Reducing Exclusionary Attitudes Through Interpersonal Conversation: Evidence from Three Field Experiments

Kalla, Joshua; Broockman, David E.

doi:10.31235/osf.io/2ra9x

Cited by 37 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Will contact with others who threaten and offend us reduce the desire to punish them? Cross-national studies of contact with migrants show promise in that regard ( 46 ), as does nonjudgmental interpersonal conversation ( 47 ). Educating children to respect and empathize with others who are different from them may be an effective antidote to hating and punishing those people later in life.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Virtuous violence from the war room to death row

Slovic

Mertz

Markowitz

et al. 2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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How likely is it that someone would approve of using a nuclear weapon to kill millions of enemy civilians in the hope of ending a ground war that threatens thousands of American troops? Ask them how they feel about prosecuting immigrants, banning abortion, supporting the death penalty, and protecting gun rights and you will know. This is the finding from two national surveys of Democrats and Republicans that measured support for punitive regulations and policies across these four seemingly unrelated issues, and a fifth, using nuclear weapons against enemy civilians (in survey 1) or approving of disproportionate killing with conventional weapons (in survey 2). Those who support these various policies that threaten harm to many people tend to believe that the victims are blameworthy and it is ethical to take actions or policies that might harm them. This lends support to the provocative notion of “virtuous violence” put forth by Fiske and Rai [A. P. Fiske, T. S. Rai, Virtuous Violence: Hurting and Killing to Create, Sustain, End, and Honor Social Relationships (2014)], who assert that people commit violence because they believe it is the morally right thing to do. The common thread of punitiveness underlying and connecting these issues needs to be recognized, understood, and confronted by any society that professes to value fundamental human rights and wishes to prevent important decisions from being affected by irrelevant and harmful sociocultural and political biases.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Virtuous violence from the war room to death row

Slovic

Mertz

Markowitz

et al. 2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Three additional field experiments using similar techniques showed positive treatment effects, albeit with much smaller effect sizes. 31 Effects were also robust across different media, including in-person conversations, conversations over the phone, and video, and remained several months after the intervention.…”

Section: Deep Engagementmentioning

confidence: 90%

Leveraging Social Science to Generate Lasting Engagement with Climate Change Solutions

2020

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“…Narratives can “transport” people away from the here-and-now ( 44 ), and stories that facilitate attentional absorption can help to change political beliefs ( 45 ). One large-scale study found that narratives, when paired with nonjudgmental listening, can shift views on contentious issues ( 46 ). The rich literature on political persuasion ( 47 , 48 ) further highlights the ability for narratives to persuade ( 49 )—often because narratives typically present information “peripherally,” minimizing the likelihood for counterarguments from “central” processing ( 50 ).…”

Section: The Power Of Personal Experiencementioning

confidence: 99%

Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts

Kubin

Puryear

Schein

et al. 2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

116

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Both liberals and conservatives believe that using facts in political discussions helps to foster mutual respect, but 15 studies—across multiple methodologies and issues—show that these beliefs are mistaken. Political opponents respect moral beliefs more when they are supported by personal experiences, not facts. The respect-inducing power of personal experiences is revealed by survey studies across various political topics, a field study of conversations about guns, an analysis of YouTube comments from abortion opinion videos, and an archival analysis of 137 interview transcripts from Fox News and CNN. The personal experiences most likely to encourage respect from opponents are issue-relevant and involve harm. Mediation analyses reveal that these harm-related personal experiences increase respect by increasing perceptions of rationality: everyone can appreciate that avoiding harm is rational, even in people who hold different beliefs about guns, taxes, immigration, and the environment. Studies show that people believe in the truth of both facts and personal experiences in nonmoral disagreement; however, in moral disagreements, subjective experiences seem truer (i.e., are doubted less) than objective facts. These results provide a concrete demonstration of how to bridge moral divides while also revealing how our intuitions can lead us astray. Stretching back to the Enlightenment, philosophers and scientists have privileged objective facts over experiences in the pursuit of truth. However, furnishing perceptions of truth within moral disagreements is better accomplished by sharing subjective experiences, not by providing facts.

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Reducing Exclusionary Attitudes Through Interpersonal Conversation: Evidence from Three Field Experiments

Cited by 37 publications

References 35 publications

Virtuous violence from the war room to death row

Virtuous violence from the war room to death row

Leveraging Social Science to Generate Lasting Engagement with Climate Change Solutions

Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts

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