Going underneath means moving from the stated position to the value, fear, need, identity, or experience beneath it. Instead of asking only "Why do you think that?", the practice asks "What is at the bottom of that for you?" or "What are you most worried about losing if you are wrong?" Many arguments stay stuck because the surface position is a poor container for what the person is actually protecting.
The core distinction
Negotiation theory distinguishes positions from interests. Positions are explicit demands or proposals. Interests are the motivations, needs, or purposes beneath them. Most disagreements are easier to navigate when both people understand the interest underneath each other's position — because the same interest can often be served by more than one position.
"I want this policy", "I do not want to go," "You should apologize," "That is wrong" — these may all sit on top of fear, shame, loyalty, grief, dignity, or a value the person hasn't yet named. The practice is to ask, gently, what the position is actually protecting.
The research
Focusing on interests increases flexibility.
Negotiation theory distinguishes positions from interests, with "interests" meaning the motivations, needs, or purposes beneath the demand. Focusing on underlying interests can increase flexibility, reveal the underlying causes of conflict, and reduce exploitative settlements by asking what would actually leave parties better off — rather than only who concedes which point.
Source
Beyond Intractability — summary of Chris Provis on interests vs. positions.
Most fights have an iceberg underneath them.
Gottman's conflict-cycle work calls this the "iceberg effect": surface arguments about money, social media, or chores often involve security, adventure, autonomy, connection, acknowledgment, or invisibility. The position above water is rarely a sufficient description of what's underneath. Most arguments stay stuck because the surface position is a poor container for what the person is actually protecting.
Source
Gottman Institute on the iceberg effect in conflict cycles.
"Perspective-getting" is different from explaining your own.
Berkeley's Bridging Differences playbook calls this "perspective-getting" — actively asking questions like "What's most important about this for you?" and "How has your experience shaped that view?" The move is not psychoanalyzing the other person. It's asking them to teach you what their position means from the inside.
Source
"What's your interest?" can be insulting when the issue is moral.
Beyond Intractability's summary of Chris Provis's critique warns that the interests-versus-positions distinction can be hard to apply, can oversimplify conflict, and may fail in value, worldview, religious, or identity conflicts where positions articulate a worldview rather than tactical demands. "What is your interest?" implies the position is negotiable. Sometimes it isn't — and the framing alone can insult the person who experiences their position as a moral or identity commitment, not a tactic.
Source
Beyond Intractability — Provis's critique of interests-vs-positions.
Scripts
These are questions designed to honor what the position is actually protecting — without reducing the person's moral or identity stake to "an interest you can trade."
The risk on this side
The most important caution from the research: "go underneath" should not collapse every conflict into negotiable interests. Some positions are not tactical maneuvers. They are moral, religious, or identity commitments — and treating them as if they're really about something else can feel like erasure to the person holding them.
The corrective is to ask what the position is protecting, not what the person "really wants." "What value does this connect to?" honors the moral content. "What's your real interest here?" often does not. The difference is small. The respect signaled by the difference is large.
A useful tell: if your question implies the other person's stated position is a smokescreen for something more strategic, you're flattening the conflict. If your question makes room for their position to be exactly what they said it was — and for there to be more underneath that they could share if they wanted to — you're going underneath well.
What this practice counters
Go underneath is the direct counter to Factor 02 — real stakes. As long as the conversation stays on the surface position, the actual stake remains unnamed. The practice forces the conversation down to the level where the disagreement is actually happening.
Counters · Week 04 · Factor 02
The surface topic is the visible container for a deeper fear of loss. Until the stake is named, the disagreement keeps producing the same loops while protecting invisible content.
Why this practice matters
The practice, in one sentence
The position is the door. The value, fear, or experience beneath it is the room. As long as both people argue at the door, they can't get inside — and the position keeps expanding to carry weight it can't hold.
The practice is not to bypass the position. It's to treat the position as evidence of what the person is protecting, and to ask gently — without flattening it into mere "interest" — what that protected thing is. The right question changes what the conversation is able to be about.