peter T Coleman

I am excited to be offering a Main Stage Keynote talk on escaping the trap of toxic polarization at the APA Conference in Denver next on August 8 - part of the session on Burned Bridges and Broken Trust. Colorado Convention Center, Four Seasons Ballroom 2-4. See you there!

YouTube video by Peter Coleman A Conflict at Columbia University - The Five Percent problem

This video - WHICH I RECORDED 15 YEARS AGO - speaks to why the conflict in Israel-Gaza so readily became a source of deep division at Columbia and other universities today.

youtu.be/QN6YtawdPc8?...

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.”

Decency Is the Small Word That Holds a Big Country Together Decency—America’s quiet strength—is fading. Yet small daily acts of respect could restore civility, ease divisions, and strengthen democracy. Here's how we can revive it.

What the World needs now...

Decency Is the Small Word That Holds a Big Country Together | Psychology Today www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-...

What do we really know about peace?

pc84.medium.com/a-radical-ne...

This HBR IdeaCast interview is an excellent complement to my current cover article on The Conflict-Intelligent Leader in the summer edition of Harvard Business Review. Check them out!

Podcast: hbr.org/podcast/2025....

Article: hbr.org/2025/07/the-...

Just up!

HBR IdeaCast interview with me on Conflict Intelligent Leadership! hbr.org/podcast/2025...

Talk-about-talk can sometimes help

A high honor to get a shout out from my friend, the great poet Pádraig Ó Tuama, about my recent article on Conflict IQ Leadership!

Talk-about-talk open.substack.com/pub/poetryun...

A genuine honor to work with the Excellencies of the Global First Partners' Academy at the Ford Foundation this week. We discussed Conflict-Intelligent Leadership - and I learned a great deal!

My 2 cents.

pc84.medium.com/columbia-bri...

Do you have any advice for how people might answer the question what is the meaning of life?

The Missing Peace? Traditional peace indices overlook America's fragile social cohesion. New analysis shows that U.S. media portrays intergroup relations as overwhelmingly negative, signaling risks.

Got peace?

The U.S. ranks at the bottom globally in positive group interactions featured in the media, highlighting deep social fractures. Traditional peace indices miss such vital signs of peace: quality of relationships between social groups matters.

www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-...

Broadway and 81st St in NYC at 9pm on a early July evening. It's how we roll.

JOIN US at APA in Denver on August 8 to learn the latest science and practice for addressing our first-order problem of Toxic Polarization.

The state[s] of the world What a poem can and cannot do

This saved me this morning.

The state[s] of the world open.substack.com/pub/poetryun...

This Summer - GET SMART!
hbr.org/2025/07/the-...

For god's sake!

It's a great honor to be invited to give a keynote on the main stage at the APA Conference this summer in Denver. Come join us!

Just arrived! My latest article on Conflict Intelligent Leadership.

On the front page of the Columbia Spectator this morning.

What will you do with your summer vacation?

This is the essence of our mutually contemptuous political divide in the U(!)SA - a form of mass psychosis. www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2...

Milgram's Obedience to Authority Experiment Comes Home Stanley Milgram's findings on obedience to authority seem prescient today.

This is Us

Milgram's Obedience to Authority Experiment Comes Home | Psychology Today www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-...

Opinion | Trump Calling Troops Into Los Angeles Is the Real Emergency

Trump “has also authorized deployment of troops anywhere in the country where protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement are occurring or are likely to occur, even if they are entirely peaceful”
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/08/o...

My thanks to the 50th anniversary edition of Columbia Magazine for highlighting my interview on polarization in the U.S. and finding The Way Out. magazine.columbia.edu/article/heal...

Opinion | I’m Normally a Mild Guy. Here’s What’s Pushed Me Over the Edge.

"Trumpism can be seen as a giant attempt to amputate the highest aspirations of the human spirit and to reduce us to our most primitive, atavistic tendencies." www.nytimes.com/2025/05/29/o...

Opinion | Bruce Springsteen Will Never Surrender to Donald Trump

Two contrasting visions of the American dream. Which do you stand for?

Bruce Springsteen Will Never Surrender to Donald Trump www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/o...

Trump’s New Toy There’s something oddly familiar about watching Donald Trump’s governing style in his second term — the rapid-fire executive orders, the…

How to Game Democracy.
pc84.medium.com/trumps-new-t...

Year after year, Edelman reports on national trends on Trust - without calling out the fact that "high trust" societies are more punitive authoritarian states that discourage honest self-reporting in surveys. So what are we to learn from this? lnkd.in/eUW_daTE

The Trump Administration's Theory X Dilemma A Theory X leadership style depends on fear and control. But what if trust and collaboration—Theory Y—held the key to a stronger, more democratic future?

The Trump Administration's Theory X Dilemma | Psychology Today www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-...

The US is falling into authoritarianism. From a survey of 760 US expert political scientists taken this April, 2025. Go to: brightlinewatch.org