Take a look at the comments
section on your favorite news website.
Some topics generate a lot of discussion among participants. Other topics may be widely read, but people
don’t feel compelled to say anything.
What drives people’s desire to talk about a topic?
Obviously, the topic of the story
matters a lot. Some stories may be
interesting, but people don’t care enough about them to want to register their
opinion. A story about an ongoing
drought, for example, might get a lot of readers, but people might not feel
compelled to express their views. Other
topics generate a lot of excitement, but there is little diversity of
opinion. When the local sports team wins
a game, people might be thrilled, but everyone agrees the victory was
wonderful, and so there is little to spur continued discussion.
But, some topics generate
controversy. The topic generates
passion, but people differ in their opinions.
In this case, there is ample room for continued conversation. You might think that the more controversial
the topic, the more discussion it generates.
A paper in the October, 2013
issue of the Journal of Consumer Research by Zoey Chen and Jonah Berger examines
the way that controversial topics affect people’s willingness to talk about
them. As they point out, controversy has
two effects. On the one hand, the energy
that a controversial topic creates spurs people to want to talk about it. On the other hand, as a topic gets more
controversial, it also leads to increasing discomfort in talking about it. After all, when a topic is highly
controversial, it can lead to difficult conversations.
To demonstrate this dual impact
of controversial topics, the researchers first examined all of the threads that
were listed on the website Topix.com over a two-day period in 2011. Independent raters looked at each topic and
rated how controversial it was. There
was reasonable agreement between the raters.
Then, they counted the number of comments given to each article. Articles that were not controversial at all
had few comments. Those that were
moderately controversial had more comments on average than those with few
comments. Interestingly, the articles on
the most controversial topics had fewer comments on average than those that
were moderately controversial. This
observation is consistent with the idea that highly controversial topics create
discomfort, which makes people less willing to talk about them.
Next, the researchers performed a
series of laboratory experiments. In one
study, participants picked a topic and then listed three subtopics related to
it that varied in their level of controversy.
They were asked to imagine that they had to have a conversation with
someone on-line about this topic. Some
people were told that the hypothetical conversation would be anonymous, while
other people were told that they would have to disclose their identity during
the conversation. They rated how likely
they were to have a conversation on the topic and also how comfortable they
would be to have the conversation.
When people thought that the
conversation would be anonymous, they were most interested in engaging in
conversations when the topic was moderately controversial than when it was
either not very controversial or highly controversial. When people were told that their conversation
partner would know who they were, then they were most willing to talk about
non-controversial topics, and less interested in talking about more
controversial topics. This pattern
reflected people’s level of discomfort.
As the topic got more controversial, people rated themselves as being
more uncomfortable talking about it.
One final lab study examined how
the relationship between the conversation partners affected the willingness to
discuss the topic. This study found that
when people were going to talk about a topic with a close friend, then they
were actually more willing to talk about highly controversial topics than less
controversial topics.
Why does this matter?
Conversation on controversial
topics really matters. An important
impact of conversation is that it actually makes conversation partners more
similar to each other following the discussion.
This happens, because when you discuss a topic with someone, you have to
understand and represent their point of view before you respond to it. You have to synchronize your world view with
the other person in order to talk to them.
Ultimately, these conversations help people who have different views to
really comprehend how people could believe something that is different from
their own perspective. These
conversations can actually help to moderate people’s most extreme opinions.
If people are not willing to have
difficult conversations, then it can lead to increasing polarization of
beliefs. This is particularly true when
people enter an echo chamber and only controversial topics with people that
they agree with.
If we want people to engage in
conversations about controversial topics, then, it is important to find ways to
reduce people’s discomfort with the topics.
Increasing social distance between people by keeping conversations
anonymous is one way to do that. Perhaps
by promoting these conversations, we can start broader explorations of the
topics that are most polarizing and create more understanding among
people.
