Point Taken: A Pilot Study of a Gamified Intervention to Increase Policy Openness and Lower Political Animosity (WP-25-27)
Abdo Elnakouri, Eli Finkel, Elizabeth Tipton, and Steven Franconeri
A dramatic rise in political antipathy has stoked division and distrust in America and around the world, leading to alarming support for extreme positions, such as anti-democratic practices. While cross-partisan dialogue is often proposed as a remedy, many existing interventions yield limited or even counterproductive effects. In this pilot study (N = 38), the researchers explored whether they could find preliminary evidence that a gamified argument mapping intervention—designed to scaffold collaborative reasoning—could foster more constructive engagement across political divides. Participants were paired with someone holding an opposing political view and randomly assigned to either an unstructured discussion or the intervention. Preliminary data suggest that, compared to unstructured discussion, the intervention led to greater understanding of one’s own and the other’s position, increased openness to learning, and more intellectual humility about one’s initial stance. Downstream effects included less antipathy towards those they disagree with about the discussed topics, less antipathy towards political opponents generally, and increased willingness to befriend and be around these opponents. Although highly exploratory and limited by sample size, these findings suggest that structured, game-like formats may help foster more reflective and open political dialogue.