Divergent Paths to Depolarization: Dialogue Design Shapes the Intergroup Attitudinal Effects of AI-Assisted Political Argumentation

Abstract

Structured argumentative dialogues where interlocutors deliberate on opposing political ideas are known to promote perspective-taking and reduce political polarization, but finding willing partners is difficult as Americans increasingly shun political discussions. AI dialogue partners offer a scalable framework for such open-mindedness exercises, but how the format of human-AI dialogues shapes their benefits remains unclear. This study seeks to fill the gap with a preregistered two-session online experiment with 527 US participants. As the primary experimental manipulation, participants were assigned to argue either for or against their pre-existing attitude on a contested political issue, engaging either with an AI chatbot or a solitary essay task. The AI conditions further varied in the chatbot's interaction style (adversarial or collaborative) and the presence of an additional financial incentive. The results show that attitude-congruent dialogues more strongly reduced polarization than attitude-incongruent dialogues immediately after the exchange. By contrast, an exploratory analysis suggested a delayed increase in cognitive empathy following attitude-incongruent dialogues, a pattern consistent with the account of sleeper effects. While the conversation style had little influence on the effects of attitude-congruent dialogues, a collaborative discussion tended to make attitude-incongruent dialogues more effective, narrowing the immediate effect gap. Additional financial incentives did not alter outcomes. Given the heterogeneity, the AI conditions were not universally more effective forming favorable intergroup attitudes in pooled comparisons between AI and non-AI conditions. The findings caution against a simplistic view of AI dialogues as a silver bullet for depolarization and highlight dialogue design as a key determinant of effective AI-mediated attitudinal interventions.