Olivier Roy (Bayreuth): “Deliberation, Coherent Aggregation, and Anchoring”

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Abstract: In this talk, I will report on results obtained in collaboration with Soroush Rafiee Rad (UvA, Amsterdam), Maher Abou Zeid (Bayreuth), and Sebastian Braun (Bayreuth) regarding some positive and negative effects of group deliberation. In the first part, we will look at what has been called the meta-agreement hypothesis. The hypothesis states that deliberation can help avoid incoherent group preferences by fostering the creation of meta-agreements, which should ensure single-peaked preferences. I will present results that provide qualified support for this hypothesis. More precisely, the results point toward conditions under which deliberation does help avoid intransitive or cyclic group preferences, either in terms of how open-minded the participants are or the number of alternatives they can choose from. In the second part, I will look at one form of path dependence in deliberation, the so-called anchoring effect, which is when the first speakers carry substantially more weight than the others on the final result of deliberation. Our results show that anchoring frequently occurs, in a way that is correlated with the creation of single-peaked profiles, and that its effect is the strongest in comparison with other factors like expertise or the popularity of opinions. I will conclude by reflecting on balancing such positive and negative effects to arrive at a more nuanced view of what deliberation can and cannot achieve.

Olivier Roy is Chair of Philosophy and Head of Department at the University of Bayreuth.