An effective way to persuade people in politics is to reframe arguments to appeal to the moral values of those holding opposing positions, according to a new research by Stanford sociologist Robb Willer.
While most people's natural inclination is to make political arguments grounded in their own moral values, Willer said, these arguments are less persuasive than “reframed” moral arguments, reported Clifton B Parker of the Stanford News Service.
To be persuasive, reframe political arguments to appeal to the moral values of those holding the opposing political positions, said Matthew Feinberg, assistant professor of organisational behaviour at the University of Toronto, who co-authored the study with Willer. Their work was published recently online in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
Such reframed moral appeals are persuasive because they increase the apparent agreement between a political position and the target audience's moral values, according to the research, Feinberg said.
Willer pointed out, the research shows a “potential effective path for building popular support in our highly polarised political world.”
Creating bipartisan success on legislative issues – whether in Congress or in state legislatures – requires such a sophisticated approach to building coalitions among groups not always in agreement with each other, he added.