Social Bases of Attitudinal Extremetization: Shared Attention versus Attitudinal Simulation

在过去的20年里，美国人的社会和政治态度变得更加极端。美国公众和民选官员对经济和社会问题的看法日益分歧和两极分化。社会和政治态度的日益分化阻碍了该国解决紧迫问题的能力。这个项目考察了态度极端化是人类分享注意力的能力的结果，也就是感觉到自己同时在与他人关注信息的能力。先前的研究表明，分享对信息的关注会导致更极端的情绪和态度。目前尚不清楚为什么会发生这种情况。一种可能性是，人们更有可能想象那些与他们共同关注信息的人的态度。通过想象许多其他人的态度，一个人自己的态度可能会变得更加极端。另一种可能性是，人们更有可能更多地关注那些共同关注的想法。当这些想法碰巧只代表一种观点时，这种观点就会主导一个人的想法，导致更极端的态度。同样可以想象的是，由于两种可能性同时存在，人们的态度在共同关注下变得更加极端。更好地理解社会群体中的态度是如何变得更加极端的，对于在当今的社会和经济挑战中找到共同点的努力至关重要。这个项目是一个对抗性的合作，在这个项目中，持不同意见的科学家共同努力寻找共同点。研究经常声称可以解决一个问题，然而由于对结果的解释和理解的不同，科学上的分歧仍然存在。首席研究人员正在与另外两名研究人员合作，这两名研究人员对共同关注如何使态度变得更加极端有着独特的观点。研究人员已经同意在12个实验中进行合作。他们将就研究设计、执行和分析的各个方面进行咨询，以期达成对结果的共同理解。这些实验测试了在共同注意的情况下，对共同参与者的态度和共同参与的想法的想法是否会对态度极端化产生独立、相反和综合的影响。其中一些研究是在现实世界中进行的，比如在线政治媒体频道或在线大学公开课。这些研究的方法、材料和环境接近实验室外的世界，增加了研究将支持更好地理解紧迫的社会问题的可能性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

In the last 20 years, Americans' social and political attitudes have grown more extreme. Both the American public and elected officials hold increasingly divergent and polarized views about economic and social issues. The growing divergence in social and political attitudes hinders the nation's ability to solve its pressing problems. This project examines the ways in which attitude extremetization is a result of the human capacity to share attention-the ability to sense that one is attending to information with others at the same time. Prior research shows that sharing attention on information leads to more extreme emotions and attitudes. It is not known why this occurs. One possibility is that people are more likely to imagine the attitudes of those who co-attend to information with them. By imagining the attitudes of many others, one's own attitudes can grow more extreme. Another possibility is that people are more likely to pay more attention to the ideas that are the focus of shared attention. When those ideas happen to represent only one view, the view dominates one's thoughts, resulting in more extreme attitudes. It is also conceivable that attitudes grow more extreme under shared attention because of both possibilities at the same time. Greater understanding of how attitudes grow more extreme in social groups is vital to efforts to find common ground on the social and economic challenges of today.This project is an adversarial collaboration, in which scientists who disagree work together to find common ground. Studies often claim to settle an issue, yet scientific disagreement remains due to differences in the interpretation and understanding of results. The principal investigator is collaborating with two other researchers who hold a distinct view of how shared attention renders attitudes more extreme. The researchers have agreed to work collaboratively on twelve experiments. They will consult on every aspect of study design, execution, and analysis, with the goal of reaching a joint understanding of the results. The experiments test whether thoughts about the co-attendees' attitudes, and co-attended ideas can have independent, opposite, and combined effects on attitudinal extremetization under shared attention. Some of the studies take place in real-world contexts of an online political media channel or online open college course. The methods, materials, and settings of these studies approximate the world outside of the laboratory, increasing the likelihood that the research will support a better understanding of pressing societal concerns.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.