Deepening, Bridging, and Moving Minds in Stressful Times

Abstract This article focuses on the effects of different communication modes – ‘contestatory’, ‘collaborative’, and ‘open’ (and two control groups – ‘information-only’ and a ‘placebo’ group) on reasoning and opinion formation in the context of conflictive collective decision problems. Focusing on two population-based survey experiments in Germany and Austria on the prioritization of health or freedom (Germany) and the introduction of mandatory vaccination (Austria) in the COVID-19 crisis, we find an important trade-off: while a contestatory and open mode enhances in-depth reasoning, a collaborative mode promotes constructive thinking. Regarding opinion formation, we find that when societal polarization is not extreme, communication modes do not matter for opinion (de-)polarization; here, the exposure to information is all that is needed to move minds. In highly polarized situations, however, open communication is the only way to communicatively reach out to people. Our results contradict both advocates of a contestatory and collaborative renewal of public discourse.