Understanding the Mechanisms for Disengagement from Contentious Political Interaction

这个项目的目标是更好地了解关于政治的社会互动的哪些方面最容易产生压力，对哪些类型的人来说，以及在哪些背景下。研究的第一部分使用调查实验来评估可能导致压力的人际政治互动的假设方面，涉及形成和表达意见的需求，以及对政治互动的潜在负面评价或社会影响的担忧。这项调查实验将以具有全国代表性的美国成年人为样本进行。这项研究的第二部分将使用一组实验室实验来证明社会接触政治的经历与自我报告以及生理测量的压力和情绪反应之间的因果关系。通过操纵讨论者在政治互动中的社会纽带强度、互动的形式和预期的分歧程度，该研究将更全面地阐明导致人们在政治互动中感到不舒服的机制，从而潜在地导致他们脱离政治。这项研究将通过统一与这些主题松散相关的零散发现来填补政治学文献中的主要空白。这种独特的方法还通过严重依赖于对政治行为的社会心理学解释，继续弥合政治学和心理学之间的方法论鸿沟。在一个两极分化的政治环境中，关于政治的社会互动增加--这主要是由于互联网和社交媒体的发展--的综合影响表明，人们更有可能在他们的社会关系中遇到极端观点、关于政治信仰的信息，以及表达自己政治观点的要求。然而，并不是每个人都会同样地受到政治环境中这些变化的影响，个人心理差异可能会影响人们如何解释关于政治的有争议的社会互动的要求和后果。这项研究考察了影响我们参与政治辩论意愿的心理特征。民主行为取决于所有公民都有平等机会发表意见的理念。基于性别、种族、阶级和教育水平的参与和代表性障碍依然存在，仍然是巨大的挑战。然而，我们不应忽视基于人们的取向和冲突和分歧而造成的更微妙、或许更复杂的接触障碍。在两极分化的环境中，倾向于达成共识和承诺的人可能会被劝阻，不能有意义地参与政治。找出对公民有压力的政治方面，找出对公民有压力的政治方面，并找出缓解这种压力的方法，这有可能激励和赋予因我们当前的政治制度而受挫的公民的选举权。

The goal of this project is to better understand which facets of social interaction about politics are most stress inducing, for which kinds of people, and in which contexts. The first part of the study uses survey experiments to assess hypothesized aspects of interpersonal political interaction that may induce stress, relating to demands to form and express opinions, as well as concerns about potentially negative evaluations or social implications of political interaction. This survey experiment will be conducted with a a nationally representative sample of American adults. The second part of the study will use a set of laboratory experiments to demonstrate causal relationships between the experience of social encounters with politics and self-reported as well as physiologically-measured stress and emotional reponese. By manipulating the social tie strength of the discussants in a political interaction, the format of the interaction, and the anticipated level of disagreement, the study will more fully elucidate the mechanisms that cause people to be uncomfortable interacting about politics, potentially leading to their disengagement from politics. This research will fill major gaps in the political science literature by unifying fragemented findings loosely related to these topics. This unique approach also continues to bridge the methodological gap between between political science and psychology by relying heavily on a social psychological explanation for political behavior. The combined effect of increased social interaction about politics-due to largely to the development fo the Internet and social media-in a more polarized political environment suggest that people are more likely to encounter extreme views, information about political beliefs in their social connections, and demands to voice their own political opinions. Not everyone will be equally affected by these changes in the political environment, however, and individual psychological differences may influence how people interpret the demands and ramifications of contentious social interactions about politics. This study examines the psychological traits that impact our willingness to engage in political debate.Democratic behavior hinges on the idea that all citizens have equal opportunity to voice their opinions. Barriers to participation and representation-based on gender, race, class, and education level-persist and remain formidable challenges. However, we should not overlook more-subtle-and perhaps more complex-barriers to engagement based on people's orientation twoard conflict and disagreement. People who prefer consensus and cmpromise may be discouraged from engaging meaningfully with politics in a polarized environment. Identifying the facets of politics that are stressful to citizens, and indentifying the facets of politics that are stressful to citizens, and indentifying ways to ameliorate that stress, has the potential to energize and enfranchise citizens who are discuouraged by our current political system.