Pre-analysis Plan for "Making Deliberation Work: Reason-giving and Information Processing"

Despite growing interest in deliberative initiatives, there remains a gap between theoretical work on deliberation and the empirical findings. One area that deserves greater attention is how people process information within a deliberative setting. This experiment considers the way in which deliberative rules affect participants' behavior during and after deliberative sessions, specifically looking at the way in which reason-giving rules promote accuracy motivated reasoning. This work helps to both bridge the divide between theoretical and empirical work on deliberation and better understand a potential mechanism to encourage the formation of qualified policy preferences, helping to overcome the starkly partisan thinking evidenced in a polarized political climate