Evidence map›Paper›PMID 36712799›Full record

ArticlePNAS nexus2022

Troll and divide: the language of online polarization.

Almog Simchon, William J Brady, Jay J Van Bavel

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in PNAS nexus, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
20citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

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.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

20 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. A Social Identity Theory of Digital Identity.Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2026
    Article
  3. Designing social media content recommendation algorithms for societal good.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Review
  7. Article
  8. Political polarization and health.Nature medicine · 2024
    Review
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. GPT is an effective tool for multilingual psychological text analysis.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024
    Article
  12. Temporal dynamics of coordinated online behavior: Stability, archetypes, and influence.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024
    Article
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. On the rise of fear speech in online social media.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023
    Article
  16. Article
  17. Public policy and conspiracies: The case of mandates.Current opinion in psychology · 2022
    Review
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Almog SimchonDepartment of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, POB 653, Beer Sheva 8410501, Israel.
William J BradyDepartment of Psychology, Yale University, CT 06520-8205, New Haven, CT, USA.
Jay J Van BavelDepartment of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The affective animosity between the political left and right has grown steadily in many countries over the past few years, posing a threat to democratic practices and public health. There is a rising concern over the role that "bad actors" or trolls may play in the polarization of online networks. In this research, we examined the processes by which trolls may sow intergroup conflict through polarized rhetoric. We developed a dictionary to assess online polarization by measuring language associated with communications that display partisan bias in their diffusion. We validated the polarized language dictionary in 4 different contexts and across multiple time periods. The polarization dictionary made out-of-set predictions, generalized to both new political contexts (#BlackLivesMatter) and a different social media platform (Reddit), and predicted partisan differences in public opinion polls about COVID-19. Then we analyzed tweets from a known Russian troll source (

Indexed as

polarizationsocial mediatrolls

Identifiers

PMID36712799
PMCPMC9802075

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.