Political polarisation and misinformation have become serious threats to social cohesion, making it harder than ever to “reach across the aisle” to people with different opinions. What solutions are there to this crisis of argumentation? SCOOP PhD researcher Jonas Stein is studying how we can find consensus despite disagreement, tackling ideological misinformation online, and mutually beneficial decision making.
Diversity and decision making
Reaching agreement can be difficult in today’s society, especially when we are navigating a diverse range of backgrounds and perspectives. Organisations, political parties, and social groups have a tendency towards group-think, and avoiding opinions that are different to their own. ‘Previously, diversity in groups has been described in the research as a “double edged sword,”’ according to Jonas. ‘A greater diversity of ideas means there’s more chance that someone knows the answer to a difficult question, but identity diversity can sometimes make it challenging for people to listen to each other. This is why we need to find ways to harness openness and curiosity when we interact with those who are different from ourselves, rather than only engaging with those we already agree with.’
‘A greater diversity of ideas means there’s more chance that someone knows the answer to a difficult question, but identity diversity can sometimes make it challenging for people to listen to each other.'
Roadmaps for concensus
Making decisions can be challenging amongst groups with competing interests. And the kinds of arguments people make impacts the final decision a group takes. ‘In my computer simulations, I looked at two different argumentation styles,’ Jonas says. ‘The first argumentation style I call the “advocate”. These are people who try to convince others based on what’s best for themselves; and the second is the “diplomat”.’
When diplomats meet someone who strongly disagrees with them, they don’t argue for their preferred course of action. Instead, they raise arguments for the second best alternative, because they anticipate that their preferred option will be rejected by those with competing interests. ‘What I observed was in groups of diplomats, people received so many arguments for the second best option that they became convinced that this was actually the best choice for themselves.’ And what about situations where competing interests are so divergent that no one can reach consensus? ‘Sometimes it’s better to agree to disagree,’ Jonas says, and find more cooperative interaction partners elsewhere.
Cold, hard facts
Social media is often seen as exacerbating the spread of misinformation. Jonas has researched the potential of user-based fact checking as a way to address the problem of fake news. Fact-checking ‘has potential in principle, but it only works well if online social networks aren’t ideologically segregated.’ In an online experiment, Jonas looked at user-based fact checking in real time, studying how participants of his study rated information as true or false while they were exposed to the ratings of others before them. He found that ideological biases tend to cancel each other out in networks where users frequently interact with people across ideological camps. However, ‘in ideologically segregated environments, truth ratings can backfire and nudge people in the direction of thinking something is true when it’s false.’ What solutions are there, then? ‘Social media platforms need to try to desegregate their network structures with algorithms that expose users to content from people with different standpoints… but whether this is a good business model I can’t say.’
You can learn more about Jonas’ research here, or attend the public defense of his dissertation at the University of Groningen, January 26, 2026 at 4:15pm.
