Yes, I was thinking primarily of real life conversations with a person you already know. Where I have seen this play out as I described. Although, obviously I did not try out the counterfactual.
I have no kind of data on this, but my feeling is that it carries over to social media, at least for famous-ish people who have already had the space to build rapport. As a topical example, some right wing people in the USA (Tucker Carlson I think) seem unhappy with Trump’s recent Iran policy. My suspicion is that for MAGA types someone like this going “off script” and being against the war is significant, more so than if they encountered someone saying (for example), “Yeah, I supported Trump in his first term, but after the Capitol riots I became a Democrat.” Part of that is because the “I joined the other side over X” has to be something old, in the past, where opinion has hardened and in any case its in the past, but part of that is also the inherent implausibility of the “Side switch” bit. The previously-Trump-supporting person who turns against him after the capitol riots isn’t going to fall in love with all kinds of Democrat coded policies they previously hated.
Yes, I was thinking primarily of real life conversations with a person you already know. Where I have seen this play out as I described. Although, obviously I did not try out the counterfactual.
I have no kind of data on this, but my feeling is that it carries over to social media, at least for famous-ish people who have already had the space to build rapport. As a topical example, some right wing people in the USA (Tucker Carlson I think) seem unhappy with Trump’s recent Iran policy. My suspicion is that for MAGA types someone like this going “off script” and being against the war is significant, more so than if they encountered someone saying (for example), “Yeah, I supported Trump in his first term, but after the Capitol riots I became a Democrat.” Part of that is because the “I joined the other side over X” has to be something old, in the past, where opinion has hardened and in any case its in the past, but part of that is also the inherent implausibility of the “Side switch” bit. The previously-Trump-supporting person who turns against him after the capitol riots isn’t going to fall in love with all kinds of Democrat coded policies they previously hated.