Interventions to reduce partisan animosity

Hartman, Rachel; Blakey, Will; Womick, Jake; Bail, Chris; Finkel, Eli J.; Han, Hahrie; Sarrouf, John; Schroeder, Juliana; Sheeran, Paschal; Bavel, Jay J. Van; Willer, Robb

doi:10.1038/s41562-022-01442-3

Cited by 52 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 190 publications

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“…Most scholars and practitioners working in this space focus on reducing partisan animosity in the American public (for a review, see 19). Despite this widespread interest, however, the current state of knowledge is scattered.…”

Section: Megastudy Identifying Effective Interventions To Strengthen ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Megastudy identifying effective interventions to strengthen Americans’ democratic attitudes

Voelkel¹,

Stagnaro²,

Chu³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Deep partisan conflict in the mass public threatens the stability of American democracy. We conducted a megastudy (n=32,059) testing 25 interventions designed by academics and practitioners to reduce Americans’ partisan animosity and anti-democratic attitudes. We find nearly every intervention reduced partisan animosity, most strongly by highlighting sympathetic and relatable individuals with different political beliefs. We also identify several interventions that reduced support for undemocratic practices and partisan violence, most strongly by correcting misperceptions of outpartisans’ views – showing that anti-democratic attitudes, although difficult to move, are not intractable. Furthermore, both factor analysis and patterns of intervention effect sizes provide convergent evidence for limited overlap between these sets of outcomes, suggesting that, contrary to popular belief, different strategies are most effective for reducing partisan animosity versus anti-democratic attitudes. Taken together, our findings provide a toolkit of promising strategies for practitioners and shed new theoretical light on challenges facing American democracy.

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Section: Megastudy Identifying Effective Interventions To Strengthen ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Megastudy identifying effective interventions to strengthen Americans’ democratic attitudes

Voelkel¹,

Stagnaro²,

Chu³

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, toxicity in political discussions among citizens can polarize political opinion (Anderson et al, 2014) and decrease open-mindedness and political trust (Borah, 2014). Therefore, changing public discourse norms towards less hostility and polarizing rethoric, especially on social media, was identified as important way to reduce partisan animosity, a recently growing phenomenon with the potential to erode societal trust and support for democracy (Hartman et al, 2022).…”

Section: Theory Toxicity In Online Environmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Preemptive Empathy Interventions on Reply Toxicity among Highly Active Social Media Users

Oswald¹

2023

Preprint

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Can we reduce toxicity in online communication using behavioral interven- tions? Following the theoretical turn towards the role of empathy for demo- cratic discourse, this preregistered survey experiment tests various changes in an online discussion environments’ user interface (nudges) and an educa- tive intervention targeting users’ motivation to engage in empathy (boost) to reduce reply toxicity. Participants were recruited via Facebook Ads in the United States and Germany to acquire a sample of N = 2,154 highly active social media users. Based on their reported political attitudes, participants were asked to comment on social media statements they likely disagree with. Compared to the control group, neither the empathy or perspective taking nudges nor the friction placebo reduced reply toxicity. Boosting decreased reply toxicity to some degree but the effect was not robust against the inclu- sion of covariates. However, all nudging interventions significantly increased the length of replies. Overall, toxicity was highest among people with high online activity. While reducing toxicity online does not seem to work via simple changes in the user interface (nudging), more complex interventions (boosting) appear more promising to preemptively reduce toxicity before important voices are forced out of the public discourse online.

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“…Furthermore, collecting data from paired clients and therapists and using dyadic data analysis strategies could shed light on interactions between client and therapist CH over time. Exploring client perceptions of overall clinic (i.e., not only therapist) CH would also be helpful, as a study on sexual minorities' perceptions of religious community CH (Mosher et al, 2019) (Captari et al, 2019;Hartman et al, 2022), whereas individual-level interventions can focus on challenging preconceived notions and falsehoods about the other and identifying points of shared humanity, that is, "possible bridges" between self and other (Hartman et al, 2022;Rober & De Haene, 2014, p. 18). Examination of the effectiveness of CH interventions to bridge differences and improve relational dynamics is greatly needed.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A practice‐based study of cultural humility and well‐being among psychotherapy clients

Choe

Jankowski

Sandage

et al. 2022

Couns and Psychother Res

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One trend in psychotherapy research involves examining client factors to better understand change. Some have framed client factors as virtues. Humility is one virtue that has gained attention with evidence that suggests humility may help facilitate therapeutic change. A specific type of humility, cultural humility, however, has not been closely examined as a client factor. Cultural humility is a relational virtue that addresses an individual's ability to be open towards cultural differences and can be helpful in buffering diverse relational dynamics (e.g., student and teacher, family members and friends with different beliefs). In this study, we examined client change in cultural humility and well-being using group-based trajectory modelling. We also examined differentiation as a predictor of trajectory membership and compared trajectories on levels of symptoms. Results suggested that a subgroup of clients showed significant increases in cultural humility and well-being. Further analyses found that clients with higher levels of initial differentiation were more likely to belong to the growth trajectory. This same trajectory also decreased in symptoms over time.

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Interventions to reduce partisan animosity

Cited by 52 publications

References 190 publications

Megastudy identifying effective interventions to strengthen Americans’ democratic attitudes

Megastudy identifying effective interventions to strengthen Americans’ democratic attitudes

Effects of Preemptive Empathy Interventions on Reply Toxicity among Highly Active Social Media Users

A practice‐based study of cultural humility and well‐being among psychotherapy clients

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