Doctoral Dissertation Research: Political Incivility, Social Identity and American Democracy

流行和学术观点认为，不文明的话语不利于民主，因为它阻碍了政治信任，并可能加剧两极分化。因此，不文明的政治言论被视为与良好的民主社会背道而驰。这些论点可能被夸大了两个原因：（1）可能没有共同的理解是什么构成不文明的话语;（2）不文明可以促使一些群体增加政治参与。通过两个调查实验，本项目研究了对个人的不文明行为的看法的影响，以及暴露于不文明行为是否会鼓励个人参与。调查这些现象将揭示不文明的负面结果在多大程度上被夸大了，以及不文明的积极结果在多大程度上被夸大了。对政治不礼貌的研究推动了政治传播、政治心理学和公众舆论的研究。现有的学术倾向于把政治不文明视为一种客观现象，在不同的背景下以类似的方式做出反应。该项目使用调查实验来测试人们是否根据背景以及自己的政治和社会偏见对不文明行为形成自己的评估，以及不同的社会群体是否以积极的方式应对不文明行为。总体而言，该项目是第一个实证研究，证明了社会认同与政治不文明研究的相关性，以及不文明是否有可能在民主社会中产生一些理想的结果。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Popular and scholarly arguments state that uncivil discourse is bad for democracy because it hampers political trust and potentially sharpens polarization. Thus, uncivil political discourse is seen as contrary to a good democratic society. These arguments could be overstated for two reasons: (1) there may be no common understanding of what constitutes uncivil discourse; (2) incivility can prompt increased political participation among some groups. Drawing on two survey experiments, this project examines influences on individuals’ perceptions of incivility and whether exposure to incivility encourages individuals to participate. Investigating these phenomena will reveal to what extent the negative outcomes of incivility are overstated, and to what extent there are positive outcomes of incivility. This study of political incivility advances research in political communication, political psychology, and public opinion. Existing scholarship tends to treat political incivility as some objective phenomena that is responded to in similar manners across different contexts. Using survey experiments, this project tests instead whether people form their own assessments of what is uncivil, depending on the context and according to their own political and social biases and whether different social groups respond to incivility in positive ways. Overall, this project is the first empirical study that demonstrates the relevance of social identity to the study of political incivility and whether incivility has the potential to produce some desirable outcomes in democratic society.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.