Women, the intellectually humble, and liberals write more persuasive political arguments

Abstract

If sincere attempts at political persuasion are central to the functioning of democracy, then what attributes of individuals make them more persuasive toward fellow citizens? To examine this we asked 594 Democrats and Republicans to write politically persuasive arguments on any topic of their choice, then gave those arguments to a US representative sample of 3,131 to rate on persuasiveness, totaling 54,686 judgments. We consistently found that arguments written by women, liberals, the intellectually humble, and those low on party identification were rated as more persuasive. These patterns were robust to controls for the demographics and partisanship of judges and persuaders, the topics written about, argument length, and the emotional sentiments of the arguments. Women’s superior persuasiveness was partially, but not fully, explained by the fact that their arguments were longer, of a higher grade level, and expressed less dominance than men’s. Intergroup dynamics also affected persuasiveness, as arguments written for in-party members were more persuasive than ones written for out-party members. These findings suggest that an individual's personal and psychological characteristics durably provide them with a persuasive advantage when they engage in sincere attempts at changing the hearts and minds of fellow citizens.