Using Deliberation to Reduce Polarization and Build Consensus: An Experiment Study

20 Mar 2023 (Mon)

Dr. Shen Fei presented a "Using Deliberation to Reduce Polarization and Build Consensus: An Experiment Study" seminar on 20 March 2023. He introduced his latest pilot project on public policy research (PPR). The study results showed that after discussion, issue attitudes and issue polarization remained essentially unchanged, people's attitudes toward other people with opposing views became more favorable, and affective polarization decreased. In the follow-up experiments, Dr. Shen Fei compared the results of deliberation v.s. discussion comparison, online vs. face-to-face communication comparison, and opinion environment comparison in public deliberation. The seminar aroused a heated discussion among participants. More than thirty faculty members and students attended the seminar.