Open communication may be the only way of reaching highly polarized audiences

In highly polarized situations, open communication is the only way to get through to people, including those who believe in conspiracy theories, revealed a new study in the British Journal of Political Science.

Open communication seeks to prompt reflection and can be defined as an “open discussion mode” that is neither debate-style, nor explicitly geared toward finding common ground.

The study found that debate-heavy, challenging ways of communicating did not work in polarized situations. It also found that when societal polarization is not extreme, how people communicate a message does not influence whether they succeed in depolarizing others; rather, exposure to information is all that is needed to move minds.

A study with over 4,000 participants

The researchers behind the study analyzed results from two population-based survey experiments in Germany and Austria surrounding the COVID-19 crisis: one on the prioritization of health or freedom (Germany), and the other on the introduction of mandatory vaccination (Austria). The German survey experiment had 2,132 respondents and the Austrian survey experiment had 2,134 respondents.

The researchers found that in the German survey, when communicating about the polarizing belief that individual freedom ought to be prioritized over public health, respondents made less constructive proposals when speaking from a contestatory position. Moreover, half of the respondents speaking in a collaborative dynamic made a constructive proposal, whereas only 5% in the contestatory dynamic made such a proposal.

The Austrian survey participants were more polarized in their beliefs, with 69.5% of respondents having a strong pre-existing belief about vaccines—as opposed to only 37.3% of Germans having strong pre-existing beliefs about health in contrast with freedom. In this instance, the researchers found that people’s beliefs could only be moderated via open communication.

Speaking about these findings from the Austrian survey, lead researcher Simon Stocker, Research Fellow at the University of Stuttgart, Germany said, “These findings suggest that in the context of high polarization, confronting participants with counter-positions as well as asking them to seek out common ground with the other side is counterproductive, and seems to be perceived as a challenge to one’s own position.

“Only a minimal intervention in the form of an open-ended question makes a positive contribution under such polarized conditions.”

A timely epoch for getting political communication right

Fellow researcher André Bächtiger, Managing Director of the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Stuttgart, emphasized the importance of communicating effectively about political issues in the present era.

“We are witnessing declining levels of argumentative complexity and of people listening respectfully to different sides of an argument, often in combination with a polarization of opinions,” said Bächtiger.

“It’s essential that people calibrate political communications well—especially in online spheres, where debate sometimes devolves into unconstructive mudslinging.”

The researchers’ study also has implications for depolarizing conspiracy theorists. They found that only open questioning had even a small effect on depolarization among people with extreme conspiratorial views. In such instances, communicative “knock-on” techniques in the form of open questioning formed the one mode of communication that helped engender more productive conversations.