Dehumanization Is Threatening Democracy

Growing animosity between the political parties, rising support for anti-democratic norms, and outbursts of partisan violence threaten the social fabric of our nation. In fact, popular caricatures of political figures as “subhuman” animals suggest that blatant dehumanization, the assertion that another group of people is other than human, is also prevalent among American political partisans.

This is perhaps unsurprising, as Democrats and Republicans are deeply polarized and their dislike toward each other is at a 40-year high. But dehumanization goes beyond disagreement and dislike. When people are thought to be less than human, it justifies their mistreatment. For instance, people who dehumanize other groups are more likely to support discrimination, military aggression, and using torture against them.

Dehumanization Is Surprisingly Pervasive

Nour Kteily and his colleagues developed an innovative way to measure dehumanization by asking people to rate how “evolved” various groups in society are using the popular “Ascent of Man” image of evolutionary progress, shown in the image below—where it starts with the silhouette of an ape and progresses through silhouettes of different stages of human evolution, up to a silhouette of modern man. Several independent research teams have found Americans are more than willing to dehumanize their political opponents on this measure.

This image depicts the folk notion of human evolutionary progress. Five silhouettes range from an ape-like ancestor (corresponding to 0 on the scale) to a fully modern man (corresponding to 100 on the scale)

In a study I conducted just before the 2020 election, 2 out of every 3 Americans who support one of the major parties considered members of the other side to be less human than their own party. Democrats and Republicans rated the other political party on this image using a scale that ranged from 0 to 100. Dehumanization was pervasive on both sides of the aisle, and on average, American partisans rated the other side as 42 (out of 100) points less than human.

The Tit for Tat of Dehumanization

As dehumanization is both extremely overt and widespread, we must consider whether partisans perceive their own group to be dehumanized by the other side. Such a perception would influence self-image, attitudes towards others, and intentions. So, inspired by the work of Samantha Moore-Berg and her colleagues, I asked Democrats and Republicans how they thought the other side would rate them on the “Ascent of Man” scale. Despite evidence that high levels of actual dehumanization exist, partisans greatly overestimated how much the other side dehumanized them. On average, both sides thought the other dehumanized them more than twice as much as they actually did.

This misperception has important consequences, because when people think their group is dehumanized by another group, they lash back. A sort of “you dehumanize me, I dehumanize you” tit for tat. And it doesn’t stop there.

Feeling Dehumanized Erodes Democracy

Troublingly, partisans who dehumanized the other side were more likely to support using anti-democratic means to hurt them, agreeing with statements like (for Republicans) “Trump should use force to stay in power if the election results seem fraudulent” and (for Democrats) “The Democrats should do everything they can to hurt the Republicans, even if it is at the short-term expense of the country.” The more Democrats and Republicans overestimated how much the other side dehumanized them, the more likely they were to dehumanize the other side in turn, which made it more likely they would support actions that hurt the other side and hurt society.

Short-Circuiting This Cycle?

If partisans think the other side dehumanizes them far more than they actually do, how do such misperceptions arise? As with other misperceptions, one answer may lie in exposure to partisan media. In fact, those who reported viewing the most political news online also had the most exaggerated (that is, inaccurate) idea of how their group was viewed. This may be because partisan media often thrives on stoking division and heightening perceptions of difference between the parties.  

Can correcting people’s misperceptions of how much “the other side” dehumanizes them reduce their tendency to “give as good as they get?”  In a follow-up study, I provided partisans with the actual levels of the other side’s dehumanization of them (taken from the first study). Although this corrective information did indeed lead partisans to feel less dehumanized, it did not decrease their own dehumanization of the other side. Recall that, on average, partisans rated their opponents 42 (out of 100) points less than fully human. So even though participants felt somewhat less dehumanized after the intervention, they seem to have remained hostile toward those who don’t consider them fully human.

This points to a need to tackle the problem of dehumanization on two fronts. We must also reduce the actual dehumanization, not just the perception of it. We can take this important step ourselves by recognizing our own tendency to dehumanize those who seem misguided, immoral, or evil to us. We can also challenge it when we encounter dehumanizing language used by others, especially among those on our own side as we are often more receptive to the opinions of  “our own” over outsiders. Learning more about dehumanization and how to resist it can help a divided nation embrace coexistence, or even harmony, over discord.


For Further Reading

Landry, A. P., Ihm, E., Kwit, S., & Schooler, J. W. (2021). Metadehumanization erodes democratic norms during the 2020 presidential election. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1111/asap.12253

Landry, A. P., Ihm, E., & Schooler, J. W. (2021). Hated but still human: Metadehumanization leads to greater hostility than metaprejudice. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 1368430220979035. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430220979035
 

Alexander Landry researches the psychology of extreme intergroup conflict and violence. He will begin his pursuit of a Ph.D. at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business this fall.

Why Some People Won’t Compromise on Important Issues

President Obama, like most former presidents, tends to keep a low profile. But he chose to break his silence a few months back when he told a crowd, “The world is messy. There are ambiguities. This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re politically woke, and all that stuff—you should get over that quickly.” If you found yourself thinking “what a sellout,” it probably says something about how much of an absolutist you are. And, it also probably says something about how you approach politics.

Absolutism is a personality trait that varies in degree from person to person. Some people are high in absolutism, some people are low on it, and most people fall in between. On the high end of the absolutism continuum are idealist folks who believe that their moral principles should be upheld in every situation. On the low end, we find the “contextualists”—people who are moral relativists who judge whether actions are right or wrong based on their consequences. Because political debates often revolve around what is morally right or wrong, the degree to which people are absolutist affects how much they are willing to compromise and how tolerant they are of people who disagree with them.

To understand the difference between the two ends of the absolutism continuum, imagine a horrible scene. It’s World War II and group of 10 villagers in the French countryside are hiding from German soldiers who have orders to kill everyone on sight. The villagers have found a secluded place in a deserted farmhouse, but just as German soldiers walk up the driveway, a baby in the group begins to cry inconsolably. Sadly, the only way to avoid being discovered and killed is for the parent to cover the child’s mouth and suffocate the child to death.  

As tragic as this situation is, what is the “right” thing to do from a moral perspective? An absolutist would probably say that it is wrong to kill the child and this principle is something worth dying for. A contextualist would likely agree that, as a general principle, it is wrong to kill, but that in this specific instance, saving the life of one person necessarily means the death of 10 people, including the child. So, the contextualist would probably make the tradeoff: the child’s death in return for saving nine other people.

What does this gut-wrenching decision have to do with politics? To find out, I conducted a survey of over 1,200 Americans from very diverse backgrounds. I measured the degree to which these people were absolutists by asking them how much they agreed with 20 statements, developed by social psychologist Donelson Forsyth, such as “Risks to another should never be tolerated, irrespective of how small the risks might be” (a statement that reflects high absolutism) and “What is ethical varies from one situation and society to another” (which reflects low absolutism).

Next, I asked the research participants questions that measured how much they tolerate people with whom they disagree on several issues that ranged from hot button topics, such as abortion and same-sex marriage, to economic ones, like banking regulations. I found that people who were higher in absolutism were more likely to deny freedom of speech to people who disagreed with them than people lower in absolutism.

I then ran a little experiment. The participants in this study read a series of vignettes about proposals in Congress involving abortion, gun rights, immigration, and taxes. Based on their responses to questions at the beginning of the survey, I described all of the proposals in a way that was contrary to each participant’s opinions on these issues. Half of the participants read vignettes in which they asked to imagine that their representative in Congress worked with legislators on both sides of the issues to find a compromise, while the other half were asked to imagine that their representative worked with like-minded legislators to try to stop the bill.

Participants who were higher in absolutism said that they were more likely to vote for their representative in the next election if their representative didn’t compromise on the specific issue in question. But, if they read the vignette in which their representative compromised, participants higher in absolutism were less likely to vote for their representative.

Although these findings are based on hypothetical situations, they offer some insight into what’s going on in politics these days. Across Western democracies, we see tensions between absolutists on both the left and the right who see compromise as a dirty word and contextualists who would prefer a half of a loaf than no loaf at all. To the absolutists, doing anything other than their preferred policy proposal is evidence of being morally suspect, while the contextualists extol the virtues of working out differences through compromise.

Most of us fall in between these two extremes. And, it’s usually these in-between folks who decide whether the absolutists or the conextualists get the reins of power.


For Further Reading

Arceneaux, Kevin. 2019. “The roots of intolerance and opposition to compromise: The effects of absolutism on political attitudes.” Personality and Individual Differences, 151: 109498

Forsyth, Donelson R. 1980. “A taxonomy of ethical ideologies.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39 (1): 175-84.

 

Kevin (Vin) Arceneaux is the Thomas J. Freaney Jr. Professor of Political Science at Temple University and the Director of the Behavioral Foundations Lab. He studies how psychological biases shape political judgments. 

Why Men Are More Skeptical of the Gender Pay Gap (and What to Do About It)

Despite an abundance of evidence, the gender pay gap—the fact that women are consistently paid less than men—continues to provoke debate and remains a contentious social issue. Some people believe the pay gap is a non-issue, while others contend that it is an unmistakable modern societal dilemma. What accounts for these different viewpoints?

My colleagues Anna Dorfman, Ramona Bobocel, and I suspected that men would be more skeptical of the pay gap than women. This idea was based on a pattern that shows up repeatedly in psychological research: people interpret information in ways that align with their existing beliefs and desires. That is, being skeptical of the pay gap suits men's interests more than it suits women's, so we expected to see gender-based polarization on the issue.

We also proposed a potential solution: "wise reasoning." Practicing wise reasoning means adopting intellectual humility and considering alternative information and perspectives, even if doing so may reveal things that do not necessarily suit one's immediate preferences.

We expected that men who used wise reasoning when considering the pay gap dilemma would be more capable of change and acknowledging the gap. This aligned with our previous studies, which have shown that wise reasoning can reduce polarization and produce more cooperative mindsets on other issues. But would wise reasoning help men acknowledge the gender pay gap?

Putting Wise Reasoning to the Test

We tested our ideas about gender-based polarization in pay gap skepticism and what could be done about it. We invited over 600 North American adults to review a condensed news excerpt presenting facts about gender pay disparities in companies. After reading the excerpt, we asked the participants to articulate their thoughts about the article through open-text responses and rate their beliefs about pay disparities (this was our measure of pay gap skepticism).

Finally, all participants reported how much they used various reasoning processes when thinking about the news article and writing their personal thoughts. We know from past research that people tend to report their reasoning accurately because what they say about their reasoning matches more objective ways of assessing how they think about something.

As we suspected, men were significantly more skeptical about the gender pay gap than women in both studies. In fact, people's pay gap skepticism was apparent in the thoughts they wrote down before we ever asked them directly about their beliefs.

Most notably, however, the more men engaged in wise reasoning, the less skeptical they were about the gender pay gap. Apparently, wise reasoning helps people accept hard truths, even if the facts contradict their preferred worldview. As a result, wise reasoning corresponded to less pay gap skepticism in men and more consensus between men and women on the status and importance of the gender pay gap.

Implications for Business, Society, and Individuals

Diverging beliefs and desires create hurdles to enacting decisions that could resolve the gender pay gap. Our studies focused on these underlying beliefs and found that wise reasoning related to consensus between men and women on beliefs about the pay gap. We suspect that wise reasoning could be an important factor in helping men and women collaborate on mutually beneficial solutions rather than simply prioritizing their own group's interests.

But how can we improve our—and others'—wise reasoning? Critically, people can choose to apply wise reasoning when thinking about a particular issue. And people can get better at using wise reasoning with practice. For example, to boost wise reasoning, you could ask yourself how you came to have specific opinions on an issue and consider how different contexts or experiences may have led others to hold different opinions; you can reflect on the possibility that there may be some truth in both views, and how they could potentially be integrated to resolve an issue cooperatively. Importantly, our previous studies suggested that wise reasoning can be "nudged" and therefore can be boosted and even trained when embarking on discussions about important issues like pay gaps in workplaces.

These and our previous studies suggest that wise reasoning offers a potential route to consensus when people's vested interests are in conflict. Given that workplaces and society at large rely on social cooperation and collaboration, widespread adoption of wise reasoning could serve as a catalyst for business and societal advancement and prosperity beyond the issue of pay disparities.


For Further Reading

Brienza, J. P., Dorfman, A., & Bobocel, D. R. (in press). Mind the gap: Wise reasoning attenuates gender pay gap scepticism in men. European Journal of Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.3009

Brienza, J. P., Kung, F. K., & Chao, M. M. (2021). Wise reasoning, intergroup positivity, and attitude polarization across contexts. Nature Communications, 12, 3313. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-23432-1

Grossmann, I., Brienza, J. P., & Bobocel, D. R. (2017). Wise deliberation sustains cooperation, Nature Human Behaviour, 1(0061). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0061


Justin P. Brienza is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland Business School in Brisbane, Australia. His research and teaching focuses on building wisdom, avoiding bias, and encouraging balance at work and in leadership.

They Must Understand Us First! The Pathway to Trust and Forgiveness of Others

Can trust and forgiveness emerge in wartime?  The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 brought this question into sharp focus. Even as the conflict continues, political discussions about post-war recovery and reparations are underway, while international entities broker prisoner exchanges and supervise grain trades. Any large-scale international post-war coordination will require some sort of trust and forgiveness between groups. But how realistic is the hope of reconciliation?

Feeling Understood as a Component of Reconciliation

Our recent research in Ukraine suggests that feeling understood by an outgroup fosters reconciliation. Outgroups are social groups to which one does not belong. Ingroup members feel understood when they think that outgroup members understand and accept their perspectives, including their beliefs, values, experiences, concerns, and identity. In short, they believe that outgroup members 'get' them. In our research, Ukrainian citizens are the ingroup, and Russians are the outgroup.

In close interpersonal relationships, feeling understood predicts relationship satisfaction, life satisfaction, and feelings of acceptance and joy. In intergroup contexts, feeling understood also predicts intergroup trust and optimism. We wondered whether feeling understood predicts trust and forgiveness of outgroups over time amid large-scale, violent intergroup conflict, such as that in Ukraine.

Felt Understanding, Trust, and Forgiveness in Ukraine

Our study was conducted from May to August 2021, prior to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.   This was the seventh consecutive year of armed conflict in the Donbas region. We recruited Ukrainians from urban areas, and gathered data at three times, each separated by approximately six weeks. In total, 743 people of different age groups, gender, geography, and social status participated at all three times, so we were able to track changes in their answers over time. We asked Ukrainians about their national identities, whether they felt understood and positively regarded by Russians, and whether they thought Russians could be trusted and forgiven. The three-wave design allowed us to test whether increases in feeling understood predict increases in trust and forgiveness, and whether increased perceived positive regard explained this link.

Results showed that increases over time in the belief that Russians understood Ukrainian perspectives ('they understand us') were associated with increases in the perception that Russians regarded Ukrainians positively ('they like/respect us'), which were in turn associated with increases over time in trust and forgiveness.

Our findings suggest that feeling understood by out groups may be the starting point of reconciliation.  Any attempt to bring groups together in dialogue or contact, even when well-meaning, could be alienating rather than reassuring if it does not enable people to feel understood.

Feeling understood involves outgroup members recognizing the needs and experiences of ingroups.  To this end, when outgroup members address ingroup experiences of suffering and injustice rather than avoiding them, feelings of being understood should increase, potentially leading to forgiveness and reconciliation.

In the context of the Russian-Ukraine war, our findings can explain why Ukrainian intellectuals and poets refuse to participate in events or panels together with Russian positioners or dissidents. From the perspective of Ukrainians, their agency and grievances are ignored, while Russian counterparts propose some ideas of reconciliation without understanding and addressing the needs of Ukrainians.

Readers must keep in mind that our study was conducted before February 2022, when Russia openly attacked Ukraine and conducted countless atrocities. Since our study was conducted, the conflict in Ukraine has deepened. Post-invasion, almost 70% of Ukrainians reported a personal loss as a result of the war, a threefold increase since our study. In this context, a conversation about trust and forgiveness cannot be discussed as an abstract construct.

We do not say that Ukrainians and Russians should simply talk about feelings. We understand that issues of war crimes and reparations must be addressed first. Nevertheless, our findings signal that if reconciliation is to be achieved someday, it will likely need to involve the recognition of needs and experiences as a basis. Our results also caution that any attempt to bring groups together in dialogue or "contact," even when well-meaning, can be alienating rather than reassuring by Ukrainians if it does not enable participants to feel understood, such as by avoiding rather than addressing experiences of suffering and injustice. Feeling understood seems to be a powerful social psychological mechanism for forgiveness and should be considered in other contexts beyond the Russia-Ukraine war.


For Further Reading

Brik, T., Livingstone, A. G., Chayinska, M., & Bliznyuk, E. (2023). How feeling understood predicts trust and willingness to forgive in the midst of violent intergroup conflict: Longitudinal evidence from Ukraine. Social Psychological and Personality Science.  https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506231183195

Livingstone A. G. (2023). Felt understanding in intergroup relations. Current Opinion in Psychology, 51, 101587. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2023.101587


Tymofii Brik received his PhD from Carlos III  University of Madrid. He works as Rector (provost) at the Kyiv School of Economics. He is also a National Coordinator of the European Social Survey. His research interests include religiosity and local governance in Ukraine.

Andrew G. Livingstone is Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology at the University of Exeter. His research interests lie in social identity, emotion, group processes, and intergroup relations.

Maria Chayinska is a Ukraine-born researcher in social psychology. She received her double PhD from the University of Milan-Bicocca and the University of Limerick. After completing her post-doctoral research at the School of Psychology, at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile (2022), Dr. Chayinska joined the Department of cognitive, psychological, and pedagogical sciences, and cultural studies, at the University of Messina. Her research experience throughout Latin America and Eastern Europe addresses mobilization of national identities in various contexts.

Evgeniya Bliznyuk is a Ukrainian social researcher, founder, and CEO of Gradus Research and Corestone Group, organizations that conduct online surveys and social media monitoring.

Why is Everyone So Polarized?

Have you noticed how divided people are on so many current issues? It's gotten so bad that parents say they would be upset if a son or daughter were to marry someone from a different political party.

Dozens of recent books have explored likely causes of these divisions. They rightly cite factors like opinions expressed on social media, biased search algorithms, and heated political rhetoric. Some people see themselves as bombarded by extreme opinions, but that might not be the only cause. What if people create their own polarization through how they think?  

A Little Thought Can Be as Dangerous as a Little Knowledge

Psychologists have known about the polarizing power of thought since the 1970s. Abraham Tesser and his colleagues told college students about fictitious strangers who had either likable or unlikable personality traits. Then they asked some students to sit quietly and merely think for a few minutes about the strangers. The students did not list their thoughts, but after thinking for a few minutes, they liked the strangers more if the original traits were positive and less if the original traits were negative. Like lone wolf attackers who sit in a basement thinking themselves into a lethal frenzy, their own internal thought processes polarized their opinions.

 What were Tesser's students thinking about that led them to adopt more polarized opinions? They might have been thinking about additional, unmentioned personality traits the strangers were likely to have. Told the strangers were finicky, for instance, the students might have inferred they were also rude and selfish. But did the students need to be told about any personality traits to think that way? Could that type of thinking have come from knowing only something the strangers did?   

Personality Traits Are in the Eye of the Beholder

People readily infer personality traits just from knowing a stranger's actions. If all you know is that a stranger praised Vladimir Putin, for instance, you might assume the speaker has several undesirable personality traits. Our research was motivated by a belief that when asked to think about it, people would attribute very desirable personality traits to people who agreed with them on a controversial issue and attribute very undesirable personality traits to those who disagreed with them. More importantly, we thought that doing so would make them trust people on their own side more and trust people on the other side less than if they had not thought about each side's personality traits.

That's what we found, for people of all ages and education levels. They attributed extremely virtuous traits to folks on their side of two issues—abortion and kneeling during the national anthem—and attributed extremely nasty traits to folks on the other side. After thinking these thoughts, regardless of which side they were on, our respondents were even more willing to socialize with, do business with, and have their children taught by people on their own than the other side. Not only that but simply attributing traits to strangers on both sides of an issue made opinions more extreme on the issue itself. "Good people must be right and bad people must be wrong."    

Healing the Divide

We hope our research motivates people to pay more attention to how their own thoughts can lead them to have more polarized opinions. Edward Jones and his colleagues, who first showed in the 1960s that people readily infer personality traits from actions, tried every which way to stop them from doing so, without much success. We suspect the best antidote for self-polarization might lie in making people aware of the dangers inherent in moving from knowing another person's stance to biased trait attributions and then to more strongly held opinions on controversial issues. Polarization isn't only the fault of the media, but is also something that results from our own tendency to draw unwarranted inferences about other people's personality traits.


For Further Reading

Decker, K. A., & Lord, C. G. (2023). Self-Polarization: Lionizing those who agree and demonizing those who disagree. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 45(5), 125-137. https://doi.org/10.1080/01973533.2023.2234534

Iyengar, S., Lelkes, Y., Levendusky, M., Malhotra, N., & Westwood, S. J. (2019). The origins and consequences of affective polarization in the United States. Annual Review of Political Science, 22(1), 129–146. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051117-073034

Pew Research Center. (2021). Beyond red vs. blue: The political Typology. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/11/09/beyond-red-vs-blue-the-political-typology-2/


Kaleigh A. Decker completed her PhD at Texas Christian University in 2022 and is now a Market Research Strategist. Her dissertation examined psychological mechanisms by which extrapolating from known to unknown "facts" can polarize attitudes.

Charles G. Lord is a social psychologist who studies how people's thought processes can lead them astray.  He has been a professor at Texas Christian University since 1987.

Can the Media Bridge Political Divides?

Outrage over politics and politicians can incentivize media to report with political slants that increase political polarization. After Fox News called the 2020 U.S. presidential election for Joe Biden, Tucker Carlson wrote “I continue to think the company (Fox News) isn’t taking (this) seriously enough. We need to do something to reassure our core audience. They’re our whole business model.” Carlson was suggesting that Fox News should not call the election for the winner (Biden), but should instead play to their viewers’ beliefs that Trump won and that the election was not free and fair.

Many blame (social) media for polarizing people, spreading misinformation, and encouraging extremism, even political violence. But can the media also be a place for bridging political divides? We suggest the media can reduce political polarization by pairing personal experiences and the facts.

Personal Experiences Build Respect Between Political Opponents

Our previous research suggests that partisan respect can result from sharing personal experiences. An example would be “The reason I am pro-gun is due to my own experience of needing to use a gun in self-defense.” Importantly, these experiences are more effective in bridging divides than simply sharing facts, as in “The reason I disagree with you on gun policy is due to statistics in this gun policy report.” However, while experience sharing is a promising strategy, it’s still important to find ways to communicate the facts in a healthy democracy.

How the Media Can Bridge Divides

In our new research, we studied whether one can bridge divides through media coverage. Our goal was not only to explore whether the media can help reduce political polarization, but also whether one can communicate facts by combining them with experiences.

In one of our studies, American participants reported their stance on climate change, and then based on these responses we could determine who their political opponent was. For example,  if someone reported being pro-climate policies, their opponent would be anti-climate policies. Participants read a news article supposedly from USA Today that discussed why a political opponent disagreed with them on climate change policies. Some participants learned the opponent disagreed based on personal experiences. As an example, participants who supported looser coal mining regulations learned the opponent disagreed because “due to looser coal regulations, a nearby coal mine polluted our water. My children drank the polluted water, got sick, and had to go to the hospital.” Other participants read about an opponent who disagreed based on facts. In this case, for example, participants who supported looser coal mining regulations learned the opponent disagreed because they “read in the Environmental Policy Report that due to looser coal regulations, 45% of coal mines are polluting waterways.” A final group of participants had an opponent who disagreed based both on these experiences and the facts.

Reading about someone’s personal experiences did indeed make a difference. Participants were significantly more tolerant and less willing to dehumanize their political opponents when they read about an opponent’s experiences or a combination of these experiences and facts.

We also conducted a similar study focused on social media. American participants reported their stance on gun policy, and based on these answers, we showed them a fictitious Facebook post from someone (that is, an opponent) who disagreed based on experiences, facts, or a combination of both. Again, we found that experiences alone, or combined with facts, were powerful in bridging divides and did so better than facts alone. Our research shows that both news media and social media can bridge divides and that it is possible to communicate the facts while simultaneously reducing partisan animosity.

Cross-Cultural Evidence

We also explored whether persuading people in this way is helpful in a different country—Germany. We found that the most polarized Germans viewed opponents more positively after reading a news article about that person’s experiences (or a combination of experiences and facts), compared to facts alone. However, less polarized Germans were not influenced. In the American studies, we had found that our persuasion method was equally effective for people who were more and less polarized.

Why did these cross-cultural differences emerge? We think it is due to the different political systems. In the United States politics is tribal (“us” versus “them”). This can lead both more and less polarized people to similarly feel cold towards the opposing party–making our persuasion method effective. In Germany, however, there are multiple parties with overlapping affiliations and belief systems—making politics less tribal. Therefore, less polarized Germans have more favorable attitudes towards opponents, making our approach less helpful. But for more polarized Germans (who dislike opponents more), hearing the experiences (or the experiences and facts) of political opponents is beneficial. Importantly, across all studies—in both the United States and Germany—this persuasion method was similarly helpful for both liberals and conservatives.

Media as a Context for Change

Our research suggests one should rethink the role of media in politics. Presently, the media can be blamed for making polarization worse, but the media can reduce polarization—with the right strategies. Having journalists report on people’s actual experiences that connect to divisive issues, or sharing your own personal experiences on social media, reduces political division. Importantly, the media can combine experiences with the facts to foster constructive partisan relationships and a healthier democracy.


For Further Reading

Kubin, E., Gray, K., & von Sikorski, C. (2023). Reducing political dehumanization by pairing facts with personal experiences. Political Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12875

Kubin, E., & von Sikorski, C. (2021). The role of (social) media in political polarization: A systematic review. Annals of the International Communication Association, 45(3), 188-206. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2021.1976070

Kubin, E., Puryear, C., Schein, C., & Gray, K. (2021). Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(6), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2008389118.

Emily Kubin is a post-doctoral researcher at RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has published work on political polarization, bridging political divides, and the media.

Kurt Gray is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he directs the Deepest Beliefs Lab and the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding. He has published work on morality and bridging political divides.

Christian von Sikorski is an Assistant Professor of Political Psychology in the Institute for Communication Psychology & Media Education at RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau. He has published work on how the media affects people’s attitudes and beliefs about society and one another.

A Problem as Old as Time: Navigating Politics at Thanksgiving

Most of us have that relative whose political opinions are the opposite of our own. As a result, Thanksgiving gatherings often generate social tension, so commonly so, it's now an age-old (and overused) cliche.

But just because something regularly occurs doesn't mean we should ignore it. And this political division (often referred to as political polarization) is one of the most concerning problems in the United States. Fortunately, it is an issue that psychological research can uniquely address.  

As people's views get further and further apart, the less likely we're able to find solutions to societal problems. The economy, the environment, the criminal justice system… people must find a middle ground between differing beliefs in order to come to a solution. So, the more political division between people's beliefs, the less any societal improvement is likely to occur.

What, then, can psychological research teach us about reducing polarization this Thanksgiving?

Understanding Key Drivers  

One of the primary reasons that political polarization emerges is that people are not exposed to the opposing side. They get "their side" of the story repeated over and over again, and this makes them firmer in their beliefs. But, there's an easy solution.

Put simply: people need to actually speak and engage with people of differing views.

Unfortunately, even when the opportunity is available (like at Thanksgiving), people don't like to do this. For example, two separate studies found that Thanksgiving dinners are 20 to 50 minutes shorter when the guestlist includes people with differing versus the same political beliefs.

But, just like exercising and eating healthy, people often avoid what's good for them. So, my recent research focused on trying to understand why people don't engage with those they disagree with.

An Assumption-Making Process

Before continuing, let me acknowledge that many people avoid speaking to those with differing views for good reason. Maybe they feel unsafe. Or this "debate" is about their lived experience, and constantly defending it is simply exhausting, or even feels insulting to oneself.

At the same time, there are lots of other people who do possess the capacity for these important dialogues. And in our research, my colleague Rich Petty and I sought to answer why these people avoid engaging with people of contrary political views.

To do this, first, we recruited a large number of people to tell us why they avoided political debates in general, both on topics with minor and large disagreements. From this, we found six overarching explanations. We then gave those explanations to a nationally representative set of participants and had them rank-order them in terms of their influence. Specifically, they ranked each reason for its effect on their engagement in political conversations.

Maybe people primarily avoid these discussions when they think the other person is too confident in their belief. Or too extreme. Or too prone to emotional agitation. Although people were sensitive to these explanations, the results revealed a far and away clear winner.
People avoid these kinds of discussions because they expect to feel unheard. And this is a real problem for political polarization.

Before even speaking to someone on the opposite side, we often assume they will not listen to what we have to say. So, in order to get people to engage with people of differing views, researchers need to understand why people believe the other side will not really listen to them.

Emotional Irrationality

When it comes to perceiving other people, our expectations about them (or assumptions) are not always accurate. And that's the case when we perceive people on the other side of a political issue.

From my research, a really strong predictor of when people expect they will feel unheard was this: when they think the other person's opinion is based on their emotions (compared to their reasons). When it comes to political topics where the other person disagrees with us, we automatically assume the other person's opinion is emotionally based.

To test this explanation altogether, my colleague and I recruited participants following the 2020 U.S. presidential election, just a few days before Thanksgiving. We asked them to describe one of two people they would see at Thanksgiving: either a person who shared their opinion on the presidential election, or someone who disagreed with them. After Thanksgiving, we then followed up, asking them how much time they spent speaking to this other person about the election.

In line with our expectations, people thought those who disagreed (versus agreed) with them were more emotionally based in their opinion, which led them to infer they would feel unheard when speaking on this topic with the person, which accounted for why they spent less time actually speaking to them on the topic.

Starting That Conversation

In understanding why people avoid these conversations, we can better work toward initiating them. For example, we can take a moment to think about how this other person's opinion could be rationally based, which might make them seem more open-minded to contrary views, motivating our likelihood of discussion. Of course, once you do start speaking to them, you'll have the greater challenge of how to actually have a productive conversation.

Because such advice would require its own blog post, I've created a research-based one-page guide on how to have a productive political conversation – whether that's this Thanksgiving or another encounter.

Regardless, though, consider seeking an opportunity to have a conversation with someone with different views. At the very least, you can try to convince them that their assumptions about your opinion being emotionally based—and of you being closed-minded—are untrue.


For Further Reading

Teeny, J. D., & Petty, R. E. (2022). Attributions of emotion and reduced attitude openness prevent people from engaging others with opposing views. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 102. doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2022.104373

Broockman, D., & Kalla, J. (2016). Durably reducing transphobia: A field experiment on door-to-door canvassing. Science, 352(6282), 220-224. doi.org/10.1126/science.aad9713

Finkel, E. J., Bail, C. A., Cikara, M., Ditto, P. H., Iyengar, S., Klar, S., … & Druckman, J. N. (2020). Political sectarianism in America. Science, 370(6516), 533-536. doi.org/10.1126/science.abe1715

Frimer, J. A., & Skitka, L. J. (2020). Are politically diverse Thanksgiving dinners shorter than politically uniform ones? PLoS ONE, 15(10). doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239988


Jake Teeny is an assistant professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. His research focuses on the science of everyday people's opinions and what factors lead people to change them.