Convincing citizens: The role of argument quality

In a democracy, public acceptance of proposed policies is an important determinant of a successful government. Communication plays an important role in ascertaining public acceptance. The government has to convince the public that the proposed policy is in its own or societal interest. To attain this goal, the government is expected to use arguments instead of taking its refuge to manipulation. Therefore, the quality of the arguments used, is important. Argument quality is determined by two aspects: (1) Argument strength, that is the belief about the probability that a consequence will arise, and (2) Argument valence, that is the perceived desirability of the consequence. In order to convince the public of a policy's desirability, the government has to convince the public that the policy will have probably desirable effects. In this paper, empirical research on how to attain this goal is presented.