Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts

Abstract

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

Social cognitive processes explain bias in juror decisions

“…We found that increased social cognitive processing was dependent on the presence of bodily harm. Consistent with that finding, recent work has shown that attempts to bridge individuals with disparate beliefs are more likely to succeed when they include stories that relate personal experiences of harm (Kubin et al, 2021). More broadly, others have noted the overlap of brain regions involved in narrative and social cognition (Yuan et al, 2018).…”

The role of (social) media in political polarization: a systematic review

“…Some suggest social media (Valenzuela et al, 2019) and traditional media (Udani et al, 2018) have no effect on political polarization. While others suggest in certain circumstances, political information can actually have a depolarizing effect on viewers (Beam et al, 2018;Kubin et al, 2021;Wojcieszak et al, 2020). These mixed results highlight our understanding of when and why media exacerbates polarization is murky, pointing to the need for assessment of the literature.…”

Stories as evidence

“…It is now more readily recognised in the literature that stories often aim to persuade in the context of debating controversial issues and are generally successful at doing so precisely because they do not have a traditional argumentative structure (Kubin et al 2021):…”