Reducing political polarization in the United States with a mobile chat platform
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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Reducing political polarization in the United States with a mobile chat platform. / Combs, Aidan; Tierney, Graham; Guay, Brian; Merhout, Friedolin; Bail, Christopher A.; Hillygus, D. Sunshine; Volfovsky, Alexander.
In: Nature Human Behaviour, Vol. 7, No. 9, 2023, p. 1454-1461.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Reducing political polarization in the United States with a mobile chat platform
AU - Combs, Aidan
AU - Tierney, Graham
AU - Guay, Brian
AU - Merhout, Friedolin
AU - Bail, Christopher A.
AU - Hillygus, D. Sunshine
AU - Volfovsky, Alexander
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Do anonymous online conversations between people with different political views exacerbate or mitigate partisan polarization? We created a mobile chat platform to study the impact of such discussions. Our study recruited Republicans and Democrats in the United States to complete a survey about their political views. We later randomized them into treatment conditions where they were offered financial incentives to use our platform to discuss a contentious policy issue with an opposing partisan. We found that people who engage in anonymous cross-party conversations about political topics exhibit substantial decreases in polarization compared with a placebo group that wrote an essay using the same conversation prompts. Moreover, these depolarizing effects were correlated with the civility of dialogue between study participants. Our findings demonstrate the potential for well-designed social media platforms to mitigate political polarization and underscore the need for a flexible platform for scientific research on social media.
AB - Do anonymous online conversations between people with different political views exacerbate or mitigate partisan polarization? We created a mobile chat platform to study the impact of such discussions. Our study recruited Republicans and Democrats in the United States to complete a survey about their political views. We later randomized them into treatment conditions where they were offered financial incentives to use our platform to discuss a contentious policy issue with an opposing partisan. We found that people who engage in anonymous cross-party conversations about political topics exhibit substantial decreases in polarization compared with a placebo group that wrote an essay using the same conversation prompts. Moreover, these depolarizing effects were correlated with the civility of dialogue between study participants. Our findings demonstrate the potential for well-designed social media platforms to mitigate political polarization and underscore the need for a flexible platform for scientific research on social media.
U2 - 10.1038/s41562-023-01655-0
DO - 10.1038/s41562-023-01655-0
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 37604989
AN - SCOPUS:85168494736
VL - 7
SP - 1454
EP - 1461
JO - Nature Human Behaviour
JF - Nature Human Behaviour
SN - 2397-3374
IS - 9
ER -
ID: 369981198