With @codinghorror’s various talks in mind where I picked up that discourse has been created to nudge users into having more constructive interactions with eachother, I end up feeling eager to share this excellent video I recently discovered. It presents various research findings regarding communication and persuasion.
My understanding of one of various examples presented in video
Imagine you wan’t to make more people recycle, so you decide to communicate a) many people are not recycling and b) that this is a big issue and we need to improve. But, this approach can backfire. As the message normalizes the negative behavior, it becomes more acceptable! We humans may have an easier time to forgive ourselves for being one among many to not recycle or similar, what is known that the intentions to recycle probably would go down by this kind of communication, while the interpretation as to why this is may not be pinned with confidence.