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

流行的和学术的观点认为，不文明的言论不利于民主，因为它阻碍了政治信任，并可能加剧两极分化。因此，不文明的政治话语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，原因有两个：(1)对于什么是不文明的话语可能没有共同的理解；(2)不文明行为可以促使某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对不文明行为感知的影响，以及接触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，以及不文明的积极结果在多大程度上被夸大。这项关于政治不文明的研究推动了政治传播、政治心理学和公众舆论的研究。现有的学术倾向于将政治不文明视为一些客观现象，在不同的背景下以类似的方式做出反应。通过调查实验，这个项目测试了人们是否根据环境和他们自己的政治和社会偏见，对什么是不文明形成自己的评估，以及不同的社会群体是否以积极的方式回应不文明。总的来说，这个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。

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.