SIO325: How to Be Persuasive, According to Science - Part 2

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:12 Thomas: And welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 325. Love those nice even numbers. Maybe we retire after this one. This spur of the moment decision. Nah, let's not. Let's go more episodes. We'll hit a better number, I'm sure.

0:00:19 Lindsey: Okay Yeah, there's so there's, so many more more exciting numbers to come.

0:00:27 Thomas: There's always better numbers over the horizon. It's true. I this is part two of our persuasion. Oh, Make sure you catch part one if you missed it. The last episode discussed the first part of this, and I want to open. Up with, I was about to say this is a big meta study, but you have said it's not that. And basic science question for non -science people like me, what is this and what's the difference between what this is and a meta study?

0:00:28 Lindsey: Yeah, exactly Mm -Hmm.

0:00:52 Lindsey: Yeah, this is a review paper. They're just sort of going through all of the literature on this particular question and then synthesizing it. So it's like a narrative review. If you're doing, if you're doing a meta-analysis, that means that you're actually collecting the effect sizes from past studies and analyzing those.

0:00:59 Thomas: Hmm. Okay. Gotcha.

0:01:09 Lindsey: So you're, yeah.

0:01:11 Thomas: Would you do one versus the other? It's just the kind of data you have or what?

0:01:15 Lindsey: I mean, it's the kind of question that you're asking. I mean, meta-analyses are usually geared toward, like, figuring out how consistent an effect is, or, you of a particular effect, right? They're usually trying to figure out something about the state of the evidence. Um, goal, the in this paper, like, uh, Hussein and Tormala's goal is, is just to sort of like this kind of narrative synthesis and make the argument that like maybe all these things are related to persuasion because, um, because they operate through receptivity. So it's their, the goal, probably like a meta-analysis might be less relevant to answering that question.

0:01:18 Thomas: Okay.

0:01:49 Thomas: Okay, cool. Well, let's get back to our not a meta-analysis. This is our review paper. And maybe give us, do you want to give us the quick previously on? Just for fun, because I thought of it. Know, what's really hard is explaining to your toddlers what that is, you know? Because we get, sometimes in movies or shows or whatever they do, they show a flashback or previously on. And the reason it's a funny story is we had to tell them what that was. And they were like, oh, that's in the the past. They're telling us what happened. And so now Arlo though, he translated it into a shorthand. So every time there's a flashback, he goes, they're telling us.

0:01:49 Lindsey: Yeah. Mm. -Hmm. Yeah. Yes.

0:02:27 Thomas: Yep. See, they're telling us. So why don't you tell us what happened last week?

0:02:32 Lindsey: Awesome. Uh. I would be delighted to tell you. Yeah, uh, yeah, so last time we talked about expressions of uncertainty and acknowledging mistakes, and when those things, um, the persuasiveness of messages, um, we're going to finish up this paper by talking about the persuasive value of highlighting the drawbacks, disadvantages, or or counterpoints to your position, and the persuasive value of asking questions as part of a persuasive message. So let's start with the highlighting drawbacks.

So Hussein and Tormala argue that highlighting defects in your argument or downsides of your plan or arguments opposing your own are persuasive, again, because they signal receptiveness in the speaker. And I think this is pretty intuitive. I mean, being able to accurately summarize counterarguments suggests, suggests fairly directly that you have openly engaged with perspectives that are different from yours, which is sort of core to their, their concept of receptiveness here. Like they did with the first two mechanisms, they start this section by testing the assumption that highlighting drawbacks does actually enhance perceptions of receptivity in a speaker. So they drew yet another 200-person sample. At, the way, like they drew for this review paper in state that they, they collect, they drew like five separate 200-person samples for these different questions. It's like that's a lot of funding, so I was just

0:03:21 Thomas: Oh, Nice.

0:03:48 Lindsey: Yeah. Um, I was impressed that they did this. They did all of these as like separate data collections, as opposed to drawing like one 200-person sample and you

0:03:49 Thomas: Yeah. I hope we don't find out it was funded by the Koch brothers to like try to convince people that global warming isn't, I guess there's only one Coke brother, but still, I figure the ghost of the other one still has a hand in the, you, evil that they do, I imagine can't

0:04:03 Lindsey: Yeah you never know I yeah, I'm sure, right um, yeah, so they drew another 200-person sample and had participants read yet another plan by a prime minister to reopen the economy during COVID. And in one version, the speaker acknowledges disadvantages of their plan. So, for instance, says something like, "there are numerous advantages to my proposal to reopen the economy, but I also admit that my plan is not perfect and that it has some disadvantages." So one version says that and then goes on to describe the advantages and disadvantages.

In the other version, the speaker only talks about the strengths of the plan and does not bring up the disadvantages. And what they found was that participants who saw the version of the argument that included the drawbacks perceived that speaker to be more receptive than the version that did not bring up drawbacks. Drawbacks does increase perceptions of receptiveness, but now we need to see if it's actually persuasive to bring up, uh, drawbacks.

So some of the evidence for persuasiveness of highlighting drawback comes from studies examining the effectiveness of one-sided versus two-sided messages in advertising. So one-sided messages only present the positives about a product or whatever, whereas two-sided messages present the negatives and also present some negative information.

0:05:23 Thomas: Think of an advertisement where I've ever heard that, I mean besides the like side effects at the end of the medication, but that's by law anyway okay

0:05:27 Lindsey: Okay, well, right. Yeah. No, but I bet there is one place where you have seen this stuff, and it's an Amazon reviews. Yeah, so yeah, let's come back to that in a minute. Because yeah, yeah, so two-sided messages appear to be more persuasive to people than one-sided messages in many circumstances. So for example, there was one study where they presented participants with one of two versions of an ad for deodorant, and in one versions of the ad, or in one version of the add, um, only presented positive attributes about the deodorants, like that it was not irritating to the skin, whereas in the other version they presented all those positives, but they also presented two negatives, like that the packaging was not very beautiful and

0:05:38 Thomas: Yeah no I already feel like I know where you're going with that, and I love it. Okay.

0:06:13 Thomas: Would put that in your advertisement? I don't understand.

0:06:15 Lindsey: It did seem sort of artificial to me, but I don't know, so yeah

0:06:19 Thomas: Also, our packaging kind of sucks, but not enough to where you should care about it.

0:06:24 Lindsey: Well, because I actually, I think I have seen some companies that use that strategy explicitly, like they're, they're like, our money goes into the product and not into advertising that kind of thing yeah, so yeah. Yeah. So I guess I have seen some things like this.

0:06:33 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Good one. Yeah. True. Yeah, good point.

0:06:39 Lindsey: They found that the addition of the negative characteristics increased participants intent to purchase the deodorant, enhanced positive perceptions of the product and boosted the perceived credibility of the ad. And so this immediately made me think of like those paid Amazon reviews. I think it was an episode of Reply All that they were talking about this. And yeah, It was super interesting. I'll have to see, see if I can find, um, episode it was, but they were talking about these sellers on Amazon who pay people to leave positive reviews of their products. And if I'm remembering this correctly, the, the person they were talking to mentioned at one point that they specifically tell the people they're paying to include at least one negative detail. That's kind of like peripheral or not that important.

0:06:54 Thomas: Yeah? Oh, I didn't hear it.

0:07:19 Thomas: Yeah! Totally. That's what I was thinking a minute ago. If I go on Amazon, which I try not to do. Again, Amazon Amazon sucks. Use Amazon as a search engine, then try to buy directly from the companies. FYI, I think it's better. I try to do that. I'm not perfect, but I did that just the other day with something. I was like, I feel good about this. Anyway, if I see something that is blanket five stars, like no other stars, I'm like, that's not real. There's no way that's real. And I don't know. I'm curious if that's specific to this day and age where we know about bots and all that versus something like this persuasive technique sounds like it could have been timeless. You know, like you could ask this question in 1910 of like, when someone's selling their tonic, do you like when they say that it also, you know, causes a weird smell? So I wonder, on what the question is, I how much of that knowledge of this like computer review hacking is in the back of our minds or not yeah

0:07:29 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:08:17 Lindsey: I think, I think in both cases, it's probably the working through the same mechanism though right because the the the idea is that these are more persuasive because the ad seems more like honest or trustworthy and so yeah I think regardless of whether we're trying to like figure out the credibility of a review or figure out the credibility of a speaker, it's probably operating through the same kind of perceptions.

0:08:28 Thomas: Yeah okay yeah I guess you're right. I guess it just thought, hmm, I felt like that was a separate thing to think, like, oh, you know, some bots are doing a thing versus the message coming from the advertiser, like from the actual company, being more like feeling like they're more honest, right?

0:08:55 Lindsey: I can see the the differences that you're sort of pointing toward. But like, in the end, it's like, should I believe this review? Or should I believe this advertisement? So it feels like it's about credibility in either case. Study, right, and this actually gets us closer to the political persuasion piece. So this is another study published in 2021 by Shu and Petty. They examined the persuasiveness of two -sided messages about political issues issues as a function of how morally based people's views were, right? And so I perked up at their description of this because I think it probably bears the closest resemblance to the situations that we're trying to generalize to on the show, right, we want to know what will be persuasive when we're talking to people who strongly disagree with us on political issues, and particularly on issues that they feel are like tied to core beliefs in some way. And Petty measured participants' attitudes on one of two social issues. The first was whether Nazis should have the right to speak in U.S. high schools.

0:09:02 Thomas: Okay oh here we go

0:09:52 Lindsey: Yeah, yeah. And the second, yeah, yeah right.

0:09:54 Thomas: U.S. high schools? I think kindergartens. Have them come in. You know, daycare.

0:09:59 Lindsey: Yeah start them early for sure. Yeah so that was the first one. The second issue was whether the U. S. should have stricter gun laws. So they measured whether people felt favorably or unfavorably toward Nazi freedom of speech and toward the implementation of stricte gun control. And they also got measures of how morally based their opinions on the issues were. So they asked them whether their position on Nazi freedom of speech or gun control, quote, reflected their core moral beliefs, and whether the topic was, quote connected to their belief in right and wrong, right? So they're getting it, you strongly held the position is, but also like, is it connected to sort of these like core beliefs about the world, right, which I think are important.

0:10:00 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:10:40 Lindsey: After they measure their attitudes, they then presented participants with an essay that ran counter to their attitudes. So if they said that they were against gun control, they gave them an essay to read that was pro -gun control. And they assumed, by the way, that virtually everyone would be against Nazi speaking in high schools. So they, this is 2021.

0:10:51 Thomas: Okay. What year was this? No. Yeah, that's a bad assumption.

0:11:03 Lindsey: Yeah, well, well they, fair, right? They did turn out to be mostly right though. So almost everybody in their sample said that they had unfavorable views about Nazis speaking in high schools, but they did have to exclude a few people who, who expressed positive views about that. Um, because they didn't have an essay for them.

0:11:04 Thomas: That's on them. If it was 2012, I'd give it to them.

0:11:23 Thomas: Yeah.

0:11:23 Lindsey: Didn't have a counter -attitude one. Anyway, so, so everyone saw an argument that ran counter to their own opinions. And the thing that the researchers manipulated was whether participants read a one - or two -sided argument. So in the argument for allowing Nazis to speak in high schools, the two - sided version of the argument acknowledged why many people would oppose that, right? The one -sided version of that message did not contain that kind of acknowledgement. After they read the counter -attitudinal essay, the researchers measured two things. So first, they measured participants' openness regarding the social issue with questions like, after reading this article, I would be willing to reconsider my position. Or after reading this article I would willing to dial down my opposition to whatever the thing was. And so they're interested in seeing if one versus two -sided messages have an impact on openness to contradicting views, which is important, right? I was very curious to see how well this worked. Because again, it's about these important issues and looking at it in people who hold them very strongly. So yeah, this

0:12:28 Thomas: Yeah, this feels very practical. Like, if we're going to have a conversation with a family member or somebody about gun gun control. This sounds like a pretty solid answer on, should we be like, hey, this is great and there are no flaws with it, or there are some drawbacks, but, you know, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks kind of approach. Okay.

0:12:29 Lindsey: Yes. Exactly. Exactly, yeah.

0:12:50 Thomas: Drum roll as we discover what the answer is.

0:12:52 Lindsey: Right, yeah. So they measured that sort of stated openness, but they also measured one other thing, which is interesting. So, they measured participants' willingness to read additional counter -attitudinal arguments. So what they told participants was that for the next study task, they would have the opportunity to read more essays on the same topic. And they asked them to rank order their desire to read six articles based just on their titles. And three of the articles were counter - attitudinal, and three of them were consistent with the participants' pre -existing attitudes. And so they're interested here in seeing whether participants who read a two -sided argument, as opposed to a one -sided one, would be more willing to keep engaging engaging with counter -attitudinal information. And I thought this was a very smart measure because generally at baseline, people are more inclined to read things that they agree with, right? That's one of the mechanisms underlying the confirmation bias. So if two -sided messages increase willingness to continue engaging with arguments that you don't agree with, like that also seems very practical to me.

So it suggests like if you can get your foot in the door with a two - sided message, you might be able to get someone to engage more with the other side of whatever the topic was or is. So it's great. Okay. So what did they find? For people who said that their attitudes were strongly morally based, the two -sided messages led to more openness about the issue, which in turn led to greater willingness to read additional counter -attitudinal articles.

And a parallel effect was observed for attitude strength. So folks that expressed particularly strong attitudes at baseline, line, like pro or anti gun control, for instance, found the two -sided messages more persuasive than the one -sided ones. So that's very interesting, I think, and potentially useful. Now, interestingly, the same effect was not observed for people who said their attitudes were not morally based or for people who had more weakly held attitudes.

If anything, for those folks, it appeared that the people who said that their attitudes were not strongly connected to their moral values or said that they didn't feel very strongly about the topic were actually somewhat more persuaded by the one -sided messages than the two -sided

0:13:30 Thomas: Okay, that's That's interesting.

0:14:57 Lindsey: Ones. Right? Yeah. And I think that the elaboration likelihood model, which we talked about last time, could maybe help explain why this is. So people with weaker attitudes or attitudes that aren't connected to core beliefs, I think are likely to be thinking less deeply about the arguments because they just feel less strongly about it. So a purely positive argument might be more persuasive to them if they're evaluating the argument in sort of a more superficial or heuristic way. But people with strongly held attitudes, especially when those attitudes are really connected to these core beliefs, I think are likely to be thinking a lot more deeply about the arguments. And so directly addressing those people's concerns or counter arguments respectfully is likely to improve their perceptions of the argument and the speaker. Shu and Petty did a second study where they showed that two-sided messages that presented weak arguments on the other side were not more persuasive to the folks with the morally based beliefs. So in other words, if you say there are some reasonable counter arguments on the other side, but then you only bring up like straw man versions of the position that

0:15:13 Thomas: Okay. Oh, yeah. Okay,

0:15:59 Lindsey: These folks hold, it's even less persuasive to them than if you just presented a one -sided argument. So they really don't like that. Yeah, so they take this as evidence that two -sided arguments are probably operating through enhanced perceptions of the speaker. So the speaker who acknowledges the other side in a good faith way is signaling their openness to differing opinions, and this may incline the audience to sort of reciprocate that openness. So I think that there's a lot of practical value to these studies. You know, if you're trying to persuade someone with a strongly held belief that's of really core importance to them, it appears to be especially important to make your appeal two - sided. By acknowledging as accurately and charitably as possible objections and downsides of your position.

0:16:05 Thomas: Sure. Yeah.

0:16:43 Thomas: Yeah, one one complication in this is I do feel like people constantly play little games, at least in the spaces I've had some debates with, you know, like people are often aren't upfront about How they like, how they're coming to their thing. And I imagine that oftentimes it is like, like what if they, now we get into some game theory, like, what if they are trying to persuade you? And so they're presenting it not as like, I am morally certain that we should do X, but they're actually trying to, you know, present it as more of a like, well, see, I've considered the arguments and so then you take that as like they're, they're going to go one way or be receptive one way, but not another. That, that becomes kind of interesting. But anyway, anyway, the point is, I do think it's hard sometimes to know exactly where people are coming from in terms of their beliefs. Is it a strong moral belief or require based on this one kind of approach, which is load up the arguments and the counter arguments and and make sure the counter arguments are not straw man things?

0:16:44 Lindsey: Right. Yeah. Yeah,

0:17:49 Thomas: Versus if somebody, it sounds like if they're just like, yeah, I don't know. I think people should have guns, whatever. I don't really, whatever. Then it sounds Like you want to just give the full, on benefit mode. Like everything. No, it's, it's puppies and rainbows. If we do gun control.

0:17:56 Lindsey: Mm-hmm. Yeah that yeah that is consistent with what they found here. Yeah so I think like this is probably easiest to implement accurately with somebody that you know really well.

0:18:05 Thomas: Right? Yeah. Good point.

0:18:14 Lindsey: Arguing with people on the internet yeah I think that you could yeah

0:18:16 Thomas: Honestly, we shouldn't be doing that anyway. Good for you. You're right. Great. The more practical advice. No, Don't waste time on the internet unless it's somebody you really kind of know or at least feel like is receptive. Then with people you know, that's a great point. You probably have an idea of where they're coming from on this.

0:18:19 Lindsey: Yeah absolutely Absolutely. Yeah, don't argue with people on the internet. For sure.

0:18:37 Thomas: It's just not worth it. It's not worth It.

0:18:39 Lindsey: Yeah. So Yeah, summarize this point, highlighting drawbacks does appear to be something that can enhance persuasiveness, right under under certain conditions. There is evidence that this works through enhancing perceptions of the speaker's likability, perceived trustworthiness and credibility. Hussein and Tormala would argue perceptions of receptiveness, which is which is helpful here. Date, there's no evidence that this effect is moderated by status or expertise, like the mechanisms that we talked about in part one. But I think that that plausibly could be the case, right?

And they didn't review any evidence suggesting that this operates through enhancing message engagement, but that seems very plausible to me as well. So future research will have to bear on that question of whether it is operating through engagement. But at least some some of the effects in that shoe and petty article sounded like they were working through increasing message engagement. So it's interesting.

Last but not least, Hussein and Tormala examined whether asking questions in a persuasive message, rather than just making declaratory statements, can enhance perceptions of receptiveness and thereby increase persuasion. So as per usual, they first test their assumption that asking questions is associated with perceptions of receptiveness, and it is. So in a new sample of 200 people, participants read supposed selections from a debate about how to respond to the COVID pandemic. And in one condition, the speaker included two questions in his remarks. Like, for example, now I would like to ask you, how can we make this plan better? And in the control condition, those questions

0:20:08 Lindsey: Were omitted.

0:20:08 Thomas: So don't ask like a question. Are you a jackass? That won't be.

0:20:13 Lindsey: That would not be a good way to display your receptiveness though.

0:20:14 Thomas: Okay, don't answer that. Don't ask that about my COVID denying family. Got it.

0:20:19 Lindsey: Nope, nope. Oh, yeah.

0:20:20 Thomas: Do you want to get people killed? That's another. Other is that a question that would help? No, that has to be like it it can't just be any question? Do you want to go to the movies later? It's got to be actually related to the thing. Oh, okay, yeah,

0:20:25 Lindsey: Probably not. Yeah. Sarcastic questions are not very effective. No, no. It does, although, well, we'll get to it in just a second. But like, this is, there's some interesting stuff here. Yeah, we're good. We'll get through it. They had the questions in the remarks or they didn't. And indeed, people found the speaker significantly more receptive when he asked questions and when he didn't write.

And they also cite a 2010 study that looked at the use of questions during a a debate and found that when a debate partner asked elaborating questions of their partner, right, so they said things like, "Can you tell me more about why you think that," they perceived that person as more receptive. And in turn, that perception prompted more receptiveness in the partner, right? That's all sort of speaking to their point as well.

Okay, now in terms of whether using questions actually increases persuasiveness, the evidence for this comes from a few different areas. So the first area is research on what are called tag questions. And this is the thing, like these are not substantive. These are just sort of like a strategy in your speech, right? So they're the questions that people sometimes use to kind of punctuate the end of sentences.

0:21:35 Lindsey: I do this constantly.

0:21:34 Thomas: Like don't you think, yeah, right?

0:21:36 Lindsey: Exactly, right. Yeah. You live in California, don't you? Or this is an interesting article, right.? Huge part of my speech patterns, it's something that I never noticed until I heard recordings of myself. And I kind of find it annoying when I hear myself doing it. But according to Hussain and Tormala, the evidence suggests that because tag questions imply a request for confirmation, they signal openness to input and to other people's perspectives, which can be persuasive. So it's interesting to me because if I'm preparing a formal speech, tag questions are exactly the kinds of verbal quirks that I try to edit and practice out.

0:21:40 Thomas: Right? Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah,

0:22:14 Lindsey: But maybe I should reconsider that, at least for certain types of um of thingies,

0:22:18 Thomas: As someone who edits podcasts. Though, so please, no one take this to mean you do it every sentence, because I will die. You got to, yeah, sprinkle them in, right? I mean, not every single end of every sentence.

0:22:26 Lindsey: Right? No, no, yeah, if it's, if it sort of shows itself, I think that that does become annoying, but um, but yeah, so one experiment presented participants with an argument that either included tag questions or not, right? So just things at the end of sentences, like, right, and isn't it, and that's it, right? So there's no substantive thing being added there there.

0:22:38 Thomas: Yes.

0:22:52 Thomas: Can we do the British, like, in it or whatever?

0:22:55 Lindsey: Yeah. So provided that the source was an expert and the argument quality was strong, the tag questions increased persuasiveness. If the source wasn't an expert or the argument was not strong, there was a backfire effect. So persuasion was actually diminished. And so I did a little reading beyond this paper to try to dig into these effects a little bit more. And some of the work suggested that part of what is going on here is that questions, questions increase engagement in the message.

So when someone asks you a question, even if it's not one that's designed to elicit an actual response, it triggers an evaluation of the statement or retrieval of whatever information would answer the question. So like in class, for instance, I try to do this a lot, like intentionally to like connect new concepts with things that we've already covered. So I'll do that with tag questions.

I'll be like, "So, you know, this concept of self-fulfilling prophecies is related to our conversation last week about self-handicapping, right?" And then go on to explain it. And apparently framing that as a question can trigger sort of recall of previous material on self-handicapping and looking for connections between the concepts. So in other words, it's increasing engagement.

If these questions are increasing engagement with a message, it makes sense that once again, like with the mechanisms we talked about last time, we're seeing this pattern in which they, they only work to increase persuasiveness if the message is strong. So

0:22:55 Thomas: Okay. Yeah.

0:24:14 Lindsey: Experts, yeah. I think we talked last time about the fact that experts can get away more with weak arguments if the engagement's low. They won't take a big hit to persuasiveness because people are relying on the cue of the speaker's expertise more than the quality of the argument. But if the message engagement is higher, right, which you're eliciting with the use of these questions, then the argument quality really starts to matter. And weak arguments become even less persuasive than they would have been otherwise. And strong arguments are even more persuasive.

0:24:36 Thomas: Yeah. Good point. In all this, it does sound like you, if you do want to convince somebody, you do have, have to have done your homework and know actually what would the issue and know the downsides of what you're advocating, possible counter arguments. So it does imply that you need a real depth of knowledge, yeah.

0:24:50 Lindsey: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's true, right? Or be able to refer people to sources that have that depth of knowledge and are signaling receptiveness, maybe? I don't know.

0:25:07 Thomas: Be I'd be curious how this might work. Like, is it different if you're talking about purely moral arguments? You know, it's interesting. I mean, I guess philosophically the same things apply where you could be like, yeah, morally I think guns kill too many people, or something like that, you know, but then you'd still have to come up with like the counter moral arguments. I guess that still applies. I was just curious if you think there's any sort of difference in how you go about that when it's something, because I find this happens a lot of times in these actual political arguments is be like, yeah, but people should have healthcare. And then, so I don't know how to be like Like, you know, a weakness of my argument is people dying is good sometimes. No. You know, I'm curious what you think about that.

0:25:28 Lindsey: Yeah.

0:25:58 Lindsey: Yeah, I mean, well, so the best place to start with those things is just to hear what people are saying that don't think that universal health care is a good idea, right? You don't have to generate those. Maybe I'm not responding to the actual question you're asking. Mm

0:26:07 Thomas: Mm -hmm. Yeah. Kind of. I guess it sounds like the answer is you can always find an aspect of the issue that translates it into these, like, you you can bring up that you could also dispel, I guess. Yes. It just feels to me, it's hard because some of my political beliefs, or maybe a lot of them, do come down to like, well, here's the fundamental moral core of it. Therefore, you know, this country has a gazillion dollars. It has enough money to keep its people healthy and people deserve to have health care. And people, believe people did wrong to be born into circumstances where they can't. All that stuff.

0:26:53 Thomas: And then therefore, you figure out all the policy kind of crap from there, which is, I do these techniques maybe is what I'm getting at with that pure kind of moral belief, moral statement. You think? What

0:26:28 Lindsey: -hmm. Yeah, I'm I'm not sure if I'm following, actually. Mm

0:27:08 Thomas: Take gay marriage, for example, or trans people's existence, which is an issue today, apparently. For me is like, well, trans people are just like you or I. Their gender identity is different than the assigned at birth. And I think it's good to try to help them and give them the care they need. It feels harder with something that's a real strong baseline, like, I would rather do things to help people than hurt people. Like, it feels hard to translate that into, you know, counter -argument, maybe trans people are bad. You know, like how do you sort of acknowledge that and put it into that framework?

0:27:12 Lindsey: -hm. Yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah, I Gotcha, yeah. I know, I mean, I, so what, what are the counter arguments, I guess? So I'll double down on my response the first time. Um, think that like you do want to like actually, let's go back to the health care thing. Um, you talked about the fact that like it should be a basic right and it's not fair that like some people don't get health care just because they happen to be born into circumstances that, you know, um, think that you can still address the counter arguments that come up about this, about cost or whatever.

0:28:02 Thomas: Okay. Yeah, cost.

0:28:19 Lindsey: Yeah, right, and you can, so address those counter arguments and then bring it back to the what you see is the core moral question there, right. Right.

0:28:19 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. Makes sense. I like that. I mean, and if anything, it kind of makes it, I don't know if this would work. I don'T know which, um, know, not that I know exactly how to execute this technique you are describing, but for me bringing up those counter arguments, the funny thing is like, my answer would just be the same thing, you'd be like, some people think cost too much, but I think that people should have healthcare or Some people that, you know, I, I get, I don't know if you need in order to be more persuasive, if you, you need to kind of try to find better solutions to those counter arguments to present other than just restating the moral foundation.

0:28:28 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.

0:29:05 Thomas: Because with trans people, it would pretty much be just restatting the moral foundation. It's hard to or with gay marriage, you know, like it's hard to figure out what a good, you argument and then an answer to the counter argument would be that isn't just, well, gay people are just like you or I and deserve the same rights, you you know?

0:29:22 Lindsey: Yeah, well, but yeah, I mean I think that I think that you can do that, but you can frame it in a way that's sort of sensitive to the position that the person you're talking to is coming, coming from, um, Not going to end up talking about this paper, but I found, I found a, another paper that was looking at, um, framing on things like gay marriage and, um, at health care was, was one of them, and the thing that they manipulated about their, their messages was the, like, the moral foundations invoked in the argument. So, like, they had two versions of the healthcare message, one that focused on like a purity argument. So they were like, "Diseases are disgusting. We should have healthcare so that people don't have these disgusting diseases. And the other one was more like a fairness framing, right? Which sounds very similar

0:29:32 Thomas: Hmm. Right. Hmm. Oh, yeah. Well,

0:30:09 Lindsey: To what you were saying a minute ago. And what they found was that like conservatives were more persuaded by the versions of messages that invoked the purity thing. So, you know, yeah.

0:30:15 Thomas: They've, yeah, because they've got that disgust response. They've got the higher disgust response.

0:30:20 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah. They care about purity, right, as a moral foundation to a greater extent than people on the left do.

0:30:25 Thomas: So you start your arguments with them. You know, the unwashed masses. Yeah. You, you, should we wash them a little? Like that's yeah. Okay.

0:30:33 Lindsey: Yeah, pretty much. But you can, I mean, you can still bring it back to what you see as the core of that issue. But like, I think, yeah, making that framing kind of sensitive can be helpful. Yeah? Yeah, it

0:30:40 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. It's good. Good practical advice here. It does. It takes work. I feel like this, this does tell us that you, if you do want to be effective at all, you do need to put some work into it.

0:30:48 Lindsey: Does. Mm hmm. Yeah Right. If you if you don't feel like you can make those arguments yourself, like I think that this could also guide the kinds of things that you share, right? You would want to share an article or something that has these sort of cues to receptiveness as using two -sided arguments. Those are going to be the most persuasive as opposed to, you thing that you found persuasive in the Atlantic or whatever, right. Of practical thingies here, I think. So that That was about the of questions when an expert is making the arguments. The speaker is not an expert, most of what you see is that strong arguments are more persuasive than weaker ones, and that asking tag questions actually creates the perception that the speaker lacks confidence, which

0:31:03 Thomas: Right. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Good point. Yeah.

0:31:37 Thomas: I was thinking

0:31:38 Lindsey: Reduces their persuasiveness. Yeah.

0:31:38 Thomas: That yeah Yeah.

0:31:39 Lindsey: Yeah, that's where that backfire effect seems to come from. Okay. In addition to tag questions, there's also been research on the use of rhetorical questions, and the results look pretty similar.

So under some circumstances, arguments framed as declarative statements, like for example, in a closing arguments or something, the lawyer says, "But he never used his knife as a weapon before," versus framing that as a question, "But had he ever used his life as a weapons before?" The declarative statements can be less persuasive than the same sentiment framed as a rhetorical question, right? A number of studies have demonstrated that.

And one study by Petty and colleagues in 1981 showed that when people have low initial motivation to attend to an argument, rhetorcial questions can boost the persuasiveness of strong arguments and hurt the persuasiness of weaker ones, again, because of their impact on message engagement. So pretty interesting. To summarize, on the use of asking questions, quite a bit of research supporting the idea that using questions in an argument increases perceptions of receptiveness and can boost persuasion under certain conditions, right?

And this seems to operate in part through increased engagement in and processing of the message. So it should be most effective when the message quality is high, but it may also operate through enhanced perceptions of the speaker as receptive to other perspectives and ideas. So those are the four mechanisms that they discuss. So just to sort of sum all this up a little bit, and Hussain are reviewing research suggesting that this diverse set of mechanisms are effective under similar conditions.

And they're making the argument that their effectiveness may be driven by their propensity to increase perceptions of receptiveness, right? They believe that receptiveness can operate either through enhancing perceptions of the speaker or through increasing message engagement. You know, it can't operate through both of those mechanisms.

And one interesting point that they make toward the end of this paper about the enhanced perceptions of the speaker is that the reason that experts seem to benefit most consistently from acts of receptiveness is that they've sort of already established their competence in the relevant domain of the message. And so they have more to gain from improving perceptions of traits related to their warmth, like trustworthiness and and likability. So this is kind of a cool thing.

So we know from past literature that there's this interesting trade -off in people's perceptions of competence versus warmth. If all you know about someone is that they are highly competent, people tend to make the assumption that that person is less warm.

0:34:05 Lindsey: And if all we know about Someone is that they're very high on warmth, people Tend to make The Assumption that that Person is Lower in Competence. So there's This trade -Off that People Make in Those Perceptions. So if Your Competence is Already Established, There is More Room for Growth if You Focus on Demonstrating Your Warmth. So whereas non -experts have more to gain in these persuasive contexts by demonstrating their competence on whatever topic the argument is about, experts have a lot more to game by demonstrating things like their trustworthiness, right, which has independent effects on persuasion.

0:34:05 Thomas: Hmm, man.

0:34:33 Thomas: I have so many thoughts about like gender and you know, like how, yeah, how this plays into that. That's really interesting.

0:34:36 Lindsey: Oh my gosh, yes. I had that thought too, especially with the use of questions. Meant to look into that actually, and I forgot. I wanted to see if there's been research that looks at how persuasion as a function of gender, because I bet that there is a moderating effect there. There, um,

0:34:56 Thomas: Also just the idea that like, I, it sounds like our, our biases as like our stereotypes are the expert is like this cold aloof thingy. And then also society, you know, we socialize women to be more warm and nurturing kind of thing. And so does that play in, I don't know which comes first or whatever, but like, does that play into our bias as a in thinking that women like no less than they do about, you know, expert topics?

0:35:11 Lindsey: I Could see that, yeah. Absolutely, um, so, so women might have to navigate these questions a little, a little bit differently, um, bomber. Yeah, so,

0:35:23 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. God. So like if say a woman's running for president and knows way more about everything than the other candidate, they're gonna have to now, this has ever happened but they're going to have to find a way to appear like kind of warm, but not too warm, because then they'll, you know, they'll think they don't know anything, but then, don't if you're not warm enough, then you're shrill. Yeah, no, okay, a different topic. Yeah.

0:35:40 Lindsey: -huh Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's, uh, I mean, that was one of the - one that is one of the ways in which Elizabeth Warren, I think, is so effective because, yeah, I think that you do have to sort of overcome some of these implicit assumptions about competence with gender. She, boy, she does that very effectively. So anyway, yeah. So in some circumstances, receptiveness might improve perceptions of the speaker and thereby increase persuasion. But in other circumstances, it seems to increase persuasion by increasing message engagement, right? Maybe because the acts of receptivity are surprising in some cases, or they pique curiosity or whatever. And we've talked about that. So that's the bulk of the central case that they lay out in this paper.

The last thing that I thought might be interesting to chat about is they have this section toward the end about how particular characteristics of your audience might change how persuasive acts of receptivity. And talk about all of them. But there were three in particular that I think are worth highlighting with an eye toward these political discussions with family. And it's worth prefacing this by saying that all of these are kind of like future direction type ideas.

So these aren't things that Hussein and Tormala have actually tested. They're just making predictions about how certain individual differences might change perceptions of receptiveness, essentially. Right. So one thing they talk about here is the effect of the initial attitude or position that someone has as a potential moderator here.

So Hussein and Termala predict that receptivity is especially important in persuasion when the audience has a strong opposing view to the speaker's, because it has the potential to reduce how threatening the message is perceived to be, and therefore it might reduce audience defensiveness. So, I mean, that prediction is very consistent with some of the findings we talked about with the two-sided messages and how they are particularly persuasive to people who hold the opposing position very strongly and for morally based reasons.

So I agree that I think it'd be interesting to replicate those effects with the other acts of receptiveness essentially and see if that's true. That's interesting. Here is about moralization, right? So this, this one also, I think, is relevant to that two-sided message study. So the authors predict that when the content of the message invokes issues that are highly moralized for the audience, signals of receptivity are especially important because they communicate the importance that the speaker assigns to the topic,

0:36:01 Thomas: Yeah. Unless It

0:38:14 Lindsey: Which could put the audience more at ease. So the example that occurred to me is like, you know, whether or not one should eat animal products, right? For some people is grounded in a moral question about the ethical treatment of animals. And for others, it's more about whether it's healthy to consume meat.

So if I were to present a pro-meat consumption argument to an audience of folks who consider the consumption of meat to be morally wrong, acknowledging the importance that I place on the well-being of animals might position me better to make persuasive points to that particular audience, against, right?

And it made me think of that when Nick Offerman was interviewed by Ezra Klein, like his, the way that he articulated why he continues to eat meat, I thought was persuasive, given that he was talking to Ezra Klein, who is a vegan, right, moral reasons, right. Anyway, so I, again, I think that that study on two-sided arguments is consistent with this prediction. You know, expanding this to look at the other mechanisms of receptivity is interesting.

All, last one, this is this one is one I find really fascinating, so they talk about a personality trait called tolerance for uncertainty. I think this has come up in our conversations, yet, has it? This

0:39:22 Thomas: Was didn't do we do something on how the both sides, the political spectrum, are are different? Did we actually do you an episode on that, or have we just talked about it? Because, you know, the disgust reaction, I know, is one of them. Was this I feel like this was also one of them, right?

0:39:37 Lindsey: One of them, yeah.

0:39:37 Thomas: Okay. Did we do an episode? I can't remember.

0:39:38 Lindsey: Yeah. I I don't know, like I, I had a vague memory of talking about it, but I don't know if it was in an episode. It

0:39:41 Thomas: Yeah. Maybe we did. Could have been two COVIDs ago. I don't know.

0:39:47 Lindsey: Could be, it could have been in a stream. I don't know, yeah, yeah. So tolerance for uncertainty, people differ in the degree to which they find uncertainty uncomfortable and aversive, or can sort of like sit comfortably with uncertainty and even find it exciting. So Hussein and Tormala say that it is possible that certain signals of receptivity, specifically like expressing doubts and drawbacks and communicating uncertainty, could be persuasive for audiences who are high in tolerance for uncertainty, but maybe uncomfortable and aversive for audiences who are low in tolerance for uncertainty. So you might get a backfire effect for those folks.

And there's no direct evidence on this question yet. So whether or not this is important isn't clear. But I think that whether or not This is a variable that would change the effectiveness of receptivity cues on persuasion is a super important one. Because as you just alluded to, past research suggests that political conservatism is associated with tolerance for uncertainty. And related traits like need for order, intolerance of ambiguity, and low openness to experience. Been a number of papers that have shown that that I'll give links to. So if individual differences in traits like these predict essentially opposite reactions to some of these receptivity cues,

0:39:56 Thomas: Yeah, they do.

0:40:18 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah? Yeah.

0:41:03 Lindsey: It would be pretty important to use that to inform your approach to. Persuasive political messaging. And one thing that we didn't talk about with that two -sided message study was that they did check to see if participants' original attitudes like about being pro or anti gun control mattered in terms of how persuasive they found the one versus two-sided arguments and it did not, right?

0:41:25 Thomas: That's interesting.

0:41:26 Lindsey: So yeah so regardless of whether somebody was pro or anti gun control, the two-sided messages were more persuasive to folks whose views on gun control were strong and morally based so that suggests that two-sided messages are probably a safe strategy to use regardless of the political views of the person you're talking to. But yeah, I've got a strong intuition that things like expression of uncertainty, doubts, expressing downsides could very reasonably backfire if you're talking to someone who's very conservative.

0:41:39 Thomas: Okay. Yeah Yeah, really depends. Yeah. We got to find like a big Venn diagram, you know, for the type of audience and see where all that lands on average, you know, what you should do in the wild just on average, and what you should do when you know who you're talking to. But as we said, just know who you are talking to, it's not, you're not going to convince strangers on the internet. It's just, you know, unless you are that one, like, Swedish prime minister, that if you're listening, wasn't that one of the things on covid? Yeah, the study, was it, yeah, what was it, yeah, something like that Spain oh, Yeah, if you, if you're listening, uh, or Mrs. Prime Minister of Spain, you need to do something different, you need to take into account multiple different kinds of people, however, everybody else know who you're talking to, I

0:41:53 Lindsey: Yeah. Exactly.

0:42:19 Lindsey: Wait, or what? It, yeah, it's the prime minister of Spain, I think, yeah, yep.

0:42:34 Lindsey: Yep, Yep, absolutely, yeah, so, I know, I know, I threaten to run studies all the time, but like, I really seriously consider collecting data on this last week so that we could talk about the results, but I did not have time, um, yeah.

0:42:45 Thomas: Would love for you to follow through, make good on your threat of doing a study.

0:42:48 Lindsey: I I'm Really, it's, it's such a, it's a simple thing to run, um, I think I might do do that, maybe we can do an update.

0:42:54 Thomas: Patreon Goal studies. Honestly we need some funding. Okay. Sponsor a study by Dr. Lindsay Osterman on patreon.com/seriouspod.

0:42:56 Lindsey: Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, for sure, yes. Please, yeah, so that, that concludes today's advice on how to talk to your conservative family members. Good stuff

0:43:11 Thomas: All right. Yeah, there's a lot there. There's a little bit of a lot going on. A lot there, it sounds like a lot of work, so I quit. No, I'm just kidding.

0:43:20 Thomas: I mean, really, if we want to make a difference in the world, and it doesn't sound like we can do so easily, I know we've all got a lot on our plates, but maybe, let me know what you think of this advice. Maybe next family meeting, assuming you still go see your family, you know, whatever, holiday, whatever it might be. Maybe pick kind of one issue to really bone up on and so that you can do these approaches.

0:43:28 Lindsey: Yeah, yeah, Nope.

0:43:48 Thomas: Because it sounds incredibly difficult to have all that. And maybe, you Know, it sounds like not everybody could do this. I don't know that I could do it. But like, maybe that's where to go. Go kind of focus on something, narrow your work a little bit, find the good, you know, the arguments, the counter arguments, and not just straw bot counter arguments as you said, like, got to be real ones. And you know, maybe that's the way to do it, specialize a little bit, and then on other issues you can just kind of recognize that you're not going to convert someone to being AOC in a day, like, just kind to, you know, pick and choose your battles. What do you think about that?

0:44:06 Lindsey: Yeah, No, I think that, I think that that's right, um, yeah, like, uh, what, critical race theory is going to continue to be an issue in upcoming elections, I think. It's, and not, I don't think it takes that much time to really bone up on that topic enough to be able to argue with people.

0:44:38 Thomas: Boy, yeah, How do you do this with stuff that's just made up bullshit, though? Here's

0:44:45 Lindsey: Yeah, well, I mean, I think it's, yeah,

0:44:47 Thomas: A counter argument to me, what if it's not made up, to that I would say, yes, it is made up, you gotta find the evidence though, or something, you gotta, yeah, yeah,

0:44:54 Lindsey: I do. You do, right? So, I mean, you know, the counter arguments, I think, are pretty accessible. We know that a lot, lot of people think that people are being taught in schools that, um, races are better than others, and that's what CRT is, as Tucker Carlson said that, and whatever, um, so, like, it's, it I think it should be pretty easy to, like, you know, bring up counter arguments like that and just be like, well, that's not what it, that's, it's not how race is being discussed in these classes. Yeah.

0:45:26 Thomas: And I don't remember specifically if this was part of the study, but if I'm trying to go into persuasion mode, in my mind, like, just what I think is, it, do you want to try to build that rapport of like, yeah, if I thought my kid was being taught that some races are better, worse than others, I would, I'd be upset too.

0:45:43 Lindsey: Yes.

0:45:43 Thomas: Like, I understand that. Does that, was that part of the study or is that just a general advice thing?

0:45:45 Lindsey: I think that that is relevant to like the two -sided argument thing, right?

0:45:54 Thomas: Okay. But I feel like there's a big, just saying two -sided argument, I think doesn't kind of cover the possibilities there. You know, you could, you Could present the other side in a way that's like, Yeah, yeah, some idiots over here say this fucking dumb shit, or you could, which would be the straw botting kind of thing. But even if you're not straw boting, you could present it in a way that, that like kind of dismisses the concern. Whereas, or you could try really hard to like find a way to relate to the concern and, and validate it.

0:46:11 Lindsey: That's right. Yes, yep. No, I think that's right. I think I think that that's consistent with with the way that they were talking about two-sided messages being effective, right. I think that they're right, that that is establishing receptivity to other views. But I think it also is helping to sort of establish shared ground. The way that you just phrased that is like, yeah, I also would be upset if I believed the thing that you believe about what's happening.

0:46:33 Thomas: Okay. Mm -hmm. Right.

0:46:48 Lindsey: That would that would trouble me. The problem is that's not what's happened. This is this is actually how race is being discussed with kids.

0:46:54 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is, this this is great. I'm excited about this, everybody. If you, I think this will help people possibly make a difference if you want to, but again, it sounds like it's a, it's an undertaking. So, you know, do your, do you're studying if you're going to do it, but yeah, what, what great advice. Thank you.

0:46:58 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was fun.

0:47:13 Thomas: If I were the kind of person who wasn't a patron of patreon.com/seriouspod, I wouldn't understand. No, I messed it up already. How do I do that? Uh, now I'm trying to think, can't apply that one. What are the, what are the new ones we cover? We've got to use the new appeals. Was it asking questions? You want to support good things, right? Don't you out there listening? A good thing is patreon.com/seriouspod. Let's see. What was the other one?

0:47:28 Lindsey: Yeah. Right. Right.

0:47:40 Lindsey: Highlighting drawbacks.

0:47:41 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Drawback is it will take money from your account to do it's not free it does, but upside, that will fund studies that Lindsey Osterman is going to pull off that will help us save the world by, uh, you, you, how to argue better to people, persuade. So you know, downside, yeah, it's uh, it's a tight uh -fisted world out there, inflation got all that going, but like, you know, it's worthwhile, maybe, uh, maybe doing this good of pledging, and patreon.com/seriouspod will help the world in a way that will ultimately make it better for everybody.

0:47:46 Lindsey: Mm -hmm. But the... Exactly. Yeah. Mm -hm.

0:48:17 Lindsey: Yes. Well, I'm sold.

0:48:19 Thomas: Okay, you should become a patron. While I have you. No, just kidding.

0:48:25 Lindsey: Become a patron again, yeah.

0:48:27 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, thank you so much. Thanks for listening, everybody. Thanks to Dr. Lindsay Osterman for the expert breakdown.

0:48:32 Lindsey: Thank you.

0:48:34 Thomas: And we'll see you next time.

0:48:44 Clip: Thank you so much for listening to Serious Inquiries Only. If you like the show, the absolute best thing you can do is support us at patreon.com/seriouspod. The second best thing you can do, is please share it on social media or by word of mouth. Speaking of social media, follow me on Twitter at Serious Pod. If would like to be Facebook friends, send me a request at facebook.com Thomas podcast. If not up for that level of intimacy, that's fine. Maybe you want to join the discussion at facebook.com/groups/SIO members. Thank you again for listening. We'll see you next time.