The effect of concessions in debate: how giving ground can enhance persuasion

In polarized political discourse, debaters may be unwilling to concede the merit of an opponent’s argument. Nonetheless, making a concession may increase the audience’s trust of the speaker, even if it creates cognitive dissonance by increased belief in the opponent’s argument. This study investigates the relative effects of concession as a persuasive strategy across several cases with varying political salience and types of concessions. In this experiment, respondents listened to speeches from each side of a debate. In a control condition, the second debater denies the first debater’s argument, while in the treatment, he concedes the first debater’s argument but attempts to outweigh it with his own. In a first case, concession improved win rate by increasing beliefs in the second debater’s argument, as shown by mediation analysis. In a replication in another topical domain, two subsequent experiments found that concession had no significant effects on win rates, likely because the conceding debater failed to improve beliefs in his own argument. In no experiment did concession significantly harm the conceding debater. These findings suggest that, if used effectively, concessions may enhance persuasion. Concessions increase dissonance, but successful concessions help the audience reconcile competing beliefs. In political discourse, conceding the merit of an opponent’s argument may be worthwhile even for a self-interested debater.