Hari describes a specific verbal discipline in interviews. You want to speak provisionally rather than definitively.1 When he wants to push a subject's claim, he doesn't say that's wrong or you're missing something. He says: as you say that, it makes me think... The reframing is structural. The subject experiences the writer as thinking alongside them rather than correcting them. The conversation stays open.
He pairs this with a specific opening move. Usually what I will do at the start of an interview is explain why I care about this subject. When he was working on Chasing the Scream, he would start with I'm here because I had a relative who was very severely addicted, and my first memories are of trying to wake one of them up and not be able to.1 The opening sentence does several things at once: it establishes the writer's stake, it grants the subject the dignity of being asked about something the writer also cares about, and it invites reciprocal openness.
The minute you say that, they get — okay, I see, I know why you're here. The subject now has the frame of the conversation. The conversation can proceed.
These are two micro-techniques inside the broader interview-stance Hari describes. Each is doing specific work.
Provisional speech. The verbal form (as you say that, it makes me think) signals that the writer is currently thinking, not delivering a position. The subject can engage the thought without being put on the defensive about their position. The conversation remains exploratory. The provisional form is the verbal instantiation of When You're Sure, Look Harder (Powers) — the writer is announcing their own non-certainty as part of how they speak.
Emotional-investment opener. The writer's brief opening statement of why this matters to me personally converts the interview from a journalist-extracts-from-subject dynamic into a two-people-who-both-care-about-this dynamic. The subject can now share with someone whose interest is not professional curiosity but personal stake. The stake is the bond.
Both techniques are operationally specific. They are not generic be-nice-in-interviews advice. They are precise verbal moves that produce measurable changes in what subjects share.
These techniques operate inside Look for a Reason to Love Them (Hari) — the stance is the prior; the techniques are how the stance shows up in actual speech.
They connect to Confess Doubt to Reader (Hari) — the provisional-speech in interviews is the upstream version of confessed-doubt in the finished writing. The same epistemic discipline operates at both points in the workflow.
The emotional-investment opener connects to Vulnerability → Shared Goal → Evidence (Hari) — the brief opening statement is Stage 1 at interview-scale, the same architecture compressed into a sentence at the start of the conversation.
Imagine the first sit-down with Chino Harden in the Brooklyn diner. The conventional journalist opener: Thanks for meeting me. I'm writing a book about addiction policy. Can you tell me about your background? The opener is professional, respectful, generic. It positions the writer as researcher and the subject as source.
Hari's opener instead: Thank you for meeting me. I want to tell you why I'm here. I had a relative who was severely addicted — one of my earliest memories is of trying to wake them up and not being able to. I'm trying to understand what was happening for them and what could have helped. I think you have things to tell me that I need to know. Different opener. The subject is now positioned as the person who has experiences and knowledge the writer needs — not as a case study but as a teacher.
Chino's response — the conception-rape sentence — is partly produced by the frame Hari opened with. A different opener produces a different first response. The first response shapes the rest of the conversation. The opener is operational.
For provisional speech: practice substituting as you say that, it makes me think for but or however in your daily conversations. Use it in low-stakes contexts. Build the verbal habit until it shows up naturally in interviews.
For emotional-investment opening: before each interview, write down — in one or two sentences — why this subject matters to you personally. The sentence will become your opener. If you cannot write such a sentence, you may not be the right writer for the subject; check that.
The disciplines compound. Writers who run them habitually develop interviewing reputations that produce better access to subjects over time, because past subjects tell other potential subjects that the writer is worth talking to.
You'll know you've collapsed when subjects respond with guarded, prepared, professional answers. The answers are not lies, but they're not the texture the work needs. The subject has detected that the conversation is about extraction, not exchange.
You'll know it's working when subjects say I haven't told anyone that before or I'm surprised you asked that. The surprise is the signature of the architecture-completed.
The motivational-interviewing tradition in clinical psychology has documented for decades that provisional, exploratory speech produces more disclosure than definitive speech. Hari's techniques are journalistic instances of clinical-best-practice.
The tension: not all subjects respond. Some are temperamentally formal and want a formal interview. Some have been burned by journalists and arrive prepared regardless of the opener. The discipline isn't a magic key — it's a baseline-better approach that improves average outcomes.
Psychology: Motivational Interviewing as Relational Discipline — Miller and Rollnick's motivational-interviewing tradition includes both the provisional-speech and the personal-investment opener as core techniques. The clinical literature supports the operational claims Hari makes journalistically.
Behavioral Mechanics: Rapport-Building Micro-Techniques — the influence literature has cataloged micro-rapport techniques across hundreds of studies. Provisional language and personal-disclosure-opener are among the most consistently effective.
The Sharpest Implication Most journalism training focuses on questions-to-ask and stories-to-tell. The verbal-micro-architecture of how the questions are delivered receives far less training attention. Yet the micro-architecture often determines whether the interview produces usable material or doesn't. The implication: improving journalism may require training-pipeline shifts toward verbal-discipline rather than topical-knowledge.
Generative Questions