"We respond very differently to what people write than to what they say--even if those things are exactly the same. That's the result of a fascinating new experiment by UC Berkeley and University of Chicago researchers. In the study, 300 subjects either read, watched video of, or listened to arguments about such hot-button topics as war, abortion, and country or rap music. Afterward, subjects were interviewed about their reactions to the opinions with which they disagreed.
Their general response was probably very familiar to anyone who's ever discussed politics: a broad belief that people who don't agree with you are either too stupid or too uncaring to know better. But there was a distinct difference between those who had watched or listened to someone speak the words out loud and those who had read the identical words as text. Those who had listened or watched to someone say the words were less likely to dismiss the speaker as uninformed or heartless than they were if they were just reading the commenter's words."
Their general response was probably very familiar to anyone who's ever discussed politics: a broad belief that people who don't agree with you are either too stupid or too uncaring to know better. But there was a distinct difference between those who had watched or listened to someone speak the words out loud and those who had read the identical words as text. Those who had listened or watched to someone say the words were less likely to dismiss the speaker as uninformed or heartless than they were if they were just reading the commenter's words."