Civil political discourse in a democracy: The contribution of psychology.

The purposes of political discourse include (a) clarifying citizens' understanding of the issue, (b) helping citizens reach their best reasoned judgment as to which course of action will solve a problem, (c) increasing citizen participation in the political process, and (d) socializing the next generation into the procedures and attitudes they need to be active citizens. A responsibility of psychology within a democratic society is to provide the theory, research, and normative procedures needed to make political discourse constructive. Constructive controversy provides a theory, validated by research, that has been operationalized into a normative procedure. Constructive controversy exists when one person's ideas, information, conclusions, theories, and opinions are incompatible with those of another, and the 2 seek to reach an agreement. A political decision is reached through the following procedure. Citizens form advocacy groups and present the best case possible for the alternative course of action t...