For centuries, political debate has helped voters gain a better understanding of candidates and their policies. However, debates in today’s highly polarized political climate have been criticized for not having a significant impact on the electorate. In fact, a new study reveals that Americans have a false perception about the frequency of political debates, especially online conversations with strangers, and that this misperception has psychological costs that may undermine their hope for the future.
The study used a naturalistic conversational approach and a unique method for constructing treatment variables that independently influence respondents’ responses. It found that providing evidence-based counterarguments, signaling a willingness to compromise, and being respectful all increase the likelihood that respondents reply with a high quality open-text response, regardless of whether they are responding to a negative or positive argument about their favorite issue.
While the study was conducted using the Canal 9 Corpus, it could be replicated with other conversational data sets, including any dataset where the number of speakers is known and a neutral moderator is present. To make the analysis easier, it was assumed that all dialogues were held in one group and that all participants were members of that group and spoke to a single moderator. This simplified the analysis to focus on only a few factors that affect how people respond to debates.
The CPD selects sites and dates for the general election presidential debates in advance of each election cycle, based on an evaluation process that considers early voting, religious and federal holidays, White House television pool contractual conflicts, and state ballot deadlines. In addition, CPD staff work closely with potential debate sites to ensure that the debates can take place in facilities that meet stringent security and technical standards.
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