Collaborative Research on Political Discussion in the Workplace: Causes and Consequences of Cross-Cutting Political Dialogue

与志同道合的人进行政治对话是健康、有效的公共政策的重要组成部分。不幸的是，研究表明，美国人可能越来越多地与那些与自己观点不同的人隔离，因此，在人们的日常生活中，跨越不同界限的政治沟通越来越不可能。居住模式已经转向空间隔离的生活方式。除了结构性趋势，人们选择政治上志同道合的讨论伙伴的众所周知的倾向，也抑制了人们接触不同观点的机会。紧密的联系和频繁的人际接触往往发生在同质互动的背景下，因此限制了这些接触给人们带来新观点的程度。根据对四项独立调查的二次分析的证据，我们表明，工作场所是政治对话经常跨越不同界线的关键背景，因此它构成了一个具有巨大潜力影响政治态度的场所。为了更好地了解工作场所当前和潜在的未来贡献，我们的项目明确地设计为研究工作场所非正式政治沟通的网络。该项目既有关于当代围绕公共领域前景的关切的理论上的有趣见解，也有关于如何更好地利用工作场所作为促进更广泛和更完善的公共话语目标的背景的实践见解。我们的研究问题围绕三个广泛的问题展开：(1)哪些个人和环境因素有助于解释交叉政治观点？(2)交叉政治讨论的后果是什么？我们考察了各种特定的结果，这些结果被认为是由于接触不同的观点而产生的。它们包括从一种政治观点向另一种政治观点的说服；更多地认识到在各种问题上反对观点的理由，以及这种认识可能产生的政治宽容；对自己政治观点的理由有更深的理解；政治参与程度的变化；以及社会信任的程度。(3)工作场所在普通美国人的政治生活中扮演着什么样的中介结构？我们的研究使用了三种不同的方法来考察工作场所对贯穿各领域的政治对话的贡献。首先，我们使用了几个现有的数据集，这些数据集利用了一般的政治交流网络，以检查在工作场所遇到的讨论者与在其他场所遇到的讨论者的不同之处。其次，由于这些之前的网络研究都是专门为研究居住社会背景而设计的，我们计划对美国职场人士进行一项全国性的调查，专门关注工作场所的政治讨论网络。最后，我们计划在四个不同的工作场所和每个工作场所内的五个不同工作单位对受访者进行更深入的访谈，总共有20个工作单位。除了对少数工作场所进行更深入的研究外，这个设计组件的主要优势是，聚合测量可以用作自变量，以解释单个二元组性质的差异。此外，情境数据和二元水平数据可以作为自变量来解释个体层面的态度和行为。换句话说，可以跨级别和单位进行分析，以得出关于谁影响谁的更强有力的结论。

Political dialogue with non-like-minded others is an essential component of a health, functioning public pshere. Unfortunately, research suggests that people in the United States may be segregated increasingly from those with views which differ from their own, and thus political communication across lines of difference is more and more unlikely in people's day-to-day lives. Residential patterns have moved toward spatially segregated living. In addition to structural trends, exposure to dissimilar views is inhibited by the well-known tendency for people to select politically like-minded discussion partners. Strong ties and frequent interpersonal contact tend to occur within the context of homogeneous interactions, thus limiting the extent to which these contacts bring new views to people's attention. Based on evidence from secondary analyses of four independent surveys, we demonstrate that the workplace is a key context in which political dialogue regularly crosses lines of difference, and thus it constitutes a venue with tremendous potential to influence political attitudes. In order to understand better the current and potential future contributions of the workplace, our project is designed explicitly to study workplace networks of informal political communication. The project promises both theoretically interesting insights on contemporary concerns surrounding the prospects for a public sphere, and practical insights into how the workplace might be utilized better as a context for promoting the goals of both broader and deper public discourse. Our research questions are organized around three broad concerns: (1) What individual and environmental factors facilitate explosure to cross-cutting political views? (2) What are the consequences of cross-cutting political discussion? We examine a variety of specific outcomes that have been posited to result from exposure to diverse views. They include persuasion from one political viewpoint to another; greater awareness of rationales for opposing viewpoints on various issues, and the political tolerance that may flow from such awareness; a deeper understanding of the rationale for one's own political views; alterations in levels of political engagement; and the degree of social trust. (3) What role does the workplace play as a mediating structure in the political life of ordinary Americans? Our study makes uses of three different approaches to examine the contributions of the workplace toward cross-cutting political dialogue. First, we use several existing data sets that tap general networks of political communication in order to examine the ways in which discussants encountered through the workplace differ from those encountered in other venues. Second, since these previous network studies have been designed explicity to study residential social contexts, we plan to conduct a national survey of working Americans that focuses specifically on workplace networks of political discussion. Finally, we plan to conduct more intensive interviews with respondents in each of four different workplaces and five different work units within each of these workplaces for a total of 20 work units. In addition to studying a small number of workplaces in greater depth, the major advantage of this design component is that aggregate measures can be used as independent variables to explain variance in the nature of individual dyads. Beyond this, the contextual data and the dyad-level data can be used as independent variables to explain individual-level attitudes and behaviors. In other words, analyses can be performed across levels and units to draw stronger conclusions about who influences whom.