OPIDPOLA:
Offensiveness, inverse planning and the «concrete/abstract» dissonance. New proxies for measuring affective polarization.

The aim of this project is to study the relationship between offensiveness and polarization. In polarized contexts, or in contexts where polarization is increasing, our perception of the offensiveness of language varies. It is common to think of these contexts as contexts in which we express ourselves more violently towards the opposing side, using pejorative vocabulary of different kinds. It is novel, however, to systematically connect, as we do here, our perception of the offensiveness with the level of polarization. Our project also takes a novel approach to this phenomenon related to the perception of offensiveness: instead of focusing on the social or political analysis of polarization here we focus on one of the basic cognitive mechanisms involved in this phenomenon, which we will model using the paradigm of inverse planning.

Hyphotesis.

Hyphotesis 1.

The first hypothesis of this project is that both a) the distance between the level of perceived offensiveness when the same sentence is uttered by somebody from our own group versus when it is uttered by someone from the opposite group, and b) the role that abstract-concrete dissonance plays in our perceptions of offensiveness, are associated with polarized contexts and serve as proxies, as reliable proxy indicators, for measuring affective polarization.

Justification of hypothesis 1.

A rough example for a) is the following. If at time t1 the statement p is perceived as a 3 -on a scale from 1 to 7, where 1 is not at all offensive and 7 totally offensive- when made by our group and as a 4 when made by the other group, and at a later time t2 the same statement p is perceived as a 2 when made by our group and as a 4.5 when made by the other group, then at t2 the level of affective polarization is higher than at t1.

In the case of b), the abstract-concrete dissonance has to do with the fact that the abstract principles claimed to be held regarding offensiveness are not, in fact, those that actually modulate our perceptions of offensiveness in cases where the general principle would clearly be involved. In previous studies (Almagro, Hannikainen & Villanueva, 2021; in press), it has been observed that speaker identity is the most important factor guiding concrete judgments of offensiveness, followed by intention and harm. However, when asked in abstract terms about the relevance of these factors, participants indicated intention as the most important one, and identity as the least relevant for considering the same statement as offensive or not.

A rough example for b) is the following. If at t1 the distance between the effect of a certain principle on our concrete judgements and our perception of the importance of that principle in our judgements is, for example, two points, and at t2 the distance is 4 points, then at t2 the level of affective polarization is higher than at t1.

Polarization has to do with having a high confidence in the core ideas of our preferred political group, but we usually do not fully understand what those ideas entail (Funkhouser, 2020; Ganapini, 2021; Williams, 2021), or we do not have enough information to be ascribed such beliefs (Hannon, 2021). In this sense, our increased confidence in the truth of an abstract idea, central to our group (affective polarization), does not materialize in our concrete judgements in specific situations; with our statements we simply express unconditional support for our group, we show that we perceive whatever the other group does as more offensive, but we do not possess sufficient stability to be ascribed the beliefs expressed by our statements.

Hyphotesis 2.

The second hypothesis of the project is that attribution of intent mediates our perceptions of offensiveness, especially when they depend on the speaker’s identity, and this can be modeled by using the model of inverse planning. 

Justification of hypothesis 2.

To formalize this hypothesis, we draw on important advances in cognitive science, which link the understanding of other people’s behavior to a mental ‘inversion’ of the process of planning one’s own actions (or ‘inverse planning’). This computational framework, inspired by the Bayesian reasoning model, stipulates that we infer intention or other underlying mental states as the goal of an agent by virtue of its observed actions and the environment or context in which it performs them (Baker, Saxe & Tenenbaum, 2009; Riordan et al., 2011). Specifically, it assesses whether the observed action is approximately rational (or likely) in that specific context under different assumptions about the agent’s mental state. The idea is that explaining an agent’s actions in terms of mental states requires reversing the model by which similar actions are planned: proceeding backwards to infer the desires, beliefs and intentions that causally explain the agent’s behaviour.

We transfer this model, whose application to motor behavior interpretation tasks has already been successful, to our domain of interest: language interpretation. Except in exceptional cases where the intention is unambiguous (e.g. insults…), in most natural contexts, intentions are uncertain. Applying the inverse planning model to these tasks, interpreters or listeners can be expected to rely on contextual elements (such as the speaker’s membership of the target group, previous attitudes towards the target group, etc.), beyond the action performed (i.e. the content of the utterance), to infer the speaker’s intention in situations of uncertainty. Coupled with the notion that mental states modulate various normative judgements (e.g. of moral blame or condemnation), this thesis implies that certain contextual information (which helps to infer the speaker’s intention) may determine their degree of offensiveness and censure. 

As discussed above, the greater our perceived offensiveness of a statement when it is made by someone from the other group, the greater our inclination to attribute negative intentions. This, in turn, reinforces abstract-concrete dissonance: the greater our inclination to think that it is the others who are offensive or easily offended, when in fact it is a symmetrical effect (Almagro, Hannikainen & Villinueva, in press). The explanation is as follows. Since we perceive the statements of the other group as more offensive than those of our group because we attribute offensive intentions more often to the others than to our own, it is reasonable to conclude that it is the others who are easily offended or who are really offensive. This leads us to defend abstract principles that do not actually guide our behaviour (e.g., «intention is more relevant than identity», «it is others who are offended»). In this sense, the mediation of the attribution of intentions in our perceptions of offensiveness can be explained in terms of inverse planning: although it is the speaker’s identity that triggers our perception of offensiveness, we think that it is the speaker’s intention, as the attribution of negative intentions to others mediates our perception of offensiveness.

The mediation of intentions in our attributions of offensiveness is in turn a control for hypothesis 1: the perceived offensiveness distance between a statement of our group and the same statement of the other group should correlate with the predisposition to attribute negative intentions to the other group in the face of a potentially offensive statement.

Objectives.

General objective:

The overall aim of this project is to study the relationship between offensiveness and polarization. More specifically, the aim is to study the extent and nature of the use of dissonance between abstract and concrete judgments in our attributions of offensiveness, and the distance between the level of perceived offensiveness of the same statement when it is made by someone from our group and when it is made by someone from the opposite group, as proxies to study the increase of affective polarization in an indirect way. This general objective is articulated into 3 specific objectives.

Specific objective 1:

To study the relationship between polarized contexts and the dissonance between our abstract/concrete judgements and our perception of offensiveness, we explore the theoretical and practical connection between affective polarization on the one hand and two issues central to this project on the other, namely the ardent defense of abstract principles that do not de facto guide our concrete judgements in specific situations and the changes in our perceptions of offensiveness by virtue of the identity of the speaker of the linguistic action.

Specific objective 2:

To explore the mediating character of attributions of intention in our perceptions of offensiveness and the inverse planning model as an explanation of the basic cognitive mechanism behind this process.

Specific objective 3:

Using the role that dissonance between our abstract/concrete judgements plays in our attributions of offensiveness, along with our perceived offensiveness of a statement when made by the opposing group versus when made by our group, as tools for the quantitative study of increased affective polarisation.

Novelty and progress.

We are currently working on the design of two experimental studies focused on measuring the level of affective polarization in Spain. In the design, we employ vignette methodology, manipulate a number of variables, recruit a representative number of participants for our purposes, and finally employ statistical analyses to draw conclusions from the data obtained.

One of the experimental studies consists of a replication of a previously conducted study (Almagro, Hannikainen & Villinueva, in press) where we will try to test whether judgments of offensiveness and attributions of negative intent depend on contextual elements (speaker’s identity, speaker’s background attitudes, audience’s ideology, and statements’ orientation –i.e., whether speakers’ statements affront progressive or conservative values). 

In this study we start from two hypotheses:

– Hypothesis 1: Perception of offensive speech is ideologically symmetric: When faced with utterances whose content matters to them, both conservatives and progressives regard out-group speakers as more offensive than in-group speakers when uttering the same sentences.

– Hypothesis 2: Perception of offensiveness is mediated by ascriptions of intent: we tend to attribute negative intent to the speaker whenever we deem their utterances to be offensive.

For more information about the study see the pre-registration. 

In the second study, we will try to analyze whether perceptions of offensiveness are mediated by the ascription of intentions through the inverse planning model as an explanation of the basic cognitive mechanism behind this process.