ChangeMyView: Unpacking the Complex Emotional, Cognitive, and Communicator-Related Processes Underlying Persuasion

Persuasion is shaped by complex emotional triggers, cognitive reasoning, and communicator-related characteristics. However, theories of persuasion have often examined different features of persuasive communication in controlled research settings, resulting in questions about how these characteristics exist within naturally occurring persuasive messages. This study addresses this gap by examining theoretically relevant linguistic characteristics associated with successful persuasion using r/ChangeMyView , an online debate forum where users attempt to change others’ views on any topic, and posts resulting in successful persuasion are marked. In Study 1, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count was used to analyze n = 9020 r/ChangeMyView posts from 2013 to 2018. Principal component analyses identified three broad linguistic dimensions reflecting cognitive reasoning, emotional expression, and authentic communication style. These components were then entered into a multilevel logistic regression analysis, revealing that greater scores on the cognitive reasoning dimension were associated with lower persuasive likelihood, whereas emotional expression and authentic communication were not significantly associated with persuasion. Study 2 analyzed 51,394 posts from 2019 to 2023 and identified a similar three-component structure, demonstrating consistency in how the selected linguistic characteristics grouped across samples. Cognitive reasoning again predicted lower persuasive likelihood, while greater emotional expression predicted lower persuasive likelihood and authentic communication predicted greater persuasive likelihood. The results suggest that naturally occurring persuasive language organizes into reproducible but nuanced dimensions, and that multiple forms of linguistic information contribute to persuasive messaging. Overall, the findings provide naturalistic evidence relevant to theoretical accounts that conceptualize persuasion as involving multiple, potentially overlapping forms of information processing.