2022/06/22 by Erik Santoro, David Broockman · 1 voice · 13 citations
Social Sciences · #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Social Media and Politics #Social and Intergroup Psychology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1126/sciadv.abn5515
openalex publication_date 2022/06/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Organizations, activists, and scholars hope that conversations between outpartisans (supporters of opposing political parties) can reduce affective polarization (dislike of outpartisans) and bolster democratic accountability (e.g., support for democratic norms). We argue that such conversations can reduce affective polarization but that these effects are likely to be conditional on topic, being especially likely if the conversations topics avoid discussion of areas of disagreement; usually not persist long-term; and be circumscribed, not affecting attitudes toward democratic accountability. We support this argument with two unique experiments where we paired outpartisan strangers to discuss randomly assigned topics over video calls. In study 1, we found that conversations between outpartisans about their perfect day dramatically decreased affective polarization, although these impacts decayed long-term. Study 2 also included conversations focusing on disagreement (e.g., why each supports their own party), which had no effects. Both studies found little change in attitudes related to democratic accountability.