Evaluating
Posts that explicitly acknowledge uncertainty in their own position are perceived as more credible and are more effective at changing minds.
persuasion
Source hidden during evaluationJan 25, 2025
Problem: What drives opinion change in online debates?
Are you a Social Scientist or Experimenter?
Submit an ExperimentBibTeX Citation
@misc{openexperiments_h_11,
title = {Posts that explicitly acknowledge uncertainty in their own position are perceived as more credible and are more effective at changing minds.},
author = {OpenExperiments User(s)},
year = {2025},
howpublished = {\url{https://openexperiments.ai/hypothesis/h-11}},
note = {Accessed: 2026-07-03}
}Rationale
Expressing uncertainty signals intellectual honesty and makes the arguer appear less dogmatic. Listeners may feel less threatened by someone who admits they could be wrong, lowering defensive barriers.
This hypothesis is currently live. Evidence, scores, and source identity will be revealed once evaluation completes.
Discussion
No comments yet.
to join the discussion
Related & Bibliography
Similar Ideas
Bibliography
No citations added yet.
If you see this idea in recent arXiv papers, add a link:
Only arXiv URLs (https://arxiv.org/abs/...) or DOIs (10.xxxx/...) are accepted.