Talking About Inequality Through the Lens of Hope: What a Conversation Can—and Cannot—Change
A field experiment found that conversations framed from an optimistic perspective can raise hopes for reducing inequality. We spoke with two of the study’s co-authors.
By María Fernanda Cardona1
Allison Benson, an economist and researcher at the Center for Public Action Research; Juan José Rojas, a research assistant at the Center for Economic Studies (CEDE) and the Center for Public Action; and Juan Felipe Ortiz, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Osnabrück, brought together hundreds of people to discuss inequality in Cali, Medellín, Barranquilla, Bucaramanga, Florencia, Villavicencio, and Bogotá.
The participants listened to a panel discussion, held as part of the Territorial Dialogues on Inequality, which took place between September 2023 and September 2024. At these events, individuals from academia, the public sector, the private sector, and the arts discussed the causes and consequences of inequality in Colombia. Afterward, each person who had listened to the panel was randomly assigned to one of four groups: A, B, C, or D.
In this randomized field trial2, participants in Groups A, B, and C had a one-on-one conversation with a stranger, randomly selected from among the other attendees. Each conversation was framed differently. In Group A—the control group—participants discussed their experiences during the pandemic and the 2021 protests, without addressing the issue of inequality. In Group B, they discussed inequality in an optimistic tone (what solutions exist and what progress society has made). In Group C, they discussed it from a pessimistic perspective (structural obstacles and the difficulties of change). In Group D, participants did not converse with another person but instead engaged in guided self-reflection using visual aids and predefined questions.
“We wanted to test something that has been studied in the literature: the way in which deliberative mechanisms—not only in large-scale processes of citizen participation and dialogue, such as citizens” assemblies, but also simply one-on-one conversations—can lead us to new reflections on a social issue. And how that affects our reality and the reality we share with others,” explains Benson.
The most significant finding of the experiment, published in the CEDE-TREES paper Changing Through Conversation, the discussions that took place were characterized by an optimistic tone. During these conversations, the participants“ hope regarding the possibility of reducing inequality grew. ”The way we talk matters. We need to talk about the problem, but in a positive and hopeful way,” says Rojas.
The way we speak matters. We need to talk about the problem, but in a positive and hopeful way.
Allison Benson applies this line of thinking to the realms of activism and public policy. “Many social organizations and activist campaigns are saying that inequality is wrong, that the ultra-rich need to pay more taxes. But how do we use these narratives in a way that fosters hope and possibility? Because often, social criticism and discourse on injustice end up weighing us down and closing off the possibility of change.”.
Optimism increased, but to find out whether people’s behavior had also changed, the study used a modified version of the ‘Dictator Game,’ a classic economic experiment designed to measure prosocial behavior. Before the panel discussion and after the activity assigned to each group, participants had to decide how they would distribute a potential prize of 200,000 Colombian pesos among themselves and another randomly selected attendee. The key, Rojas explains, is that the decision had real-world consequences. If the participant won, the amount they chose to share was actually transferred to another person.
Rojas explains that having the game carry real consequences is useful because simply asking participants about their preferences can lead to misleading answers, given their desire to please the researchers. “We want to come across as people who give money, who are fair. But that’s not necessarily what we would decide if our choice had a real cost.”.
On this front, the results did not show a statistically significant change. Before the panel, participants decided to keep, on average, 55.3 % of the prize; after the panel and the assigned activity, the percentage was 55.6 %. “We found no compelling evidence that a simple, short intervention can transform behavior. This calls for designing experiments in which dialogue between people is sustained for a longer period of time,” Benson notes.
Therefore, although changing a perception is the first step, it does not guarantee a long-term change in behavior.
When discussing the replicability and representativeness of the experiment, the authors make an important clarification regarding the participants in the study. Before any intervention began, these participants already exhibited high levels of awareness regarding inequality. This “self-selection bias” may have meant that the participants were already convinced, and, in part because of this, the experiment did not produce statistically significant changes in some of the results.
This does not invalidate the findings, but it does highlight—according to the researchers—the urgency of extending these conversations to more skeptical, diverse audiences who are less familiar with the topic. The true litmus test of structured dialogue as a tool for change, Rojas argues, lies with those who are not yet convinced.
The true litmus test of structured dialogue lies with those who are not yet convinced.
Creating spaces for people from different backgrounds to come together in an unequal society
Beyond the statistical findings, Benson proposes a broader discussion of the role of social contact in the perception of inequality. In a country that is segregated not only economically but also spatially, people tend to construct their worldview based on closed reference groups, which leads to biased perceptions of the magnitude of the gaps and of their own position in the distribution of wealth.
“Some research suggests that people in privileged circumstances do not recognize their privilege because they are unaware of other social realities; this makes them less willing, for example, to pay taxes or support redistributive social policies. It’s very important to bridge that social gap, which has become so wide because we live in such an unequal society,” says Benson.
From this perspective, the researcher suggests that interaction between people from different socioeconomic backgrounds can serve as a public policy tool.
It is essential for public policies aimed at transforming inequality that the government create spaces where different groups can come together—whether through an education system with less segregation between public and private institutions, transportation that bridges different realities, or public spaces where different worlds can meet.
Changing Through Conversation It does not conclude that a conversation can reshape Colombian society, but it does demonstrate something Benson considers valuable: that the way we frame social problems shapes how we understand them, and that even a conversation with a stranger—if it is well-guided—can foster people’s optimism about the possibility of change.
The way we frame social problems shapes how we understand them.
According to the researchers, the goal for the future is to take the experiment to public spaces, to digital formats, and to more diverse audiences. And, above all, to people who do not yet believe that our social reality can be transformed.
- María Fernanda Cardona is a sociologist and journalist. ↩︎
- A scientific study conducted in a real-world setting—outside the laboratory—in which participants or units are randomly assigned to a treatment group or a control group. ↩︎