Defense Date
2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
First Advisor
William Benton
Second Advisor
Brittany Keegan
Third Advisor
Joseph Ruiz
Fourth Advisor
Denise Kennedy
Abstract
ABSTRACT
DESIGNING FOR TRUST, TRANSPARENCY, AND PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING:
INSIGHTS FROM PAUL (THE POLLING MONITOR)
Stacia Q Tipton
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Product Innovation at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Virginia Commonwealth University, 2026
Director: William Benton, Program Director, Innovation, University College
Americans are curious about each other, despite the shouting matches, polarizing news and political ads made to outrage. When given the chance to find out what their fellow citizens think, most people take it. Traditional polling formats, including the industry's routine charts, percentages, findings and crosstabs, report what the public thinks, but they rarely facilitate a conversation or the understanding that might follow. This thesis asks whether better design can change that: can public opinion polling be more than descriptive statistics…. can it facilitate understanding across lines of difference?
Specifically, this project asks whether a better-designed presentation of polling data can close gaps in understanding. It examines whether a narrative summary presentation called the “perspective bridge” treatment improves cross-perspective understanding among the American public relative to the traditional presentation of polling results.
This study employs a 2×2 between-subjects survey experiment (N = 1,009 U.S. adults, nationally representative) with two factors: topic (return on investment in a college degree vs. return on investment in FIFA World Cup 2026 tickets) and format (A_traditional poll presentation vs. B_perspective bridge). The perspective bridge, generated from the same underlying polling data, attempts to synthesize not only what people believe but also the reasoning, experiences, and values underlying those beliefs. Topics were selected to contrast in identity salience: higher education engages economic opportunity and social class; World Cup tickets engage cultural access and participation.
The primary outcome is cross-perspective understanding, operationalized through an Ideological Turing Test (ITT) protocol adapted from Brand, Brady, and Stafford (2025): respondents write three reasons the opposing side would give to defend their position, and those responses are rated for alignment with the opposing-group sentiment. A secondary outcome, argument endorsement, captures attitudinal movement or sympathy toward the pro-value position on each topic. Dispositional openness, assessed via an actively open-minded thinking scale (Stanovich & West, 1997), is examined as a moderator.
The perspective bridge is the central design intervention, and content was sourced from “Paul,” a working prototype of The Polling Monitor, a civic technology platform built to make polling data more useful. This thesis presents an empirical foundation for that platform: a rigorous test of whether thoughtful design applied to a familiar data product can help Americans better understand each other. If so, the implications extend to news organizations, civic technologists, and democratic institutions facing the same fundamental challenge: translating quantitative opinion data into something that actually serves the public.
Rights
© The Author
Is Part Of
VCU University Archives
Is Part Of
VCU Theses and Dissertations
Date of Submission
7-25-2026
Comments
Thank you VCU! Go RAMs!