Combatting Conspiratorial Thinking with Controlled Argumentation Dialogue Environments

Abstract

AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic has been associated with an explosion in misinformation, leading to increased interest in methods to combat the failures in critical thinking which make such misinformation so powerful. In combatting misinformation, simply throwing uncontrolled argumentation at the problem is often counter-productive, partially because the means by which people evaluate arguments are highly subject to cognitive biases. Such biases which promote jumping to unwarranted conclusions have been shown to correlate with conspiratorial belief. We consider the use of Controlled Argumentation Dialogue Environments (CADEs) as a means to mitigate cognitive biases which contribute to belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories. We will discuss Warrant Game (WG) and Warrant Game for Analogies (WG-A), CADEs in which two arguers are presented with a divisive issue and two competing positions on that issue. They then compete by iteratively improving warrants for their arguments and attacking those of their opponents. The warrant, when made explicit, makes it easier to determine key features typically associated with argument strength and may reveal hidden assumptions or fundamental reasoning incompatibilities. By presenting an issue and positions which relate to conspiratorial thinking, CADEs may operate as an educational tool for breaking conspiratorial belief into core values and building cognitive skills.