Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T16:21:17.251Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
Series:   Elements in Experimental Political Science

We Need to Talk

How Cross-Party Dialogue Reduces Affective Polarization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2021

Matthew S. Levendusky  and
Dominik A. Stecula

Summary

Americans today are affectively polarized: they dislike and distrust those from the opposing political party more than they did in the past, with damaging consequences for their democracy. This Element tests one strategy for ameliorating such animus: having ordinary Democrats and Republicans come together for cross-party political discussions. Building on intergroup contact theory, the authors argue that such discussions will mitigate partisan animosity. Using an original experiment, they find strong support for this hypothesis – affective polarization falls substantially among subjects who participate in heterogeneous discussion (relative to those who participate in either homogeneous political discussion or an apolitical control). This Element also provides evidence for several of the mechanisms underlying these effects, and shows that they persist for at least one week after the initial experiment. These findings have considerable importance for efforts to ameliorate animus in the mass public, and for understanding American politics more broadly.
Get access

Keywords

Polarizationafftective polarizationpartisanshipintergroup contactdeliberationdiscussion experiments
Type
Element
Information
Series: Elements in Experimental Political Science
Online ISBN: 9781009042192
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 02 December 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Bibliography

Abdel-Monem, T., Bingham, S., Marincic, J. & Tomkins, A. (2010) Deliberation and Diversity: Perceptions of Small Group Discussions by Race and Ethnicity. Small Group Research 41(6): 746–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abramowitz, A. & Webster, S. (2016) The Rise of Negative Partisanship and the Nationalization of U.S. Elections in the 21st Century. Electoral Studies 41(March): 12–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahler, D. & Sood, G. (2018) The Parties in Our Heads: Misperceptions about Party Composition and Their Consequences. Journal of Politics 80(3): 964–81.Google Scholar
Allcott, H. et al. (2020) Polarization and Public Health: Partisan Differences in Social Distancing during the Coronavirus Pandemic. Journal of Public Economics 191(November): 104254.Google Scholar
Allport, G. (1954) The Nature of Prejudice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing.Google Scholar
Almond, G. & Verba, S. (1963) The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Althaus, S. (1998) Information Effects in Collective Preferences. American Political Science Review 92(3): 545–58.Google Scholar
Arceneaux, K. & Vander Wielen, R. (2017) Taming Intuition: How Reflection Minimizes Partisan Reasoning and Promotes Democratic Accountability. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Armaly, M. & Enders, E. (2021) The Role of Affective Orientations in Promoting Perceived Polarization. Political Science Research and Methods 9(3): 615–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aron, A., Melinat, E., Aron, E., Vallone, R. & Bator, R. (1997) The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 23(4): 363–77.Google Scholar
Azari, J. (2016) Weak Parties and Strong Partisanship Are a Bad Combination. Vox, https://bit.ly/2EUtuxR.Google Scholar
Badger, E. & Quealy, K. (2020) These Americans Tried to Listen to One Another: A Year Later, Here’s How They’re Voting. New York Times, 24 October.Google Scholar
Bail, C. et al. (2018) Exposure to Opposing Views on Social Media Can Increase Polarization. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115(37): 9216–21.Google Scholar
Barabas, J. (2004) How Deliberation Affects Policy Opinions. American Political Science Review 98(4): 687–701.Google Scholar
Barber, B. (1984) Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Barlow, F. K., Louis, W. & Hewstone, M. (2009) Rejected! Cognitions of Rejection and Intergroup Anxiety as Mediators of the Impact of Cross-Group Friendship on Prejudice. British Journal of Social Psychology 48(3): 389–405.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Berelson, B., Lazarsfeld, P. & McPhee, W. (1954) Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in a Presidential Campaign. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Midway Reprints.Google Scholar
Boisjoly, J. et al. (2006) Empathy or Antipathy? The Impact of Diversity. American Economic Review 96(5): 1890–905.Google Scholar
Bond, R., Shulman, H. & Gilbert, M. (2018) Does Having a Political Discussion Help or Hurt Intergroup Perceptions? Drawing Guidance from Social Identity Theory and the Contact Hypothesis. International Journal of Communication 12: 4332–52.Google Scholar
Bowles, N. (2019) How to Get Trump Voters and Liberals to Talk: Don’t Make Anyone Sit in a Circle. New York Times, November 3.Google Scholar
Boxell, L., Gentzkow, M. & Shapiro, J. (2017) Greater Internet Use Is Not Associated with Faster Growth in Political Polarization among U.S. Demographic Groups. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114(40): 10612–17.Google Scholar
Broockman, D., Kalla, J. & Sekhon, J. (2017) The Design of Field Experiments with Survey Outcomes: A Framework for Selecting More Efficient, Robust, and Ethical Designs. Political Analysis 25(4): 435–64.Google Scholar
Bullock, J., Green, D. & Ha, S. (2010) Yes, But What’s the Mechanism? (Don’t Expect an Easy Answer). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 98(4): 550–8.Google Scholar
Caluwaerts, D. & Deschouwer, K. (2014) Building Bridges across Political Divides: Experiments on Deliberative Democracy in Deeply Divided Belgium. European Political Science Review 6(3): 427–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caluwaerts, D. & Reuchamps, M. (2014) Does Inter-Group Deliberation Foster Inter-Group Appreciation? Evidence from Two Experiments in Belgium. Politics 34(2): 101–15.Google Scholar
Cassese, E. (2021). Partisan Dehumanization in American Politics. Political Behavior 43(1): 29–50.Google Scholar
Chen, M. K. & Rohla, R. (2018) The Effect of Partisanship and Political Advertising on Close Family Ties. Science 360(6392): 1020–4.Google Scholar
Coe, K., Kenski, K. & Rains, S. (2014) Online and Uncivil? Patterns and Determinants of Incivility in Newspaper Website Comments. Journal of Communications 64(4): 658–79.Google Scholar
Cohn, N. & Quealy, K. (2019) The Democratic Electorate on Twitter Is Not the Democratic Electorate. New York Times, April 9.Google Scholar
Cowan, S. & Baldassarri, D. (2018) “It Could Turn Ugly”: Selective Disclosure of Attitudes in Political Discussion Networks. Social Networks 52(1): 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crisp, R. & Turner, R. (2009) Can Imagined Interactions Produce Positive Perceptions? Reducing Prejudice through Simulated Social Contact. American Psychologist 64(4): 231–40.Google Scholar
Crockett, M. J. (2017) Moral Outrage in the Digital Age. Nature Human Behavior 1(11): 769–71.Google Scholar
Dafoe, A., Zhang, B. & Caughey, D. (2018) Information Equivalence in Survey Experiments. Political Analysis 26(4): 399–416.Google Scholar
Dahl, R. (1961) Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Deichert, M., Goggin, S. & Theodoridis, A. (2019) God, Sex, and Especially Politics: Disentangling the Dimensions of Discrimination. Manuscript: Vanderbilt University.Google Scholar
Delli-Carpini, M. & Keeter, S. (1996) What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Dessel, A. (2010) Effects of Intergroup Dialogue: Public School Teachers and Sexual Orientation Prejudice. Small Group Research 41(5): 556–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorison, C., Minson, J. & Rogers, T. (2019) Selective Exposure Partly Relies on Faulty Affective Forecasts. Cognition 188(July): 98–107.Google Scholar
Druckman, J. (2012) The Politics of Motivation. Critical Review 24(2): 199–216.Google Scholar
Druckman, J. et al. (forthcoming) (Mis-)Estimating Affective Polarization. Journal of Politics.Google Scholar
Druckman, J. (2021) Affective Polarization, Local Contexts and Public Opinion in America. Nature Human Behaviour 5(1): 28–38.Google Scholar
Druckman, J., Gubitz, S., Levendusky, M. & Lloyd, A. (2019) How Incivility on Partisan Media (De)Polarizes the Electorate. Journal of Politics 81(1): 291–5.Google Scholar
Druckman, J. & Kam, C. (2011) Students as Experimental Participants: A Defense of the “Narrow Data Base,” in Druckman, J., Green, D., Kuklinski, J., and Lupia, A., eds., Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political Science. New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 41–57.Google Scholar
Druckman, J., Levendusky, M. & McLain, A. (2018) No Need to Watch: How the Effects of Partisan Media Can Spread via Inter-personal Discussions. American Journal of Political Science 62(1): 99–112.Google Scholar
Druckman, J. & Levendusky, M. (2019) What Do We Measure When We Measure Affective Polarization? Public Opinion Quarterly 83(1): 114–22.Google Scholar
Druckman, J. & Nelson, K. (2003) Framing and Deliberation: How Citizens’ Conversations Limit Elite Influence. American Journal of Political Science 47(4): 729–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dryzek, J. et al. (2019) The Crisis of Democracy and the Science of Deliberation. Science 363(6432): 1144–6.Google Scholar
Eveland, W. (2004) The Effect of Political Discussion in Producing Informed Citizens: The Roles of Information, Motivation, and Elaboration. Political Communication 21(2): 177–93.Google Scholar
Farrar, C. et al. (2010) Disaggregating Deliberation’s Effects: An Experiment within a Deliberative Poll. British Journal of Political Science 40(2): 333–47.Google Scholar
Fiorina, M. (2017) Unstable Majorities: Polarization, Party Sorting, and Political Stalemate. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press.Google Scholar
Fishkin, J. (1995) The Voice of the People: Public Opinion and Democracy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Fishkin, J., Su, A., Diamond, L. & Bradburn, N. (Forthcoming) Is Deliberation an Antidote to Extreme Political Polarization? Reflections on “America in One Room.” American Political Science Review.Google Scholar
Fowler, L., Kettler, J. & Witt, S. (2020) Democratic Governors Are Quicker in Responding to the Coronavirus than Republicans. The Conversation, https://bit.ly/31Aiz59.Google Scholar
Gaertner, S. & Dovidio, J. (2000) Reducing Intergroup Bias: The Common Ingroup Identity Model. Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Garrett, K. & Bankert, A. (2018) The Moral Roots of Partisan Division: How Moral Conviction Heightens Affective Polarization. British Journal of Political Science 50(2): 621–40.Google Scholar
Gerber, A. & Green, D. (2012) Field Experiments: Design, Analysis, and Implementation. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Gift, K. & Gift, T. (2015) Does Politics Influence Hiring? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment. Political Behavior 37(3): 653–75.Google Scholar
Gil, de Zúñiga, Barnidge, H., M. & Diehl, T. (2018) Political Persuasion on Social Media: A Moderated Moderation Model of Political Discussion Disagreement and Civil Reasoning. The Information Society 34(5): 302–15.Google Scholar
Glass, I. [producer]. (2015) If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say, SAY IT IN ALL CAPS [Audio Podcast]. This American Life. http://bit.ly/2QcjsdV.Google Scholar
Goel, S., Mason, W. & Watts, D. (2010) Real and Perceived Agreement in Social Networks. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 99(4): 611–21.Google Scholar
Goldman, S. & Mutz, D. (2014) The Obama Effect: How the 2008 Campaign Changed White Racial Attitudes. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Gollwitzer, A. et al. (2020) Partisan Differences in Physical Distancing are Linked to Health Outcomes during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Nature Human Behavior 4(11): 1186–97.Google Scholar
Graham, D. (2018) The Bipartisan Group That’s Not Afraid of Partisanship. The Atlantic, http://bit.ly/2XdiWlv.Google Scholar
Graham, M. & Svolik, M. (2020) Democracy in America? Partisanship, Polarization, and the Robustness of Support for Democracy in the United States. American Political Science Review 114(2): 392–409.Google Scholar
Gramlich, J. (2019) 10 Facts about Americans and Facebook. Pew Research Center: FactTank. https://pewrsr.ch/2WL9ELe.Google Scholar
Green, D. & Gerber, D. (2002) The Downstream Benefits of Experimentation. Political Analysis 10(4): 394–402.Google Scholar
Groenendyk, E. & Krupnikov, Y. (2021) What Motivates Reasoning? A Theory of Goal-Dependent Political Evaluation. American Journal of Political Science 65(1): 180–96.Google Scholar
Groenendyk, E., Sances, M. & Zhirkov, K. (2020) Intraparty Polarization in American Politics. Journal of Politics 82(4): 1616–20.Google Scholar
Guess, A. (forthcoming) (Almost) Everything in Moderation: New Evidence on Americans’ Online Media Diets. American Journal of Political Science.Google Scholar
Guess, A., Lyons, B. Nyhan, B. & Reifler, J. (2018) Avoiding the Echo Chamber about Echo Chambers: Why Selective Exposure to Like-Minded Political News Is Less Prevalent than You Think. Report to the Knight Foundation, https://bit.ly/37FcWpD.Google Scholar
Gutmann, A. & Thompson, D. (1996) Democracy and Disagreement. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gutmann, A. & Thompson, D. . (2012) The Spirit of Compromise. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Han, H. (2009) Moved to Action: Motivation, Participation, and Inequality in American Politics. Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Han, H. . (2014) How Organizations Develop Activists: Civic Associations and Leadership in the 21st Century. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Harrison, B. (2020) A Change Is Gonna Come: How to Have Effective Political Conversations in a Divided America. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Herbst, S. (2010) Rude Democracy: Civility and Incivility in American Politics. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Hersh, E. (2020) Politics Is for Power: How to Move beyond Political Hobbyism, Take Action, and Make Real Change. New York: Scribner.Google Scholar
Hetherington, M. (2004) Why Trust Matters. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hetherington, M. & Rudolph, T. (2015) Why Washington Won’t Work: Polarization, Political Trust, and the Governing Crisis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hetherington, M. & Weiler, N. (2009) Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hill, S. & Tausanovitch, C. (2015) A Disconnect in Representation? Comparison of Trends in Congressional and Public Polarization. Journal of Politics 77(4): 1058–75.Google Scholar
Huber, G. & Malhotra, N. (2017) Political Homophily in Social Relationships: Evidence from Online Dating Behavior. Journal of Politics 79(1): 269–83.Google Scholar
Huckfeldt, R. & Sprague, J. (1987) Networks in Context: The Social Flow of Political Information. American Political Science Review 81(4): 1197–216.Google Scholar
Huckfeldt, R., Johnson, P. & Sprague, J. (2004) Political Disagreement: The Survival of Diverse Opinions within Communication Networks. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Huckfeldt, R., Ikeda, K. & Pappi, F.U. (2005) Patterns of Disagreement in Democratic Politics: Comparing Germany, Japan, and the United States. American Journal of Political Science 49(3): 497–514.Google Scholar
Imai, K., Keele, L. & Tingley, D. (2010) A General Approach to Causal Mediation Analysis. Psychological Methods 15(4): 309–34.Google Scholar
Isenberg, D. (1986) Group Polarization: A Critical Review and Meta-Analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 50(6): 1141–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iyengar, S., Sood, G. & Lelkes, Y. (2012) Affect, Not Ideology: A Social Identity Perspective on Polarization. Public Opinion Quarterly 76(3): 405–31.Google Scholar
Iyengar, S. & Westwood, S. (2015) Fear and Loathing across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization. American Journal of Political Science 59(3): 690–707.Google Scholar
Iyengar, S., Konitzer, T. & Tedin, K. (2018) The Home as Political Fortress: Family Agreement in an Era of Polarization. Journal of Politics 80(4): 1326–38.Google Scholar
Iyengar, S. et al. (2019) The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States. Annual Review of Political Science 22(1): 129–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jamieson, K. et al. (2017) The Political Uses and Abuses of Civility and Incivility, in Kenski, K. and Jamieson, K. H., eds., The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 205–18.Google Scholar
Johnston, C. (2018) Authoritarianism, Affective Polarization, and Economic Ideology. Political Psychology: Advances in Political Psychology 39(S1): 219–38.Google Scholar
Kalmoe, N. & Mason, L. (2019) Election Trust, Delegitimizing Rhetoric, and Radical Partisanship: Dynamic Views from the 2018 Midterms. Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Karpowitz, C. & Mendelberg, T. (2014) The Silent Sex: Gender, Deliberation, and Institutions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Keith, W. & Danisch, R. (2020) Beyond Civility: The Competing Obligations of Citizenship. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press.Google Scholar
Kingzette, J. et al. (forthcoming) How Affective Polarization Undermines Support for Democratic Norms. Public Opinion QuarterlyGoogle Scholar
Klar, S. (2014) Partisanship in a Social Setting. American Journal of Political Science 58(3): 687–704.Google Scholar
Klar, S., Krupnikov, Y. & Ryan, J.B. (2018) Affective Polarization or Partisan Disdain? Untangling a Dislike for the Opposing Party from a Dislike of Partisanship. Public Opinion Quarterly 82(2): 379–90.Google Scholar
Klofstad, C., McClurg, S. & Rolfe, M. (2009) Measurement of Political Discussion Networks. Public Opinion Quarterly 73(3): 462–83.Google Scholar
Krosnick, J. & Alwin, D. (1989) Aging and Susceptibility to Attitude Change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57(3): 416–25.Google Scholar
Krupnikov, Y. & Ryan, J.B. (2020) The Other Divide: Polarization and Disengagement in American Politics. Manuscript: Stony Brook University.Google Scholar
Klein, E. (2020) Why We’re Polarized. New York: Avid Reader Press.Google Scholar
Lau, R. & Redlawsk, D. (1997) Voting Correctly. American Political Science Review 91(3): 585–98.Google Scholar
Lavine, H., Johnston, C. & Steenbergen, M. (2012) The Ambivalent Partisan: How Critical Loyalty Promotes Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lees, J. & Cikara, M. (2020) Inaccurate Group Meta-Perceptions Drive Negative Out-Group Attributions in Competitive Contexts. Nature Human Behavior 4(3): 279–86.Google Scholar
Lelkes, Y., Sood, G. & Iyengar, S. (2017) The Hostile Audience: The Effect of Broadband Access on Partisan Affect. American Journal of Political Science 61(1): 5–20.Google Scholar
Lelkes, Y. & Westwood, S. (2017) The Limits of Partisan Prejudice. Journal of Politics 79(2): 485–501.Google Scholar
Levendusky, Matthew. (2009) The Partisan Sort. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Levendusky, Matthew . (2013) How Partisan Media Polarize America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Levendusky, Matthew . (2018) Americans, Not Partisans: Can Priming American National Identity Reduce Affective Polarization? Journal of Politics 80(1): 59–70.Google Scholar
Levendusky, Matthew . (2019) Finding Common Ground: Experimental Efforts to Reduce Partisan Animus. Manuscript: University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Levendusky, Matthew . (2020) Our Common Bonds: Using What Americans Share to Help Bridge the Partisan Divide. Manuscript: University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Levendusky, M., Druckman, J. & McLain, A. (2016) How Group Discussions Create Strong Attitudes and Strong Partisans. Research and Politics 3(2): 1–6.Google Scholar
Levendusky, M. & Malhotra, N. (2016a) Does Media Coverage of Partisan Polarization Affect Political Attitudes? Political Communication 33(2): 283–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levendusky, M. & Malhotra, N. . (2016b) (Mis)Perceptions of Partisan Polarization in the American Public. Public Opinion Quarterly 80(S1): 378–91.Google Scholar
Levitan, L. & Visser, P. (2008) The Impact of the Social Context on Resistance to Persuasion: Effortful versus Effortless Responses to Counter-Attitudinal Information. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(3): 640–9.Google Scholar
Livingstone, A., Rodríguez, L. & Rothers, A. (2020) ”They Just Don’t Understand Us”: The Role of Felt Understanding in Intergroup Relations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 119(3): 633–56.Google Scholar
Lord, C., Lepper, M. & Preston, L. (1984) Considering the Opposite: A Corrective Strategy for Social Judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 47(6): 1231–43.Google Scholar
Luskin, R. Fishkin, J. & Jowell, R. (2002) Considered Opinions: Deliberative Polling in Britain. British Journal of Political Science 32(3): 455–87.Google Scholar
Luskin, R., Iyengar, S. & Fishkin, J. (2014) Online Versus Face-to-Face Deliberation: Evidence from Parallel Deliberative Polls. Manuscript: Stanford University.Google Scholar
Luttig, M. (2017) Authoritarianism and Affective Polarization: A New View on the Origins of Partisan Extremism. Public Opinion Quarterly 81(4): 866–95.Google Scholar
Lyons, J. & Sokhey, A. (2017) Discussion Networks, Issues, and Perceptions of Polarization in the American Electorate. Political Behavior 39(4): 967–88.Google Scholar
MacInnis, C. & Page-Gould, E. (2015) How Can Intergroup Interaction Be Bad if Intergroup Contact Is Good? Perspectives on Psychological Science 10(3): 307–27.Google Scholar
Mansbridge, J. (1983) Beyond Adversary Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Martherus, J., Martinez, A., Piff, P. & Theodoridis, A. (2021) Party Animals? Extreme Partisan Polarization and Dehumanization. Political Behavior 43(2): 517–40.Google Scholar
Mason, L. (2016) A Cross-Cutting Calm: How Social Sorting Drives Affective Polarization. Public Opinion Quarterly 80(S1): 351–77.Google Scholar
Mason, L. . (2018) Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Mason, L. & Liu, E. (2019). How to Fix Polarization: National Service. Politico https://politi.co/39MWGRw.Google Scholar
Matthes, J. et al. (2019) A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Cross-Cutting Exposure on Political Participation. Political Communication 36(4): 523–42.Google Scholar
McCarty, N. (2019) Polarization: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McConnell, C., Margalit, Y., Malhotra, N. & Levendusky, M. (2018) The Economic Consequences of Partisanship in a Polarized Era. American Journal of Political Science 62(1): 5–18.Google Scholar
McGreggor, S. (2019) Social Media as Public Opinion: How Journalists Use Social Media to Represent Public Opinion. Journalism 20(8): 1070–86.Google Scholar
McPherson, M., Smith-Lovin, L. & Cook, J. (2001) Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks. Annual Review of Sociology 27(1): 415–44.Google Scholar
Merkley, E. et al. (2020). A Rare Moment of Cross-Partisan Consensus: Elite and Public Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Canada. Canadian Journal of Political Science 53(2): 311–18.Google Scholar
Messing, S. & Westwood, S. (2012) Selective Exposure in the Age of Social Media. Communication Research 41(8): 1042–63.Google Scholar
Min, S. (2007) Online versus Face-to-Face Deliberation: Effects on Civic Engagement. Journal of Computer-Medicated Communication 12(4): 1369–87.Google Scholar
Minnozi, W. et al. (2019) The Incidental Pundit: Who Talks Politics with Whom, and Why? American Journal of Political Science 64(1): 135–51.Google Scholar
Mo, C. H. & Conn, K. (2018) When Do the Advantaged See the Disadvantages of Others? A Quasi-Experimental Study of National Service. American Political Science Review 112(4): 721–41.Google Scholar
Moore-Berg, S., Ankori-Karlinsky, L-O. , Hameiri, B. & Bruneau, E. (2020) Exaggerated Meta-Perceptions Predict Intergroup Hostility between American Political Partisans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117(26): 14864–72.Google Scholar
Mullen, B. & Hu, L-T. (1989) Perceptions of Ingroup and Outgroup Variability: A Meta-Analytic Integration. Basic and Applied Social Psychology 10(3): 233–52.Google Scholar
Mullinix, K. & Lythgoe, T. (2020) Priming Norms to Combat Affective Polarization. Manuscript: University of Kansas.Google Scholar
Munger, K., Luca, M., Nagler, J. & Tucker, J. (2020) The (Null) Effects of Clickbait Headlines on Polarization, Trust, and Learning. Public Opinion Quarterly 84(1): 49–73.Google Scholar
Mutz, D. (2006) Hearing the Other Side: Deliberative vs. Participatory Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mutz, D. . (2008) Is Deliberative Democracy a Falsifiable Theory? Annual Review of Political Science 11(1): 521–38.Google Scholar
Mutz, D. . (2011) Population-Based Survey Experiments. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Noelle-Neumann, E. (1974) The Spiral of Silence: A Theory of Public Opinion. Journal of Communication 24(2): 43–51.Google Scholar
Obama, B. (2011) Remarks by the President at a Memorial Service for the Victims of the Shooting in Tucson, Arizona, The White House [Press Release], January 12. https://bit.ly/2X0fGsf, last accessed March 2020.Google Scholar
O’Keefe, D. (2016) Persuasion. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing.Google Scholar
Padgett, J., Dunaway, J. & Darr, J. (2019) As Seen on TV? How Gatekeeping Makes the U.S. House Seem Even More Extreme. Journal of Communication 69(6): 696–719.Google Scholar
Paluck, E.L., Green, S. & Green, D. (2019) The Contact Hypothesis Re-evaluated. Behavioral Public Policy 3(2): 129–58.Google Scholar
Park, S-Y. (2012) Mediated Intergroup Contact: Concept Explication, Synthesis, and Application. Mass Communication and Society 15(1): 136–59.Google Scholar
Parsons, B. (2015) The Social Identity Politics of Peer Networks. American Politics Research 43(4): 680–707.Google Scholar
Petrocik, J. (2009) Measuring Party Support: Leaners Are Not Independents. Electoral Studies 28(4): 562–72.Google Scholar
Pettigrew, T. & Tropp, L. (2006) A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup Contact Theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 90(5): 751–83.Google Scholar
Pettigrew, T. & Tropp, L. . (2008) How Does Intergroup Contact Reduce Prejudice? Meta-Analytic Tests of Three Mediators. European Journal of Social Psychology 38(6): 922–34.Google Scholar
Pettigrew, T. & Tropp, L. . (2011) When Groups Meet: The Dynamics of Intergroup Contact. New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Pew Research Center. (2017) The Partisan Divide on Political Values Grows Even Wider. https://pewrsr.ch/2uT773hGoogle Scholar
Pew Research Center . (2019a) Partisan Antipathy: More Intense, More Personal. https://pewrsr.ch/35Jqrjm.Google Scholar
Pew Research Center . (2019b) Trust and Distrust in America. https://pewrsr.ch/2Kb92Y6.Google Scholar
Center, Pew Research . (2019c) Looking to the Future, Public Sees an America in Decline on Many Fronts. https://pewrsr.ch/3202js8.Google Scholar
O’Sullivan, P. & Flanagin, A. (2003) Reconceptualizing “Flaming” and Other Problematic Messages. New Media & Society 5(1): 69–94.Google Scholar
Prior, M. (2013) Media and Political Polarization. Annual Review of Political Science 16(1): 101–27.Google Scholar
Putnam, R. (2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Quattrone, G. & Jones, E. (1980) The Perception of Variability within In-Groups and Out-Groups: Implications for the Law of Small Numbers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 38(1): 141–52.Google Scholar
Rocas, S. & Brewer, M. (2002) Social Identity Complexity. Personality and Social Psychology Review 6(2): 88–106.Google Scholar
Rogowski, J. & Sutherland, J. (2016) How Ideology Fuels Affective Polarization. Political Behavior 38(3): 485–508.Google Scholar
Rothbart, M. & John, O. (1985) Social Categorization and Behavioral Episodes: A Cognitive Analysis of the Effects of Intergroup Contact. Journal of Social Issues 41(3): 81–104.Google Scholar
Ruggeri, K. et al. (2020) The General Fault in Our Fault Lines. Manuscript, OSF Preprints. https://osf.io/xvksa/.Google Scholar
Schaffner, B. & Luks, S. (2018) Misinformation or Expressive Responding? What an Inauguration Crowd Can Tell Us about the Source of Political Misinformation in Surveys. Public Opinion Quarterly 82(1): 135–47.Google Scholar
Schlozman, D. & Rosenfeld, S. (2019) The Hollow Parties, in Lee, F. and McCarty, N., eds., Can America Govern Itself? New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 120–54.Google Scholar
Schlozman, K.L., Verba, S. & Brady, H. (2013) The Unheavenly Chorus: Unequal Political Voice and the Broken Promise of Political Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Simon, B. & Schafer, C. (2015) Tolerance as a Function of Disapproval and Respect: The Case of Muslims. British Journal of Social Psychology 55(2): 375–88.Google Scholar
Sinclair, B. (2012) The Social Citizen. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Settle, J. (2018) Frenemies: How Social Media Polarizes America. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Settle, J. & Carlson, T. (2019) Opting Out of Political Discussions. Political Communication 36(3): 476–96.Google Scholar
Stanley, M., Whitehead, P., Sinnott-Armstrong, W. & Seli, P. (2020) Exposure to Opposing Reasons Reduces Negative Impressions of Ideological Opponents. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 91(November): 104030.Google Scholar
Stephan, W. & Stephan, C.W. (1985) Intergroup Anxiety. Social Issues 41(3): 157–75.Google Scholar
Stroud, N. J. (2011) Niche New: The Politics of News Choice. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stryker, R., Conway, B. A. & Danielson, J.T. (2016) What Is Political Incivility? Communication Monographs 83(4): 535–56.Google Scholar
Sumaktoyo, N. (2021). Friends from across the Aisle: The Effects of Partisan Bonding, Partisan Bridging, and Network Disagreement on Outparty Attitudes and Political Engagement. Political Behavior 42(2): 223–45.Google Scholar
Summers, J. (2018) AP-NORC Poll: Most Americans See a Sharply Divided Nation. AP Newswire, October 25, http://bit.ly/2Yjji6p.Google Scholar
Tajfel, H. (1981) Human Groups and Social Categories: Studies in Social Psychology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tajfel, H. & Turner, J. (1979) An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict, in Austin, W.G. and Worchel, S., eds., The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole, p. 33–37.Google Scholar
Tajfel, H. & Wilkes, A. L. (1963) Classification and Quantitative Judgment. British Journal of Psychology 54(2): 101–14.Google Scholar
Tropp, L. & Pettigrew, T. (2005) Differential Relationships between Intergroup Contact and Affective and Cognitive Dimensions of Prejudice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 31(8): 1145–58.Google Scholar
Uslaner, E. (1993) The Decline of Comity in Congress. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Van Kleef, G., Wanders, F., Stamkou, E. & Homan, A. (2015) The Social Dynamics of Breaking the Rules: Antecedents and Consequences of Norm-Violating Behavior. Current Opinion in Psychology 6(December): 25–31.Google Scholar
Voelkel, J., Ren, D. & Brandt, M. (2019) Political Inclusion Reduces Political Prejudice. Manuscript: Stanford University.Google Scholar
Weber, C. & Klar, S. (2019) Exploring the Psychological Foundations of Ideological and Social Sorting. Political Psychology: Advances in Political Psychology 40(S1): 215–43.Google Scholar
Webster, S. & Abramowitz, A. (2017) The Ideological Foundations of Affective Polarization in the U.S. Electorate. American Politics Research 45(4): 621–47.Google Scholar
Welch, W. & Walberg, H. (1970) Pretest and Sensitization Effects in Curriculum Evaluation. American Educational Research Journal 7(4): 605–14.Google Scholar
West, E. & Iyengar, S. (forthcoming) Partisanship as a Social Identity: Implications for Polarization. Political BehaviorGoogle Scholar
Westwood, S., Peterson, E. & Lelkes, Y. (2019) Are There Still Limits on Partisan Prejudice? Public Opinion Quarterly 83(3): 584–97.Google Scholar
Westwood, S. & Peterson, E. (2020) Compound Political Identity: How Partisan and Racial Identities Overlap and Reinforce. Manuscript: Dartmouth University.Google Scholar
White, I. & Laird, C. (2020) Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wojcieszak, M. & Warner, B. (2020) Can Interparty Contact Reduce Affective Polarization: A Systematic Test of Different Forms of Intergroup Contact. Political Communication 37(6): 789–811.Google Scholar
Zhang, B. et al. (2020) Quota Sampling Using Facebook Advertisements. Political Science Research and Methods 8(3): 558–64.Google Scholar

Save element to Kindle

To save this element to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

We Need to Talk
Available formats
×

Save element to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

We Need to Talk
Available formats
×

Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

We Need to Talk
Available formats
×