How does dialogue change opinions?
A year ago, Cass Sunstein wrote a controversial book called Going to Extremes, about the nature and roots of extremism. He argued that deliberation does not necessarily lead people to compromise or to converge on an average opinion. In fact, they tend to radicalise in the direction of whatever position they had to begin with. He offers a number of reasons for this. People who are more confident tend to pull toward their point of view those who are uncertain about what to think, and more extreme voices can have a ‘rhetorical advantage’ by appealing to a sense of rightness at a deeper level.
However, a recent evaluation from a national deliberative event in the US on reducing the budget deficit found just the opposite. According to researchers, ‘an important trend in this deliberation was moderation. Conservatives became more willing to support tax increases and reductions in defence spending and liberals became more willing to decrease spending on some public programs.’ Moderation was even stronger in those without well-formed existing opinions. By analysing a series of results from similar deliberative processes over the past few years, authors of a recently published article in the Journal of Public Deliberation found that participants moved towards more egalitarian and collectivist value orientations.
These studies do not refute Cass’s claims. Dialogue often does move people to extremes, but this is because so much deliberation either takes place between like-minded people, thereby reinforcing existing opinions, or, when opposing groups are brought together, the conversation takes the form of rhetorical debates in which the aim of the game is to win the argument to save face.
His study therefore, far from putting off attempts at meaningful public engagement and deliberative dialogue, provides a strong case for it. When so much dialogue takes place between tightly formed opinion groups, it is even more important to engage with a broad range of people, and to create spaces where they can explore and deliberate with an open mind. Creating this space doesn’t have to be hard, and Sciencewise can provide practical support and guidance.