The law of group polarization revisited: Using transcripts from a deliberative poll to examine the influence of imbalance in the argument pool

Abstract

Amid the ‘deliberative wave,’ where governments and societies make decisions with deliberative citizen forums, critics have worried that deliberation will predictably produce movements toward extremity based on imbalances of the argument pool produced by imbalances in group composition. While it is true in social psychology, deliberative democracy literature has become deviated. This study examines this ‘law of group polarization’ by categorizing the arguments employed by deliberators from transcripts from an online public deliberation for young adults in the United States. A multi-level logistic regression mediation model on 453 group−issue combinations shows that the group composition did not predict imbalances in the argument pool or group polarization. Less than half of the group−issue combinations exhibited group polarization. This study concluded that the law of group polarization is not an inevitable problem if deliberation follows a deliberative democracy framework.