Persuasion in Online Conversations Is Associated with Alignment in Expressed Human Values

2026-01-19

AI Summary

This study addresses the unclear mechanisms through which human values influence online persuasion. For the first time, it integrates Schwartz’s refined theory of basic human values into the analysis of online dialogue, leveraging one-on-one discussions from Reddit’s ChangeMyView subreddit. Using natural language processing and conversational sequence analysis, the authors encode participants’ value expressions to examine their role in persuasive outcomes. The findings reveal that successful persuasion depends not only on the initial compatibility of interlocutors’ values but, more critically, on the dynamic alignment of values during the interaction—without requiring the persuader to substantially deviate from their typical expressive patterns. This work elucidates the dual role of values in online persuasion and provides a theoretical foundation for designing social platforms that foster rational discourse.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: Learning Human Values and Preferences
• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Natural Language Processing: Discourse, Pragmatics & Argument Mining

Application Category

• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: The sharing economy
• Responsible Web: Human-perceived consequences of algorithmic deployment on the web
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Metrics for user behavior and evaluating success

Abstract

Online disagreements often fail to produce understanding, instead reinforcing existing positions or escalating conflict. Prior work on predictors of successful persuasion in online discourse has largely focused on surface features such as linguistic style or conversational structure, leaving open the role of underlying principles or concerns that participants bring to an interaction. In this paper, we investigate how the expression and alignment of human values in back-and-forth online discussions relate to persuasion. Using data from Reddit's ChangeMyView subreddit, where successful persuasion is explicitly signaled through the awarding of deltas, we analyze one-on-one exchanges and characterize participants'value expression by drawing from Schwartz's Refined Theory of Basic Human Values. We find that successful persuasion is associated with two complementary processes: pre-existing compatibility between participants'value priorities even before the exchange happens, and the emergence of value alignment over the course of a conversation. At the same time, successful persuasion does not depend on commenters making large departures from their typical value expression patterns. We discuss implications of our findings for the design of online social platforms that aim to support constructive engagement across disagreement.

Problem

• persuasion
• online conversations
• human values
• value alignment
• disagreement

Innovation

• human values
• persuasion
• value alignment
• online discourse
• Schwartz's theory