It starts with a conversation.

Although some people may feel they are worlds apart from others, they’d be surprised to know how incredibly alike they truly are.

"The whole idea is for people to get a sense that having a conversation, when there’s a safe place created, is going to be not an adversarial kind of conversation, but a chance for people to learn about each other," Barb Mueller, a co-chair with One Small Step North Idaho, said Thursday.

One Small Step North Idaho is based on a program piloted by NPR's StoryCorps in 2018 and launched in 2021. The project brings together strangers to participate in conversations about their lives, without politics bogging down the discussion. Conversations are archived at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. A few interviews are edited into short audio and animated stories that showcase the impact of One Small Step.

"When you sit down and talk about what the underlying value is, there is so much commonality," Mueller said.

For example, the project has brought together unlikely pairings of older people who live traditional lives and younger people who identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community.

"At the end, they said, 'We really are after the same thing, we really have very similar values,'" Mueller said.

The project is an illustration of contact theory, which states that meaningful interactions between people with opposing views can help turn “thems” into “us-es.” The theory springs from the contact hypothesis developed by Gordon Allport in the 1950s. According to the American Psychological Association, the theory holds that contact between two groups can promote tolerance and acceptance, but only under certain conditions, such as equal status among groups and common goals. Since the theory's inception, psychologists have added more and more criteria to what is required of groups in order for "contact" to work.

University of California, Santa Cruz, research psychologist Thomas Pettigrew recently expanded on this theory. In a meta-analysis of 500 studies, he found that simple contact is all that is needed for a greater understanding between groups, in all but the most hostile conditions.

Another unexpected finding of Pettigrew’s research shows how contact is not purely or mostly cognitive, but emotional.

​"Your stereotypes about the other group don’t necessarily change," Pettigrew said in a November 2001 American Psychological Association article, "but you grow to like them anyway."

One Small Step’s scientific and systematic approach is supported by advisers that include social scientists, researchers and psychologists.

A One Small Step viewing party showcasing these groundbreaking conversations between people in North Idaho will be from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Monday at the Hayden Library, 8385 N. Government Way.

The event is free. Guests will listen to One Small Step conversations and meet participants who will share about their experiences.

Info: onesmallstep-northidaho.org