The language of opinion change on social media under the lens of communicative action

Which messages are more effective at inducing a change of opinion in the listener? We approach this question within the frame of Habermas' theory of communicative action, which posits that the illocutionary intent of the message (its pragmatic meaning) is the key. Thanks to recent advances in natural language processing, we are able to operationalize this theory by extracting the latent social dimensions of a message, namely archetypes of social intent of language, that come from social exchange theory. We identify key ingredients to opinion change by looking at more than 46k posts and more than 3.5M comments on Reddit's r/ChangeMyView, a debate forum where people try to change each other's opinion and explicitly mark opinion-changing comments with a special flag called delta. Comments that express no intent are about 77% less likely to change the mind of the recipient, compared to comments that convey at least one social dimension. Among the various social dimensions, the ones that are most likely to produce an opinion change are knowledge, similarity, and trust, which resonates with Habermas' theory of communicative action. We also find other new important dimensions, such as appeals to power or empathetic expressions of support. Finally, in line with theories of constructive conflict, yet contrary to the popular characterization of conflict as the bane of modern social media, our findings show that voicing conflict in the context of a structured public debate can promote integration, especially when it is used to counter another conflictive stance. By leveraging recent advances in natural language processing, our work provides an empirical framework for Habermas' theory, finds concrete examples of its effects in the wild, and suggests its possible extension with a more faceted understanding of intent interpreted as social dimensions of language.

Political games of attack and defence

Political conflicts often revolve around changing versus defending a status quo. We propose to capture the dynamics between proponents and opponents of political change in terms of an asymmetric game of attack and defence with its equilibrium in mixed strategies. Formal analyses generate predictions about effort expended on revising and protecting the status quo, the form and function of false signalling and cheap talk, how power differences impact conflict intensity and the likelihood of status quo revision. Laboratory experiments on the neurocognitive and hormonal foundations of attack and defence reveal that out-of-equilibrium investments in attack emerge because of non-selfish preferences, limited capacity to compute costs and benefits and optimistic beliefs about the chances of winning from one's rival. We conclude with implications for the likelihood of political change and inertia, and discuss the role of ideology in political games of attack and defence.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘The political brain: neurocognitive and computational mechanisms’.

The revealing effect of power: Popularity moderates the associations of personal values with aggression in adolescence

OBJECTIVE

Values have been found to predict aggressive behavior in adolescents. Adolescents who endorse self-enhancement values typically exhibit more aggressive behaviors, while adolescents who endorse self-transcendent values are less likely to behave aggressively. The associations between values and aggression are low to moderate, suggesting that other factors might moderate them. The study examined whether these associations were moderated by adolescent popularity, an indication of social power.

METHOD

The study included 906 adolescents from three cultures: Brazilians (N = 244), Jewish citizens of Israel (N = 250), and Arabic citizens of Israel (N = 409). Personal values were assessed using the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ). Peer nominations were used to assess direct aggression and popularity.

RESULTS

Popularity moderated the associations between values and aggression: while the aggressive behavior of popular adolescents was highly associated with their personal values, the behavior of unpopular adolescents was unrelated to their values. This effect consistently emerged across samples, with specific variations for gender and culture.

CONCLUSION

Popularity enables adolescents to act according to their personal values: aggressive behaviors increase or decrease according to personal value priorities. The strength of this effect depends on cultural expectations and gender roles.

Expressive Suppression Within Task-Oriented Dyads: The Moderating Role of Power

Although research has so far consistently revealed that using suppression to regulate emotions has adverse personal and social effects, it has been argued that suppression may be less detrimental within non-close relationships. In the present work, we examined the effects of experimentally induced suppression on expressive behavior, emotional experience, and social outcomes within task-oriented interactions between individuals randomly assigned to high/low vs. equal power positions. Eighty-eight participants were randomly paired with a partner of the same gender (forty-four dyads). After being randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions created to manipulate suppression use and power, each dyad was asked to complete two problem-solving tasks. The results showed that the participants who were assigned to the subordinate (low-power) role and who used suppression to regulate their emotions reported more negative emotional experience than did individuals assigned to equal-power roles, as well as more inauthenticity and diminished feelings of rapport compared to subordinates who freely expressed their feelings. Moreover, we found that the use of suppression also influenced participants assigned to the manager (high-power) role, as they exhibited less positive behavior, reported less positive experience and lower feelings of rapport when interacting with a partner asked to suppress. When individuals were assigned to equal power roles, the participants instructed to use suppression reported lower levels of positive emotions than did their partners as well as higher feelings of inauthenticity compared to uninstructed participants. Overall, these findings seem to suggest that suppression may impair task-oriented interactions between high/low power individuals more than interactions between individuals sharing equal power.

Without actors, there is no action: How interpersonal interactions help to explain routine dynamics

In this paper, we argue that it is important to gain a better understanding on how people interact with each other to explain routine dynamics. Thus, we propose to focus on the interpersonal interactions of actors which is not only the fact that actors interact with each other but that the manner and quality of these interactions is important to understand routine dynamics. By drawing on social exchange theory, we propose a framework that seeks to explain routine dynamics based on different relationships between actors. Building on this framework, we provide different process models indicating how routine performing and patterning is enacted due to the respective relationship of actors. Our insights contribute to research on routine dynamics by arguing (1) that actions of patterning are dependent on the relationship of actors; (2) that trust works as an enabler for creating new patterns of actions; (3) that distrust functions as an enhancer for interrupting and dissolving patterns of actions.

A Privileged Point of View: Effects of Subjective Socioeconomic Status on Naïve Realism and Political Division

In the United States, both economic inequality and political conflict are on the rise. We investigated whether subjective socioeconomic status (SSS) may help explain why these dual patterns emerge. We hypothesized that higher SSS may increase naïve realism-the belief that one perceives the world as it is, rather than as interpreted through one's own knowledge and beliefs-regarding political issues. Using a representative sample of the American electorate, we found that higher SSS predicted more political naïve realism toward those from a different political party (Study 1). The remaining experiments examined the causal relationship between SSS and political naïve realism (Studies 2-5). We extended these findings by investigating whether SSS influenced participants' willingness to exclude those with contrary views from a vote (Studies 4 and 5). Together, these studies demonstrate that SSS enhances political naïve realism and can lead to the exclusion of others with contrary opinions.

Revisiting the form and function of conflict: Neurobiological, psychological, and cultural mechanisms for attack and defense within and between groups

Conflict can profoundly affect individuals and their groups. Oftentimes, conflict involves a clash between one side seeking change and increased gains through victory and the other side defending the status quo and protecting against loss and defeat. However, theory and empirical research largely neglected these conflicts between attackers and defenders, and the strategic, social, and psychological consequences of attack and defense remain poorly understood. To fill this void, we model (1) the clashing of attack and defense as games of strategy and reveal that (2) attack benefits from mismatching its target's level of defense, whereas defense benefits from matching the attacker's competitiveness. This suggests that (3) attack recruits neuroendocrine pathways underlying behavioral activation and overconfidence, whereas defense invokes neural networks for behavioral inhibition, vigilant scanning, and hostile attributions; and that (4) people invest less in attack than defense, and attack often fails. Finally, we propose that (5) in intergroup conflict, out-group attack needs institutional arrangements that motivate and coordinate collective action, whereas in-group defense benefits from endogenously emerging in-group identification. We discuss how games of attack and defense may have shaped human capacities for prosociality and aggression, and how third parties can regulate such conflicts and reduce their waste.

The Power of Projection for Powerless and Powerful People

Past social projection research has mainly focused on target characteristics as a moderator of projective effects. The current research considers the power of the perceiver and how it affects projection of competence and warmth. In three studies, participants first rated themselves on a list of traits/preferences, then performed a power manipulation task, and, finally, rated a target person on the same list. Studies 1 and 2 reveal that the effect of power on social projection is moderated by dimension of judgment: high-power/low-power participants project more on competence/warmth than low-power/high-power participants. A meta-analysis conducted on Studies 1, 2, 3, and two additional studies confirmed those results. Study 3 additionally shows that high power increases the salience of competence, whereas low power increases the salience of warmth. Implications for both the power and the social perception literatures are discussed.

The impact of power and powerlessness on blaming the victim of sexual assault

Sexual assault is often described as motivated by power, yet there is relatively little experimental research investigating the effect of power (and powerlessness) on interpretations of a sexual assault. Two studies manipulated participants’ feelings of power prior to a thought-listing task about sexual assault victims (Study 1) or an evaluation of a case of sexual assault (Study 2). Among men, feelings of powerlessness led to reduced victim blaming, while powerlessness tended to increase victim blaming among women (Study 2). These results indicate that powerlessness has different implications for men and women, increasing men’s ability to take the perspective of a victim of sexual assault, but increasing women’s sense of threat and defensiveness. Both studies support a default status explanation for men such that feelings of powerlessness—a state that deviates from men’s typical high-power “default” status in society—increase perspective taking and thereby reduce victim blame. Among women, however, powerlessness may trigger a defensive response, resulting in greater blaming.

Bleeding Hearts and the Heartless: Popular Perceptions of Liberal and Conservative Ideologies

Two studies explored liberals’ and conservatives’ perceptions of themselves and other liberals and conservatives. Participants reported how much assistance they would recommend for needy persons who were nonresponsible and responsible for their plights (i.e., were more and less deserving) and predicted how much liberal and conservative others would recommend. Relative to liberal participants, conservatives reported being less generous toward responsible persons but did not differ in their self-reported generosity toward nonresponsible persons. Both groups viewed conservatives as somewhat heartless, giving less than liberals whether the needy were responsible or nonresponsible. A shared stereotype of a bleeding heart liberal also was revealed—overall, persons overestimated liberals’ generosity toward the responsible, but this was strongest among conservatives, which the authors termed the “Limbaugh Effect.” Results also suggested self-enhancement; liberals and conservatives reported being generous and judicious. Results are discussed in terms of their relevance to lay conceptions of ideology and political rhetoric.

Why Do I Hate Thee? Conflict Misperceptions and Intergroup Mistrust

Members of partisan social groups often exaggerate how much their own opinions differ from those of their rivals. In the present two studies, partisans estimated their own and their rivals' attitudes toward different issues related to the social conflict and also made a variety of evaluative judgments about their own and the rival group. The authors found that (a) partisans perceive more disagreement with their rivals about values that are central to their own sides' ideological position than those that are central to their rivals' position and (b) perceptions of disagreement about the partisans' own central values are what predicts partisans' global evaluations of members of the outgroup (e.g., disliking, trait stereotypes, perceived similarity). Furthermore, partisans believed their adversaries were motivated by an opposition to the partisans' own core values rather than by promotion of the adversaries' core values. Discussion concentrates on the theoretical and applied implications of these findings.

Morally Questionable Tactics: Negotiations between District Attorneys and Public Defenders

A questionnaire study about bargaining tactics was conducted among 163 public defenders (PDs) and district attorneys (DAs) in the criminal justice system. The authors hypothesized that PDs (defensive roles) would perceive questionable tactics to be more appropriate than would DAs (offensive roles), that PDs and DAs would elevate their approval of questionable tactics for counteraggression purposes, and that PDs would elevate their approval for counteraggression to a greater extent than would DAs. Results supported these hypotheses. The authors also examined the basis of the status quo bias, because previous status quo bias studies always confounded power with defensive role. After testing four status quo bias hypotheses, results suggested that, contrary to previous explanations, a defender-challenger framework sometimes provides a better account of the status quo bias than does a power framework.

Naive realism in the unmarried cohabitation controversy in the United States

We explored the role of “naïve realism” in perceptions of attitudinal differences between proponents and opponents of unmarried cohabitation (UC) in the United States. Participants were presented with UC vignettes, asked to describe their own impressions of the couple in each scenario, and then to speculate about the impressions of the typical UC proponent and opponent. A comparison of these impressions yielded a pattern of false polarization in their perceptions, such that partisans’ self-reported sympathy was reliably more similar than the degree of sympathy either side attributed to the other. Partisans also exhibited egocentric bias regarding the basis for each side’s stances on UC. The relevance of this misperception and faulty assumptions toward the resolution of the debate over unmarried cohabitation is discussed.

Upending the Status Quo: Cognitive Complexity in U.S. Supreme Court Justices Who Overturn Legal Precedent

Studies of reasoning by majority and minority members show that group members in the majority think more about the trade-offs associated with alternative decision outcomes than do group members in the minority, who are more single-minded in support of their own position. However, prior work has not examined whether this holds when decision makers change the status quo. The authors compared the integrative complexity of U.S. Supreme Court justices writing on behalf of either a majority or a minority in decisions to either uphold or overturn legal precedent. As predicted, justices writing on behalf of decisions to uphold precedent exhibited greater integrative complexity than did justices writing on behalf of decisions to overturn precedent, but this effect was stronger for the authors of majority than minority opinions.

Power and Perspectives Not Taken

Four experiments and a correlational study explored the relationship between power and perspective taking. In Experiment 1, participants primed with high power were more likely than those primed with low power to draw an E on their forehead in a self-oriented direction, demonstrating less of an inclination to spontaneously adopt another person's visual perspective. In Experiments 2a and 2b, high-power participants were less likely than low-power participants to take into account that other people did not possess their privileged knowledge, a result suggesting that power leads individuals to anchor too heavily on their own vantage point, insufficiently adjusting to others' perspectives. In Experiment 3, high-power participants were less accurate than control participants in determining other people's emotion expressions; these results suggest a power-induced impediment to experiencing empathy. An additional study found a negative relationship between individual difference measures of power and perspective taking. Across these studies, power was associated with a reduced tendency to comprehend how other people see, think, and feel.

Motive attribution asymmetry for love vs. hate drives intractable conflict

Five studies across cultures involving 661 American Democrats and Republicans, 995 Israelis, and 1,266 Palestinians provide previously unidentified evidence of a fundamental bias, what we term the "motive attribution asymmetry," driving seemingly intractable human conflict. These studies show that in political and ethnoreligious intergroup conflict, adversaries tend to attribute their own group's aggression to ingroup love more than outgroup hate and to attribute their outgroup's aggression to outgroup hate more than ingroup love. Study 1 demonstrates that American Democrats and Republicans attribute their own party's involvement in conflict to ingroup love more than outgroup hate but attribute the opposing party's involvement to outgroup hate more than ingroup love. Studies 2 and 3 demonstrate this biased attributional pattern for Israelis and Palestinians evaluating their own group and the opposing group's involvement in the current regional conflict. Study 4 demonstrates in an Israeli population that this bias increases beliefs and intentions associated with conflict intractability toward Palestinians. Finally, study 5 demonstrates, in the context of American political conflict, that offering Democrats and Republicans financial incentives for accuracy in evaluating the opposing party can mitigate this bias and its consequences. Although people find it difficult to explain their adversaries' actions in terms of love and affiliation, we suggest that recognizing this attributional bias and how to reduce it can contribute to reducing human conflict on a global scale.

Relationship between bases of power and job stresses: role of mentoring

Building upon the social exchange theory, this paper hypothesized the direct effect of bases of power on job stress with mentoring as moderator. Power bases and job stresses were conceptualized as 7- and 3- dimensional constructs, respectively. One hundred and ninety-five Malaysian managers and executives working in large-scale multinational companies participated in this study. The results have indicated that bases of power as possessed by supervisors have strong effect on employees’ job stress and mentoring was found to have moderated the relationship between power bases and job stress. Implications of the findings, potential limitations of the study, and directions for future research were discussed further.

Acceleration With Steering

Power is a psychological accelerator, propelling people toward their goals; however, these goals are often egocentrically focused. Perspective-taking is a psychological steering wheel that helps people navigate their social worlds; however, perspective-taking needs a catalyst to be effective. The current research explores whether combining power with perspective-taking can lead to fairer interpersonal treatment and higher quality decisions by increasing other-oriented information sharing, the propensity to communicate and integrate information that recognizes the knowledge and interests of others. Experiments 1 and 2 found that the combining power with perspective-taking or accountability increased interactional justice, the tendency for decision makers to explain their decisions candidly and respectfully. Experiment 3 involved role-based power embedded in a face-to-face dyadic decision-making task; the combination of power and perspective-taking facilitated the sharing of critical information and led to more accurate dyadic decisions. Combining power and perspective-taking had synergistic effects, producing superior outcomes to what each one achieved separately.

Attitudes, personal evaluations, cognitive evaluation and interpersonal attraction: On the direct, indirect and reverse-causal effects

The authors hypothesized that (1) attraction toward a stranger based on attitudinal similarity is automatic, but cognitive evaluation of the stranger's quality before the measurement of attraction can make attraction nonautomatic or controlled; (2) personal evaluations from the stranger activate automatic attraction and cognitive evaluation; (3) controlled attraction from attitudes and automatic attraction and cognitive evaluation from personal evaluations engender reverse-causal effects (i.e. they mediate each other); and (4) attraction and cognitive evaluation are distinct constructs. Attitudinal similarity between the participant and the stranger or personal evaluations of the former by the latter were varied in Experiment 1 (N=96), and were crossed with each other in Experiment 2 (N=240). Orders of response measurement were either cognitive evaluation followed by attraction or attraction followed by cognitive evaluation. Results confirmed the hypotheses. Implications of the findings are discussed.

The Accentuation Bias

The present research explores how people’s place in a power hierarchy alters their representations of valued objects. The authors hypothesized that powerlessness produces an accentuation bias by altering the physical representation of monetary objects in a manner consistent with the size-to-value relationship. In the first three experiments, powerless participants, induced through episodic priming or role manipulations, systematically overestimated the size of objects associated with monetary value (i.e., quarters, poker chips) compared to powerful and baseline participants. However, when value was inversely associated with size (i.e., smaller objects were more valuable), the powerless drew these valued objects smaller, not larger. In addition, the accentuation bias by the powerless was more pronounced when the monetary value associated with the object was greater, increased when the object was physically present, and was mediated by differences in subjective value. These findings suggest that powerlessness fosters compensatory processes that guide representations of valued objects.

The egoism and altruism of intergenerational behavior

Some of the most important issues in society today affect more than one generation of people. In this article, the authors offer a conceptual overview and integration of the research on intergenerational dilemmas-decisions that entail a tradeoff between one's own self-interest in the present and the interests of other people in the future. Intergenerational decisions are characterized by a combination of intertemporal (i.e., behaviors that affect the future) and interpersonal (i.e., behaviors that affect other people) components. Research on intergenerational dilemmas identifies factors that emerge from these dimensions and how they interact with each other to influence intergenerational beneficence. Critically, phenomena that result from the intersection of these two dimensions-such as immortality striving through legacy creation-are especially important in distinguishing intergenerational decisions from other related decision contexts.

The Structure and Management of Conflict: Fighting or Defending the Status Quo

Although conflict and negotiation studies have examined symmetrical structures in which both parties want change, or asymmetrical structures in which one party wants change and the other to maintain the status quo, no research provided a direct comparison of both structures. Two experiments were conducted to fill this void. Results show that in asymmetrical structures challengers engage in more problem solving and more contending, have less of a loss frame and perceive less control than defendants, and are perceived be less successful. In symmetrical structures, behavior and attitudes of parties are more alike and there is more reciprocation of problem solving and yielding. Furthermore, findings reveal that challengers see their defendant as less friendly and more dominant than defendants see their challengers. Finally, no evidence was obtained that social value orientation moderates these effects. Implications for conflict theory and research, and for third party interventions in symmetrical versus asymmetrical conflicts, are discussed.

Power, Risk, and the Status Quo

Two experiments suggest that the experience of power can interact with a person's level of power motivation to produce effects on risky decision making. In Study 1, assignment to a position of power increased risk taking among participants with low levels of power motivation but reduced risk taking among participants with high levels of power motivation. In Study 2, participants high in power motivation again made more conservative decisions, but only under circumstances in which the dominance hierarchy was unstable and there was potential for losing their power. When power was irrevocable and participants' choices had no bearing on their ability to retain power, both high and low power-motivated participants responded by making riskier decisions. Findings suggest that although power may generally lead to riskier decisions, power may lead to more conservative decisions among power-motivated individuals, especially when the status quo is perceived to be in jeopardy.

Misperceptions in Intergroup Conflict. Disagreeing About What We Disagree About

Two studies examined misperceptions of disagreement in partisan social conflicts, namely, in the debates over abortion (Study 1) and politics (Study 2). We observed that partisans tend to exaggerate differences of opinion with their adversaries. Further, we found that perceptions of disagreement were more pronounced for values that were central to the perceiver's own ideology than for values that were central to the ideology of the perceiver's adversaries. To the extent that partisans assumed disagreement concerning personally important values, they were also inaccurate in perceiving their adversaries' actual opinions. Discussion focuses on the cognitive mechanisms underlying misperceptions of disagreement and strategies for reducing intergroup conflict.

Differentiating explanations of attitude-consistent behavior: the role of perspectives and mode of perspective taking

We examined whether participants could differentiate between explanations of attitude-consistent behavior related to EU membership given from two perspectives (EU supporter and EU opponent) by means of three perspective taking modes (the explainer's own perspective, imagined in-group members' perspective, and imagined out-group members' perspective). Participants were presented with explanations provided from different perspectives and perspective taking modes, and they were asked to judge the extent to which they agreed with each explanation, to guess the attitude of the provider of each explanation, and to rate the quality of each explanation in various respects. Participants could not differentiate between explanations given by in-group members and out-group members who imagined the same perspective. They responded more favorably to explanations given from own perspective than from the imagined perspectives. The results suggest that there exists a shared understanding about how both sides should explain attitude-consistent behavior, but this understanding is measurably different from the actual explanations.

Differentiating in-group favoritism from shared reality in intergroup perception

Two basic factors influence mutual ratings of social groups: in-group favoritism (related to the evaluative aspects of a rating) and the perception of shared reality (related to the descriptive aspects). In two studies, we examine the usefulness of Peabody's (1968) method of separating evaluative and descriptive aspects of rating in intergroup judgments. In Study 1, Latvian and Russian students made different evaluations of both groups, but the same groups agreed on the descriptive ratings. In Study 2, male and female psychology students rated each other from own, in-group, and out-group perspectives. The participants did not show any in-group favoritism in their own ratings, but they expected their fellow students to be in-group biased. The participants agreed on the descriptive ratings of both groups. The results demonstrate that shared reality influences intergroup ratings, despite differences in evaluations.