Change My View? The Dynamics of Persuasion and Polarization in Online Discourse

TL;DR

This study analyzes online debates on Reddit using large language models to identify rhetorical strategies that influence belief change, highlighting the importance of relational framing over purely evidential reasoning.

Contribution

It introduces a hybrid machine-assisted method to code rhetorical strategies and demonstrates their impact on belief revision in online discourse.

Findings

Concession and empathy increase likelihood of belief change.

Refutation and credibility attacks decrease belief change.

Relational framing plays a crucial role in effective reasoning.

Abstract

Philosophical accounts of persuasion often assume that shared evidence and rational argumentation should lead to a convergence of views between peers, yet everyday discourse often suggests otherwise. In this study, we use large language models to analyze a corpus of debates on Reddit's r/ChangeMyView, where belief revision is publicly signaled. Large language models were asked, halfway through each discussion, to forecast whether such an acknowledgement would arise; their probabilistic estimates serve as a conversational baseline. Each reply was then coded, through a hybrid machine-assisted procedure, for ten familiar rhetorical strategies -- concession, empathy, logical challenge, credibility appeals, and so forth. Adding these strategic features markedly improves predictive power and yields a consistent pattern: moves that express concession or empathetic alignment substantially increase the prospect of belief change, whereas frontal refutation, credibility attacks, and topic deflection diminish it. The findings indicate that effective public reasoning depends as much on relational framing as on evidential content, and they invite a refinement of normative accounts of rational dialogue.