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Conversational receptiveness: Improving engagement with opposing views

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Title: Conversational receptiveness: Improving engagement with opposing views
Authors: Yeomans, M
Minson, J
Collins, H
Chen, F
Gino, F
Item Type: Journal Article
Abstract: We examine “conversational receptiveness” – the use of language to communicate one’s willingness to thoughtfully engage with opposing views. We develop an interpretable machine-learning algorithm to identify the linguistic profile of receptiveness (Studies 1A-B). We then show that in contentious policy discussions, government executives who were rated as more receptive - according to our algorithm and their partners, but not their own self-evaluations - were considered better teammates, advisors, and workplace representatives (Study 2). Furthermore, using field data from a setting where conflict management is endemic to productivity, we show that conversational receptiveness at the beginning of a conversation forestalls conflict escalation at the end. Specifically, Wikipedia editors who write more receptive posts are less prone to receiving personal attacks from disagreeing editors (Study 3). We develop a “receptiveness recipe” intervention based on our algorithm. We find that writers who follow the recipe are seen as more desirable partners for future collaboration and their messages are seen as more persuasive (Study 4). Overall, we find that conversational receptiveness is reliably measurable, has meaningful relational consequences, and can be substantially improved using our intervention (183 words).
Issue Date: Sep-2020
Date of Acceptance: 27-Mar-2020
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/85402
DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2020.03.011
ISSN: 0749-5978
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Start Page: 131
End Page: 148
Journal / Book Title: Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
Volume: 160
Copyright Statement: © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This manuscript is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Keywords: Social Psychology
15 Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services
17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences
Publication Status: Published
Online Publication Date: 2020-05-01
Appears in Collections:Imperial College Business School



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