Show empathy to persuade political opponents

Political leaders may please note that arguments based on the opponent's moral principles, rather than one's own, have a much better chance of success.

"Instead of alienating the other side and just repeating your own sense of morality, start thinking about how your political opposition thinks and see if you can frame messages that fit with that thought process," said one of the researchers Matthew Feinberg, professor at the University of Toronto in Canada.

The researchers ran a series of experiments that had participants come up with arguments of their own for someone of the opposite political viewpoint.

A theoretical framework of values was used to define what qualified as a liberal or conservative argument.

The results showed that both groups were extremely poor at developing arguments that would appeal to their political opponents, even when specifically asked to do so.

Worse, some participants in both camps actually attacked the morality of those they had been asked to convince.

"Most people are not very good at appealing to other people's values," Feinberg noted.

Conservatives were more inclined to support universal health care when presented with purity-based arguments that more uninsured people might lead to more disease spread, the findings showed.

Liberals showed an uptick in support for higher military spending, when shown an argument based on the principle that the military and the employment opportunities it provides help to reduce inequality.

The study was published online in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.