Taking and Getting Perspectives on Controversial Topics: How Does It Change Attitudes and Affect Learning?

Scenarios of argumentative knowledge construction often challenge learners to argue for perspectives dissonant to their own and are geared to prepare learners for debating divisive topics on text-based social media.Perspective-related approaches that aim to evoke empathy for the other side of the debate have a potential impact on learning and on attitudes in such scenarios.With this 2×2-study (N = 421), we investigate the near and far-transfer impact and interaction of perspective-getting (with vs. without) and perspective-taking (with vs. without), in a text-based medium, on subjective learning gains, argument elaboration, attitude change, speciesism value, health and environmental beliefs, as well as attitudes towards outgroups and towards other eating habits.Results show significant main effects of perspective-taking for attitude change, self-reported learning, and argument elaboration.No effect of perspectivegetting or interaction effects were found. Controversial topics and attitude change in educationSocio-scientific topics of interest are often controversial and society tends to be divided on them (Kauppi & Drerup, 2021).Present days' controversies are, for instance, the need for vaccination, climate change, use of nuclear power, the right to abortion, immigration policies, or vegetarian eating habitsthe topic of the study at hand.These rich debates find a place in informal as well as in formal civic education, i.e., in school curricula within deliberative democracies (Hess & McAvoy, 2014;Oulton et al., 2004).Argumentation practices have been found to not only facilitate comprehension, but also promote epistemic growth, conceptual change, and attitude development on these debates (Chinn et al., 2021;Valladares, 2022;Vosniadou, 2012).Promoting argumentation around controversial topics can be relevant for fighting misinformation, avoiding oversimplification of complex issues, and promoting an open frame of mind that allows for productive outcomes from debating them.In persuasive domains, some strategies have been devised for changing strong attitudes.Dual-mode processing models of persuasion propose that the receivers of a persuasive message process information in differently engaged ways (Chaiken, 1980;Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).However, research done in the context of strong attitudes has shown that interventions aiming at attitudinal change have often limited impact or are shortlived (Paluck et al., 2021).Recently, there is evidence showing the efficacy of deep canvassing and certain perspective-related narratives in facilitating attitude change with a more durable impact (Kalla & Broockman, 2021).