1 trick gets Americans out of their political box

It might be possible to get American voters to adopt less polarized political views, at least momentarily, according to new research.

Posing as political researchers, a research team approached 136 voters at the first Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton presidential debate in New York. They asked participants to compare Trump and Clinton on various leadership traits (such as courage, vision, and analytic skills) by putting an X on a sliding scale.

Using a simple magic trick, the researchers then covertly manipulated the results (by substituting one completed survey sheet for another) so that most of the survey answers appeared moderate, closer to the midpoint between Trump and Clinton. They then presented these more moderate responses to the participants as being their own answers.

Figure A shows 3 categories (Visionary, Courageous, and Diplomatic), with a spectrum between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton (with their images on either side of the specturms). In Figure A, three X's mark the answers from the respondent, with all three being closer to Clinton's side of the spectrum. In Figure B, all three X's sit near the center of the spectrums. — Using sleight of hand, researchers substituted one score card for another in a survey about the qualities of US presidential candidates. The substituted card was then presented to participants as their own. In the case of 94% of people surveyed, they were ready to accept the more moderate (manipulated) position as their initial one. Figure A shows the initial response of the person surveyed. Figure B shows their manipulated response, which most people surveyed accepted as being their own original response.

Surprisingly, 94% of the respondents accepted the manipulated responses as being their own answers and readily justified the moderate views. For example, one participant who initially heavily favored Trump claimed, “I guess I fall somewhere in the middle—I’d like to think I’m a little moderate. I think at this point it’s important to be open-minded”—even though they had reported more polarized views moments earlier.

The researchers then replicated this study online with nearly 500 participants and found no difference in the results between Clinton and Trump supporters.

The majority of the participants were again susceptible to the manipulation and rationalized their ostensibly moderate responses. Afterwards, to ensure that it did not affect the participants’ attitudes in the longer term, the researchers debriefed them and explained the manipulation.

“Political surveys try to capture the attitudes of the public, but our study demonstrates that these can be heavily manipulated,” says coauthor Jay Olson, a doctoral researcher in the psychiatry department at McGill University.

“By making people believe that they wrote down different responses moments earlier, we were able to make them endorse and express less polarized political views. These results offer hope in a divided political climate: even polarized people can become—at least momentarily—open to opposing views.”

The paper appears in PLOS ONE.

Source: McGill University