Political debate is central to our democratic societies and a key component of the electoral process. It can be a powerful force to promote understanding, compromise, and agreement on complex policy issues. Debate can also be a valuable tool for teaching civics and citizenship skills, such as listening to other perspectives and understanding the nuances of political arguments.
A variety of institutions stage political debates, including public broadcasters, bona fide newspapers and magazines, and tax-exempt nonprofit organizations that do not endorse or support candidates or parties. Typically, the moderator of a political debate controls the flow of questions and answers, and each candidate is given equal time to respond to each question. A debate’s format may differ slightly from one institution to the next, but it is typically structured in a way that prevents the appearance of bias.
Research shows that people most often engage in political debate with their close friends and family members, in addition to coworkers and acquaintances. In fact, most people report positive feelings after engaging in debate and feel they learned something new as a result of the conversation.
In our studies, we asked participants to think of a debate topic they had participated in or witnessed over the past year. The most common topics included reproductive rights and vaccines, aligning with recent news coverage around COVID-19 boosters and overturning Roe v. Wade.
We manipulated the structure of online political debates to test how different elements of conversation affect respondents’ responses. Results show that providing evidence-based counterarguments (as opposed to emotion-based ones), signaling a willingness to compromise, and being respectful independently increase the probability of a respondent providing a high-quality open-text response to a debate question.