Doctoral Dissertation Research: When Does Interparty Conversation Harm or Heal Affective Polarization

美国人越来越不喜欢、不信任甚至歧视对立政党的成员。然而，美国人在日常生活中与反对党成员互动。谈话——不管是否涉及政治——发生在工作中、网上或早上点咖啡的时候。这些跨越党派界限的日常对话如何影响美国人对对立党派成员的敌意？日常对话什么时候会加强这种敌意，什么时候又会减轻这种敌意？因为参与不愉快的政治对话对民主的健康运作很重要，所以本研究分析了政治对话在塑造对反对党成员的态度方面所起的作用。通过确定对话倾向于愈合的条件，以及何时可能恶化，美国的党派仇恨，这项研究为美国人的日常互动如何影响更广泛的政治气候提供了证据。美国人对反对党成员日益增长的敌意是有据可查的。然而，目前尚不清楚对立党派成员之间的日常互动如何影响这一趋势。一方面，许多美国人强烈地认同自己是某个政党的成员。研究表明，党派关系作为一种基于群体的身份认同，会给我们对党外成员的看法带来负面影响。因此，党际对话可能会出错，并进一步损害对党外成员的负面态度。另一方面，群体间关系理论表明，与党外成员的接触可以治愈党外仇恨。本项目通过理论化党际对话如何展开、党际对话对党外态度的影响以及政治和非政治对话的差异来解决这些相互冲突的期望。该项目还开发了两种新的方法方法，以促进对其假设的实验检验。首先，这个项目开发了一个实验设计，适合于涉及社会互动的实验，这在审议和政治讨论的研究中很常见。其次，这个项目开发了一个聊天软件，这样参与者就可以进行实时的、书面的、在线的对话，而不需要一个学术实验室或现有的参与者池。综上所述，实验设计和聊天软件克服了一系列方法论和实践问题，以改进社会互动的实验研究。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Americans increasingly dislike, distrust, and even discriminate against members of the opposite political party. Yet, Americans interact with opposing party members in their everyday lives. Conversations—whether touching on politics or not—occur at work, online, or when ordering a morning coffee. How do these everyday conversations across party lines affect the animosity Americans hold for opposing party members? When might everyday conversations reinforce, and when might they mitigate, this animosity? Because engaging in disagreeable political conversation is important for the healthy functioning of a democracy, this research analyzes the role political conversations play in shaping attitudes toward opposing party members. By identifying the conditions under which conversations tend to heal, and when might they worsen, America's partisan animosity, this research brings evidence to bear on how Americans' everyday interactions impact the broader political climate. Americans' increasing animosity for members of the opposing party is well-documented. However, it remains unclear how everyday interactions amongst opposing party members affect this trend. On the one hand, many Americans strongly identify as members of a political party. Research shows that partisanship, as a group-based identity, negatively colors our perceptions of outparty members. It follows that interparty conversation could go awry and further harm negative attitudes toward outparty members. One the other hand, theories of intergroup relations suggest that contact with outparty members can heal outparty animosity. This project addresses these conflicting expectations by theorizing about how interparty conversations unfold, what effect interparty conversations have on outparty attitudes, and how this may differ for political and non-political conversations. This project also develops two novel methodological approaches to facilitate an experimental test of its hypotheses. First, this project develops an experimental design suited for experiments involving social interaction, which is common in studies of deliberation and political discussion. Second, this project develops a chat software so participants can engage in real-time, written, online conversations, without the need for an academic laboratory or existing participant pool. Taken together, the experimental design and chat software overcome a set of methodological and practical concerns to improve the experimental study of social interaction.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.