Persuasion or Co-creation? Social Identity Threat and the Mechanisms of Deliberative Transformation

Abstract

Deliberation’s effectiveness as a method of problem solving and democratic decision making is often seen as stemming from the persuasive power of the “forceless force” of argument to transform beliefs. However, because conflicts related to partisan polarization, conspiracy theories, and the COVID-19 pandemic often have deep connections to social identity, they may be difficult to resolve through a deliberative approach based on persuasion. Research shows that when the conclusions of an argument threaten participants’ social identities they are likely to engage in motivated reasoning, which inhibits the ability of any argument to induce belief change. In conflicts closely related to social identity a deliberative approach based around co-creation — such as Mary Parker Follett’s conception of integration — may be more productive than persuasion-based approaches. The contrast between these two approaches is illustrated in reference to contemporary conflicts between vaccine advocates and members of the “vaccine hesitancy and refusal” (VHR) community.

Democratic education and the epistemic quality of democratic deliberation

“…Under these circumstances, philosophers and political scientists have started to doubt the epistemic value of democracy, and some have arrived at the view that in many cases political participation renders people irrational and biased (Brennan, 2016: 7–8; Brown, 2018: 195). These insights have been supported by recent findings in cognitive and political science, which demonstrate that the deliberative view of citizens as epistemic agents does not correspond with the empirical evidence concerning citizens’ political behaviour or the formation of their political views (Benson, 2021: 8262; Wright, 2022: 25).…”

“…Chinn et al, 2021). In fact, it has been argued that public ignorance is often linked to the social and psychological mechanisms exhibited by citizens and has less to do with the behaviour of scientists or the nature of scientific research as such (Wright, 2022: 28). Therefore, I address the issue of motivated reasoning next.…”

“…For example, people seek out, uncritically accept, and remember evidence that allows them to maintain their previously held beliefs and tend to be critical towards and avoid counterevidence to these initial beliefs. This tendency of humans is typically referred to as motivated reasoning (Baghramian and Croce, 2021: 453; Wright, 2022: 26) or confirmation bias (Gunn, 2021: 196).…”

“…Based on this examination, my aim is to understand how democratic education could better contribute to the epistemic quality of public deliberation by taking into consideration citizens’ potential delimitations as epistemic agents, and the challenges that deliberation among lay citizens may face in contemporary democracies and concerning complex political problems. I particularly focus on two issues: first, the increasing public distrust in scientific experts , which jeopardizes the epistemic quality of public deliberation (Baghramian and Croce, 2021; Kabat, 2017), and second, motivated reasoning (Kahan, 2013; Wright, 2022) as a social and psychological mechanism that delimits citizens’ capabilities for reasoned belief-formation.…”

“…I suggest that such trust can be fostered by offering students a realistic understanding of the nature of scientific research and providing them with adequate criteria for recognizing trustworthy experts. Second, I suggest that integrative negotiation – a negotiative strategy recently discussed in the context of deliberative democratic theory (see Warren and Mansbridge et al, 2013; Wright, 2022) – could offer a promising approach for educating students to recognize and better cope with forms of motivated reasoning in themselves and in others. Moreover, I will examine the repercussions of these pedagogical approaches to the development of students’ rational autonomy.…”