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

美国人越来越不喜欢、不信任、甚至歧视对方政党的成员。然而，美国人在日常生活中与反对党成员互动。谈话--无论是否涉及政治--发生在工作场所、网上或点一杯早餐咖啡的时候。这些跨越党派界限的日常对话如何影响美国人对反对党成员的敌意？日常对话何时可能加强这种敌意，何时可能缓解这种敌意？由于参与令人不快的政治对话对于民主的健康运行非常重要，因此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。通过找出对话趋于缓和的条件以及何时可能恶化，即美国的党派敌意，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，反对党成员之间的日常互动如何影响这一趋势仍不清楚。一方面，许多美国人强烈认为自己是政党的成员。研究表明，党派之争作为一种基于群体的身份认同，负面地影响了我们对外党成员的看法。随之而来的是，党际对话可能会出错，进一步损害对党外成员的负面态度。另一方面，群际关系理论表明，与党外成员接触可以治愈党外敌意。这个项目解决了这些相互冲突的期望，通过对跨党派对话如何展开，跨党派对话对外党态度的影响，以及政治对话和非政治对话可能有何不同的理论来解决。该项目还开发了两种新的方法论方法，以促进对其假设的实验测试。首先，这个项目开发了一种实验设计，适用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，该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在线对话，而不需要学术实验室或现有的参与者池。总而言之，实验设计和聊天软件克服了一系列方法和实践方面的问题，以改进社会互动的实验研究。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。

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.