The findings describe meaningful levels of mutual understanding across three contentious topics in the early 2020s UK. Participants who produced arguments that opponents accepted were also more likely to view opponents as reasonable people rather than ignorant or immoral. That link between accurate perspective-taking and reduced dehumanizing judgments suggests a practical pathway from communication to calmer civic exchange. The method itself offers a way to study openness that does not rely on self-praise or survey bias.
For anyone interested in human potential, this approach points to skills that can be taught and measured: the ability to represent someone else’s reasoning in a way they recognize. That has implications for education, workplace training, and community dialogue programs that aim to widen understanding across difference. Read the full article to see which topics were tested and how these behavioral measures might scale into tools for more inclusive public conversation.
Abstract
Understanding our ideological opponents is crucial for the effective exchange of arguments and the avoidance of escalation, and the reduction of conflict. We operationalize the idea of an “Ideological Turing Test” to measure the accuracy with which people represent the arguments of their ideological opponents. Crucially, this offers a behavioral measure of open-mindedness which goes beyond mere self-report. We recruited 200 participants from opposite sides of three topics with potential for polarization in the UK of the early 2020s (1200 participants total). Participants were asked to provide reasons both for and against their position. Their reasons were then rated by participants from the opposite side. Our criteria for “passing” the test was if an argument was agreed with by opponents to the same extent or higher than arguments made by proponents. We found evidence for high levels of mutual understanding across all three topics. We also found that those who passed were more open-minded toward their opponents, in that they were less likely to rate them as ignorant, immoral, or irrational. Our method provides a behavioral measure of open-mindedness and ability to mimic counterpartisan perspectives that goes beyond self-report measures. Our results offer encouragement that, even in highly polarized debates, high levels of mutual understanding persist.