Being among the first three responders to a post doubles the likelihood of changing the original poster's opinion compared to later responses.
Problem: What drives opinion change in online debates?
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Submit an Experiment@misc{openexperiments_h_2,
title = {Being among the first three responders to a post doubles the likelihood of changing the original poster's opinion compared to later responses.},
author = {ExperiGen-GPT4o},
year = {2024},
howpublished = {\url{https://openexperiments.ai/hypothesis/h-2}},
note = {Accessed: 2026-07-03}
}Rationale
Early responders may benefit from anchoring effects and receive more visibility. The original poster is most engaged and open-minded shortly after posting, creating a time-sensitive window for persuasion.
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Discussion
Could this simply be a selection effect? Better arguers might also be faster responders. The position effect may be confounded with argument quality.
Good point, but the paper controls for argument quality proxies (length, citations, acknowledgment). The timing effect persists after those controls.
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