ArticleScience advances2022
The promise and pitfalls of cross-partisan conversations for reducing affective polarization: Evidence from randomized experiments.
Article in Science advances, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Why depolarization is hard: Evaluating attempts to decrease partisan animosity in America.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Pooled it
- Toward an integrated and globally equitable understanding of political polarization.Nature communications · 2026Review
- Dynamics of sociopolitical polarization and effects of misperception-correcting information around the 2022 Brazilian elections.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Spoken disagreement is more constructive than written disagreement.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Associations between inclusivity norms and tolerance, contact, and cooperation amid polarization: Evidence from 12 European countries.PNAS nexus · 2026Article
- Defusing political animosity in the United States with a cooperative online quiz game.Nature human behaviour · 2025Article
- Understanding the success and failure of online political debate: Experimental evidence using large language models.Science advances · 2025Article
- Message source effects on rejection and costly punishment of criticism across cultures.Communications psychology · 2025Article
- Interacting as equals reduces partisan polarization in Mexico.Nature human behaviour · 2025Article
- A post-Brexit intergroup contact intervention reduces affective polarization between Leavers and Remainers short-term.Communications psychology · 2024Article
- Article
- Putting the affect into affective polarisation.Cognition & emotion · 2024Review
- Zero-sum beliefs and the avoidance of political conversations.Communications psychology · 2024Article
- Cross-partisan discussions reduced political polarization between UK voters, but less so when they disagreed.Communications psychology · 2024Article
- Leveraging AI for democratic discourse: Chat interventions can improve online political conversations at scale.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Reducing political polarization in the United States with a mobile chat platform.Nature human behaviour · 2023Article
- Social Depolarization and Diversity of Opinions-Unified ABM Framework.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
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.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.