"'To understand someone, we should not imagine their point of view but make the effort to “get” their perspective. True insight into the minds of others is not likely to come from honing your powers of intuition,' Epley wrote, 'but rather by learning to stop guessing about what’s on the mind of another person and learning to listen instead.'”

It took me a while to learn this with my SO, but now that we try this more often we've definitely noticed an improvement in our disagreements. Of course, I had to be open to listening in the first place, which is something that probably prevents empathizing with a stranger of an opposite mindset.