ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021
Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers.
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Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed.
- Partisan Animosity as Blame: A Unifying and Generative Framework for Understanding and Transforming Affective Polarization in the Political Sphere.Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc · 2026Article
- Political breakups: Interpersonal consequences of polarization.PNAS nexus · 2026Article
- The evolving study of political polarization.Open research Europe · 2026Review
- Article
- Recognizing Compatibility, but Hesitant about In-Class Discussion: Nonreligious Biology Graduate Teaching Assistant Perceptions of the Relationship between Religion and Evolution.CBE life sciences education · 2025Article
- Defusing political animosity in the United States with a cooperative online quiz game.Nature human behaviour · 2025Article
- Our changing information ecosystem for science and why it matters for effective science communication.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Undergraduate Biology Students' Climate Change Communication Experiences Indicate a Need for Discipline-Based Education Research on Science Communication Education about Culturally Controversial Science Topics.CBE life sciences education · 2025Article
- Durably reducing partisan animosity through multiple scalable treatments.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Strategies to correct vaccine misinformation on social media for pregnant women and the impact of vaccine skepticism.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Listen for a change? A longitudinal field experiment on listening's potential to enhance persuasion.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Changes in public awareness of the social determinants of health over 15 years in Wisconsin, United States.Preventive medicine reports · 2025Article
- Perceived memory credibility: The role of details.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Positive beliefs about cross-partisan empathy can strengthen Americans' support for democracy.PNAS nexus · 2024Article
- People who share encounters with racism are silenced online by humans and machines, but a guideline-reframing intervention holds promise.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- People believe political opponents accept blatant moral wrongs, fueling partisan divides.PNAS nexus · 2024Article
- Partisan animosity through the lens of blame: Partisan animosity can be reduced by a historicist thinking intervention.PloS one · 2024Article
- Exploring Black Undergraduate Students' Communication and Biology Education Experiences about COVID-19 and COVID-19 Vaccines During the Pandemic.CBE life sciences education · 2023Article
- People See Political Opponents as More Stupid Than Evil.Personality & social psychology bulletin · 2023Article
- Women, the intellectually humble, and liberals write more persuasive political arguments.PNAS nexus · 2023Article
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4 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Both liberals and conservatives believe that using facts in political discussions helps to foster mutual respect, but 15 studies-across multiple methodologies and issues-show that these beliefs are mistaken. Political opponents respect moral beliefs more when they are supported by personal experiences, not facts. The respect-inducing power of personal experiences is revealed by survey studies across various political topics, a field study of conversations about guns, an analysis of YouTube comments from abortion opinion videos, and an archival analysis of 137 interview transcripts from Fox News and CNN. The personal experiences most likely to encourage respect from opponents are issue-relevant and involve harm. Mediation analyses reveal that these harm-related personal experiences increase respect by increasing perceptions of rationality: everyone can appreciate that avoiding harm is rational, even in people who hold different beliefs about guns, taxes, immigration, and the environment. Studies show that people believe in the truth of both facts and personal experiences in nonmoral disagreement; however, in moral disagreements, subjective experiences seem truer (i.e., are doubted less) than objective facts. These results provide a concrete demonstration of how to bridge moral divides while also revealing how our intuitions can lead us astray. Stretching back to the Enlightenment, philosophers and scientists have privileged objective facts over experiences in the pursuit of truth. However, furnishing perceptions of truth within moral disagreements is better accomplished by sharing subjective experiences, not by providing facts.
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