The promise and pitfalls of cross-partisan conversations for reducing affective polarization: Evidence from randomized experiments.

ABSTRACT: Organizations, activists, and scholars hope that conversations between outpartisans (supporters of opposing political parties) can reduce affective polarization (dislike of outpartisans) and bolster democratic accountability (e.g., support for democratic norms). We argue that such conversations can reduce affective polarization but that these effects are likely to be conditional on topic, being especially likely if the conversations topics avoid discussion of areas of disagreement; usually not persist long-term; and be circumscribed, not affecting attitudes toward democratic accountability. We support this argument with two unique experiments where we paired outpartisan strangers to discuss randomly assigned topics over video calls. In study 1, we found that conversations between outpartis

SUBMITTER: Santoro E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9217089 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature