YUSSSSSSS! I got here through Clay referencing your post, and I so agree. The term I like to use is "flexible thinking." In Freudian terms of the ego, the ego is there to defend us from threats to our identity. So when people get in a habit of needing their identity validated by "knowing lots of important facts" and they feel like a positive outcome from having that defense up, then it becomes like an ingrained way of relating to others, and they just become less flexible to new information, or new communication styles, or new possibilities for validation of their intelligence. When we challenge each others beliefs , if we are inflexible like that, and in that pattern, we feel a threat to the identity, and that sets off the pattern to defend. ... Once people realize that their identity is a separate thing from their ideas... it can get easier to be more flexible. Or at least thats my understanding from a psychological standpoint.