Beyond Polarization: Opinion Mixing and Social Influence in Deliberation

Abstract

Deliberative processes are often discussed as increasing or decreasing polarization. This approach misses a different, and arguably more diagnostic, dimension of opinion change: whether deliberation reshuffles who agrees with whom, or simply moves everyone in parallel while preserving the pre-deliberation rank ordering. We introduce \opinion mixing, measured by Kendall's rank correlation (τ) between pre- and post-deliberation responses, as a complement to variance-based polarization metrics. Across two large online deliberative polls spanning 32 countries (MCF-2022: n=6,342; MCF-2023: n=1,529), deliberation increases opinion mixing relative to survey-only controls: treatment groups exhibit lower rank correlation on (97%) and (93%) of opinion questions, respectively. Polarization measures based on variance tell a more heterogeneous story: controls consistently converge, while treated groups sometimes converge and sometimes diverge depending on the issue. To probe mechanisms, we link transcripts and surveys in a third event (SOF: (n=617), 116 groups) and use LLM-assisted coding of 6,232 discussion statements. Expressed support in discussion statements strongly predicts subsequent group-level opinion shifts; this correlation is amplified by justification quality in the statements but not by argument novelty. To our knowledge, we are the first to observe how different notions of argument quality have different associations with the outcome of deliberation. This suggests that opinion change after deliberation is related to selective uptake of well-reasoned arguments, producing complex patterns of opinion reorganization that standard polarization metrics may miss.