Rising partisan animosity is associated with a reduction in support for democracy and an increase in support for political violence. Here we provide a multi-level review of interventions designed to reduce partisan animosity, which we define as negative thoughts, feelings and behaviours towards a political outgroup. We introduce the TRI framework to capture three levels of intervention-thoughts (correcting misconceptions and highlighting commonalities), relationships (building dialogue skills and fostering positive contact) and institutions (changing public discourse and transforming political structures)-and connect these levels by highlighting the importance of motivation and mobilization. Our review encompasses both interventions conducted as part of academic research projects and real-world interventions led by practitioners in non-profit organizations. We also explore the challenges of durability and scalability, examine self-fulfilling polarization and interventions that backfire, and discuss future directions for reducing partisan animosity.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01442-3 | DOI Listing |
J Exp Psychol Gen
January 2025
Department of Psychology, Cornell University.
Recent analyses of social media activity indicate that outgroup animosity drives user engagement more than ingroup favoritism, with content that derogates the outgroup tending to generate more viral responses online. However, it is unclear whether those findings are due to most people's underlying preferences or structural features of the social media landscape. To address this uncertainty, we conducted three experimental studies ( = 609) to examine how intended impact (ingroup favoritism/outgroup derogation) influences intentions to share both true and false news posts among U.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPNAS Nexus
December 2024
Department of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania, 133 S. 36th St, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Social media is marked by online firestorms where people pile-on and shame those who say things perceived to be offensive, especially about politically relevant topics. What explains why individuals engage in this sort of sanctioning behavior? We show that two key factors help to explain this pattern. First, on these topics, both offensive speech and subsequent sanctioning are seen as informative about partisanship: people assume that those who say offensive things are out-partisans, and those who criticize them are co-partisans.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
December 2024
Department of Government, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755.
The attempted assassination of Donald Trump led to widespread concern that the event would escalate political violence between U.S. partisans.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFScience
October 2024
Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
PNAS Nexus
October 2024
Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
Empathy is considered one of the most critical components for bridging political divides and reducing animosity between political groups. Yet, empathy between political opponents is rare. There is a growing concern that partisans do not empathize with out-partisans because they feel social pressure from fellow in-partisans not to do so.
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