The Deliberation Lab is an open-science initiative to rapidly advance scientific understanding of small-group deliberation. Its goal is to support groups that come together to learn from one another, build mutual respect, and solve their collective problems.

To achieve this goal, we are developing a set of tools for conducting deliberation experiments at scale, and coordinating a community of researchers to work together to build a cumulative understanding of deliberation outcomes.

Our Approach

There is no one-size-fits-all strategy for improving the outcomes of small-group deliberation. Instead, the best techniques for achieving a deliberation’s objective depend on the nature of the group (e.g. its size, gender balance, age range, etc.), the nature of the topic (e.g. its technicality, urgency, or moral character), and its purpose (e.g. to make a decision, raise issues, learn from one another, etc.).

Consequently, we seek to create a map over the parameter space in which deliberations vary, and report how different styles of intervention perform across the landscape. With such a map we can provide contextualized recommendations to real-world groups, taking their composition, topic, and task into account. Through continuous experimentation, we can assess the ability of our map to provide useful recommendations, and efficiently explore the experiment parameter space in light of our map’s uncertainties.

Our Community

The space of possible deliberation experiments is far too large for one research team to explore alone. Instead, we are assembling a community of researchers to collaboratively study a variety of deliberative contexts and intervention strategies. Working together, these researchers will assemble a mutually-commensurable dataset that will advance the field of deliberation research.

Current Progress

The project is currently undergoing “alpha” testing by multiple research teams. At this stage, we are seeking input regarding the types of studies that other research teams would be interested in conducting using the platform. In the coming year, we will be expanding the infrastructure to enable numerous research teams to utilize the platform concurrently. If you wish to stay updated on our progress, please send an email to jameshou@wharton.upenn.edu.